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Streetsblog Basics
The Cost of Sprawl on Low-Income Families
Via the Manhattan Institute's new blog, Streetsblog learns of a pdf-formatted report entitled A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Famillies, which looks at the housing and transportation expenses paid by lower income families in a number of cities. The report, published by the Center for Housing Policy, a K Street think tank, finds that lower-income families in central cities spend significantly less on the overhead of life than suburban and exurban ones.
October 17, 2006
The True Cost of Gasoline, and What to Do About Energy
The news media has been writing a lot about energy and oil addiction lately. One particularly noteworthy package of reporting highlights the hidden problems of oil addiction. Another searches for ways it could be alleviated but misses the most critical one. The first is The Chicago Tribune's enormously important four-part series by Pulitzer-winning reporter Paul Salopek called A Tank of Gas, a World of Trouble published July 29.
August 23, 2006
Charles Komanoff’s “Fuel Tax Magic”
New York City economist and activist Charles Komanoff has been focused lately on developing and promoting the idea of a "carbon tax." Carbon taxes are still still very much considered fringe economic theory and politically unviable, though, as you read Komanoff's latest essay in Grist, you have to wonder how long that will last. The arguments in favor of carbon taxes are logical, powerful and, at least to this non-economist, seem to make a ton of common sense.
June 28, 2006