*** News Flash ***

Sorry about the extended delay. I spend the last two weeks in New York and Boston, looking at all the pretty buildings, and enjoying the street life in a more car-free environments. It was quite nice to walk and ride transit everywhere, and I tried to spend yesterday doing the same thing in Minneapolis. It was much harder, of course, and walking around downtown on a beautiful day, I realized how difficult maintaining a vibrant streetlife becomes when you've got such an extensive skyway system.

I promise to have more on that soon, as well as some pictures and analysis of the new Twins stadium site, and a detailed multi-part bit on the present and future of University Avenue. But in the meantime, here's a story on New York City -- environmental capitol of the U.S.

"It doesn't look to most people like an oil geyser, but every day New York City residents consume just one-third of the gasoline used by other Americans and one-half of the residential energy use of a typical American. They drive fewer cars because of a well-developed mass transit system and their multi-unit buildings use less energy per household."

"That adds up to the equivalent of between 221,000,000 to 296,000,000 barrels of oil saved per year by New York residents -- just a bit less than the 320,000,000 barrels per year that would be produced by the ANWR field in Alaska at its peak production. Just by its urban design, New York City is one of the most important energy sources in the country."

[http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/30248]

That's kind of interesting, given how horribly tree-less and suffocating the city is to spend any time in.