March 2020

What City Observatory this week 1. Cheap gas means more pollution and more road deaths. Russia and Saudi Arabia have engineered a big decline in oil prices in the past few weeks, and as a result, US gas prices are now expected to decline by about 50 cents a gallon in the coming months. While […]

The Coronavirus pandemic is already worse in several American states than anywhere in China outside Hubei Province The pandemic is all about geography, and we need to do more to pinpoint hotspots and contagion The very thing that makes cities special–their ability to bring people together–is their kryptonite in the Coronavirus pandemic The harsh and

We know what’s responsible for declining bus ridership:  Cheap gas And now, its about to get worse, thanks to $30 a barrel oil Prices matter. Last Friday’s New York Times has a nice data-driven article by the paper’s very smart Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui, illustrating the decline in bus ridership in cities across the

Gasoline prices will drop 50 cents per gallon in the next week or so, and cheap gas will fuel more bad results: more air pollution, more greenhouse gases and more road deaths Now is the perfect time to put a carbon tax in place Lower gas prices mean more driving, more pollution, more road deaths

What City Observatory this week Exploding whales and cost overruns. For years, the Oregon Department of Transportation has been pushing a mile-and-a-half long freeway widening project at Portland’s Rose Quarter, telling the Legislature in 2017 that it would cost $450 million.  That number has now ballooned to nearly $800 million, and could easily go over

What City Observatory this week 1. The thickness of the blue line. Robert Putnam popularized the notion of social capital in his book “Bowling Alone,” which he illustrated with a number of indicators of social interconnectedness, like membership in non-profit organizations and clubs, including bowling leagues.  We have our own indices of “anti-social” capital, including