February 28, 2026

Laura Dunn Directs The Unforeseen

by Keith Schneider5

Laura Dunn, a young Yale-educated director (see pix) who lives in Austin, Texas, is creating a stir at some of the country’s important film festivals, including Sundance, with The Unforeseen, a feature-length documentary about the consequences of runaway development and sprawl. Writer Dennis Conroy, who saw The Unforeseen at the San Francisco Film Festival last month, offered this assessment: “A modest real estate developer, [Gary] Bradley had big ideas. His concept was the 4,000-acre Circle C Ranch, an upscale subdivision—a …

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Barack Steps Gingerly Into the Realm of A Weakened Beast

by Keith Schneider0

Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois Senator Barack Obama skipped across the big pond on Tuesday and landed in Detroit, where he stirred a modest amount of interest by scolding American auto makers for letting the Japanese take command of the industry, and then offering a federal hand in contributing to the industry’s health care costs in exchange for convincing auto makers to increase fuel efficiency by about 1 mile a gallon per year.  [youtube]GpYkCNohmf8[/youtube] Big deal. Both ideas …

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The Proximate Principle: Open Space is Sound Fiscal Policy

by Keith Schneider3

  People adore parks. Most people also love open space. That applies even to the three Grand Traverse (MI) County commissioners who last month suggested that global climate change was a leftist conspiracy ginned up by Al Gore, and suggested that emailing the sun was a useful antidote.  A comprehensive study by the San Francisco-based Trust For Public Land, published in early March,  found sound economic evidence for why regions that embrace an aggressive program of park development and open …

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California Governor Tracks Back, Says He Supports High Speed Rail

by Keith Schneider1

  The push back by the old and new media to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to cut state funds to the agency overseeing the development of a 700-mile high speed rail network in California appears to have influenced the Republican governor’s view. On Friday, Schwarzenegger (see pix) published an op-ed in the Fresno Bee extolling a high speed system. Thanks to Marcel Marchon’s Trainblog for keeping us current. “The promise of high-speed rail is incredible,” wrote …

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High Speed Rail Cut Stirs Response in California

by Keith Schneider11

   PROPOSED CALIFORNIA HIGH SPEED RAIL ROUTE   California Democrats have elevated building their state’s proposed high speed rail network to the top of their legislative priorities, according to the San Francisco Bay Guardian. The Daily Kos, one of the most read blogs in the country, noted the swirl of attention that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stirred with his proposal to cut $2.5 million in state funding to the California High Speed Rail Authority, the agency overseeing …

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Fast Trains There; Dreams of Fast Trains Here

by Keith Schneider5

Almost three years after Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation that put $2.5 million in the kitty of the California High Speed Rail Authority, which is charged with overseeing the planning of a 700-mile network of fast trains in the nation’s largest state, Schwarzenegger has had a change of heart. The governor’s 2007 budget proposal calls for cutting state appropriations for the Authority, according to an article in the April 29, 2007 edition of …

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New Measure of Community Vitality: Neighborhoods That Blog

by Keith Schneider2

Outside.in is a Web site launched last year to gather the panoply of writers doing place-based blogging. The site is the brain child of Steven Johnson, a  prominent writer and blogger in New York who’s written five books and contributes to, among others, the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Johnson was helped by John Geraci, a social media specialist, and John Seely Brown, the former chief scientist of the Xerox Corporation and member of the board of Amazon and the MacArthur Foundation. …

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Brand Associations That Are Helping Cities, Hammering Suburbs

by Keith Schneider1

Nielsen Buzzmetrics, which has offices in New York and Cincinnati, is one of the top shops for using Internet search engine technology and sophisticated analysis programs to understand consumer attitudes and predict powerful trends. The company combs millions of conversations occurring on blogs, message boards, and in chat rooms, sifts out salient details, and analyzes the results to forecast consumer behavior and values.  Earlier this month Pete Blackshaw, one of the company’s senior leaders, published a Buzzmetrics brand association map (see graphic) that …

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Flip: Great Interactive Maps by LIAA

by Keith Schneider2

Flip, you may recall, is this blog’s effort to call out particularly good applications of interactive multi-media to the exquistely difficult work of reshaping America’s resource-wasting and demoralizing patterns of development. To an extent that is at once stupefying and aggravating most American communities have zoned themselves into corners of the 20th century — stressing separateness, division, car dependence, racial purity, and income stratification — that make no sense fot the mashup that is the 21st century. Put another …

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As Gas Heads to $4, Teachable Moment For Presidential Candidates

by Keith Schneider3

  We’re one-tenth of a penny short of $3-a-gallon gas today here in Michigan. Energy analysts predict that the price will approach or exceed $4 by mid-summer. Welcome to the new world of gas price politics and the emerging new culture of energy efficiency in America.  It’s a whole lot easier to make the case for land and energy-conserving development patterns, energy efficiency, and a new economic development strategy in the United States when consumers’ ire is stoked by the price at …

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