April 25, 2026

With Richardson Promise on Transit, Mode Shift Idea Enters 2008 Presidential Race

by Keith Schneider0

  Democrat Bill  Richardson, a member of President Bill Clinton’s cabinet and the current governor of New Mexico, this week became the first 2008 presidential candidate to formally introduce a Mode Shift idea into the national race. Richardson was in West Hollywood on Monday, and according to the Associated Press promised “to create a partnership to build a light rail network and help untangle the Los Angeles region’s notorious traffic. With gas prices rising and …

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What Will Shrink Metro Areas? Household Size and Transportation Costs

by Keith Schneider0

  If you travel to Las Vegas, Knoxville, Chicago, and Salt Lake City one of the surprising trends you’ll see is the abrupt shift in housing markets. Downtowns in these and other cities are outpacing the suburbs in new home construction and existing home sales. Two of the critical reasons for both are the shrinking size of American households — not a new trend — and the fact that transportation costs exceed housing expenses in household budgets. Though …

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Hey! Energy Bill Debaters Look At New York

by Keith Schneider3

  NEW YORK — Early this morning, before the sun peaked over the roofs of the grand old apartment buildings of the Upper East Side, I followed the road bikers and dog walkers and joggers over to Central Park for a splendid four-mile run. New York is full of young people now, bright, educated, trim, and ambitious. A whole bunch of them are up just after dawn to clear their minds and keep their bodies tuned sufficiently to compete …

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Flip: Markets Are Key To Farmland Conservation

by Keith Schneider2

Here’s a great example of how to deploy Internet technology and interactivity to conserving farmland. The Michigan Land Use Institute just posted the latest version of our Taste The Local Difference Web site, which links buyers of local farm products to sellers. Here’s a new facet of the site that enables wholesale suppliers and buyers to connect very quickly on the Web, an online wholesale market as it were.   Just great work by the Institute’s …

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Big Green’s Silent Spring For Rachel Carson — Take Two

by Keith Schneider14

On the day late last month that Rachel Carson would have turned 100 years old I posted a piece on Mode Shift that focused on the surprising failure of the nation’s major environmental organizations to defend the mother of modern environmentalism. The free market right has set out on a deliberate path to diminish Carson, and by extension the American environmental community, as credible in responding to the consequences of industrial technology. The attack on Carson is …

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Grand Rapids, Other Cities Loving Transit

by Keith Schneider0

Last November, just as they have in previous local and state elections stretching back to the mid-1990s, voters in 13 states considered 32 transit-related ballot measures and approved 70 percent of them, according to the Center for Transportation Excellence, a research group based in Washington, D.C. Spending on those projects will total $40 billion—bringing both immediate stimulus and long-term economic development tools to local economies. Well, the beat goes on. Last month voters in the Grand Rapids …

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Mode Shift Postcards From Around The Nation

by Keith Schneider0

   Though it’s completely understandable why the triple whammy of rising peak oil energy prices, global climate change, and record population growth might get you down, here are a number of promising Mode Shift trends that indicate the end is not nigh. Singles now head the majority of American households and are repopulating America’s great cities. This from Baltimore, according to the May 29, 2007 edition of the Baltimore Sun: “Across Baltimore, single women – old …

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The Michigan Crisis: Ideology Not Intelligence

by Keith Schneider2

  Late on the Friday night before the Memorial Day weekend, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Michigan reached agreement with Democratic Governor Jennifer M. Granholm on a very temporary fix to close an $800 million state budget deficit. The deficit, for those who might be unfamiliar, is what happens when what the state earns in tax revenue doesn’t keep up with what it spends on programs. Next fall the crisis worsens when lawmakers look down the raw throat of …

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Why Cities Are Thriving

by Keith Schneider1

  Packaged Facts, a useful site for keeping track of demographic and economic trends, just published an analysis of US Census figures that concludes singles now head the largest number of American households. For years demographers have documented the declining size of the US household and the rising number of total American households. Now we find that the single person is the majority.   Packaged Facts found that “America’s 89.6 million singles head over half of America’s households — 50.3%, …

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Pangea’s Biodegradable Package; Just Plant and Grow

by Keith Schneider1

Here’s a name worth paying attention to in the space where sustainable business practices and the non-profit sector cross. He is Joshua Scott Onysko, a 30-year-old native of Rhode Island who turned a bonding experience with his mother making organic soap into Pangea Organics, a very successful Boulder-based manufacturer of organic body and skin care products. I first learned of Onysko and Pangea Organics from a friend in Saugatuck who was as enthusastic about the company’s all …

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