I was on the radio for about 45 minutes talking about it and was joined by Dan
Holland of the Young Preservationists of Pittsburgh for part of the time. Also,
here's a good article that was in the local paper today. I only hope more people
are aware of the need for preservation.

ARTICLE HERE: http://www.urbanartantiques.com/EM/eaglemirror.pdf

Eric Miller
http://www.ericmiller.me

"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.

A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.

This story was sent to you by: Rick Risemberg

About time this hit the mainstream!

--------------------
Santa Monica to experiment with parking psychology
--------------------

Consultants find the city doesn't need more spaces, it needs to change how they
are used. New pricing model aims to promote walking, biking or busing, freeing
up prime spaces for short-term shoppers.

By Martha Groves

October 14 2009, 9:39 PM PDT

Embracing a bold experiment to alter human behavior, Santa Monica is poised to
raise parking rates on the city's most coveted downtown spots to discourage some
motorists from using them.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-parking-experiment15-2009oct15,0,2933172\
.story

Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com

I will be on http://www.wrta.com tomorrow from 11 to 11:45 with Dan Holland
representing the Young Preservationists talking about downtowns, preservation
and saving an old building in Altoona. The WRTA studio line is 814-946-0435 if
you'd like to call in. Here's what we'll be talking about: http://bit.ly/1FGLK9

"Last Call Issued to Save Altoona's Eagles Building"
Downtown Altoona may soon lose another historic building. A five-story
brownstone and brick structure known as the Eagles Building has been marked for
demolition. A.... Downtown Altoona may soon lose another historic building. A
five-story brownstone and brick structure known as the Eagles Building has been
marked for demolition. A last ditch effort by the online web magazine The New
Colonist has been launched to try to save it.

"I've heard about more than one building thought to be unsalvageable come back
and become a tax-income producing structure and a valuable historic asset to the
community," says Newcolonist.com publisher Eric Miller. "It's even more
important to save the remaining historic structures in towns like Altoona that
have lost so much."

Despite its being heavily used well into the 1980s, the Eagles Building was lost
to the County of Blair over nonpayment of taxes and sat in the tax repository
for several years. This past winter, the roof collapsed in its entirety during a
snowstorm.

MORE: http://www.newcolonist.com/vox/archive/00001105.html

This column was sent to you by: Rick

Water, development, profit, pride, and all  the other usual suspects....

--------------------
'Water buffaloes' got it all wrong
--------------------

Supporters of water development think the fight is between farmers and fish.
It's not nearly that simple.

George Skelton
Capitol Journal

August 20 2009

From Sacramento -- The "water buffaloes" like to frame their fight as farmers
vs. fish. It is not. It's about farmers and fishermen.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap20-2009aug20,0,1463418.column

Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com

The New Colonist visits Summer Streets
http://www.newcolonist.com/vox/archive/00001098.html

The World According to No One....
http://www.newcolonist.com/vox/archive/00001097.html

Little Big Things
http://www.newcolonist.com/vox/archive/00001095.html

Excellent article form Livable City contains this striking quote:

> SFpark's pilot projects build on the findings of the San Francisco
> County Transportation Authority's On-Street Parking Management and
> Pricing Study. The SFCTA study looked in depth at parking issues in
> four San Francisco neighborhoods – Cow Hollow, West Portal, Hayes
> Valley, and Bernal Heights. The study surveyed parking
> availability, parking turnover, and parking duration, and
> interviewed merchants and residents. Among the study's findings
> were that both businesses and residents were willing to pay more
> for parking in return for greater availability, and that while
> merchants in the four neighborhoods thought that 72% of their
> customers "drove exclusively" to the neighborhood, over 70% of
> their customers walked, cycled, or took transit.
>
For the complete article, with links to data, see:

http://www.livablecity.org/campaigns/parking.html

Rick
--
Richard Risemberg
http://www.bicyclefixation.com
http://www.newcolonist.com
http://www.rickrise.com

Altoona has another tooth missing. It seems each time I de-board a train in my
hometown I find another downtown building has fallen victim to shortsightedness,
a lack of imagination and foresight, and, most definitively, the wrecking ball.
This time it was a nucleus of sentimentality, the Woolworth building, that I
arrived to find gone.

I had heard about the impending demise of Woolworth. The building's owner had
bought it on spec and let the roof rot away until the building "couldn't be
saved." I put that last part in quotes because I've seen many buildings brought
back from severely deteriorated conditions.

Looking at the glass as half empty is hard. There'a sucking sound coming now as
the straw scrapes the bottom of the glass. It's almost as if there's no return
for Altoona. So much has been destroyed, it's almost as if the Altoona I
remember ceases to exist. The Altoona Mirror buildings, the Wolf Furniture
building, the Kaufman's building, these are just a few.

If any self-identifying central district is to exist again, Altoona has to make
a pact with itself that no more buildings on 11th or 12th Avenues will be
demolished.

READ MORE http://www.newcolonist.com/vox/vox.html

Listen to East Allegheny resident Nick Kyriazi talk about living car free in
Pittsburgh with The new Colonist.

http://www.newcolonist.com/podcasts.html

Q: How is Billy Mays different from A Warhol, R Clemente, and R Carson? A. Mays
doesn't have a bridge yet. http://tinyurl.com/maysbridge

With the recent Washington DC Metro wreck, we thought it would be a good time to
talk about just how dangerous commuter rail is. We compare it to walking, riding
a bike, flying and more. Some knee-jerk responses to the crash also brought to
mind killing geese in New York after a couple ran into a U.S. Airways flight. If
you're a goose, I'd venture you have more chances of dying from the
exterminators than from hitting an airplane. LISTEN NOW
http://www.newcolonist.com/podcasts.html

The word "car" was mentioned four times in President Barack Obama's
speech to Congress last night. But the most unnerving words came when
he used the word "automobile."

READ MORE: http://www.newcolonist.com/vox/vox.html

Now you can become a fan of The New Colonist on Facebook. Click on the
link below...
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-New-Colonist/49187823630

I have read several articles and opinion pieces by columnists that
start or include a phrase like '"The roots of today's mortgage-based
financial crisis can be traced back to the Community Reinvestment
Act...'."

I am disgusted by the lack of facts--or the deliberate distortion of
the facts--n these columns.

We did not get into this mess with banks doing $50,000 home purchase
loans in East Allegheny (one of the neighborhoods on the Northside of
Pittsburgh) to someone making $30,000 per year working at the local
hospital.

MORE: http://www.newcolonist.com/CRA.html