As the price of oil rises and concerns about global climate change intensify, it's good and important that we're talking about developing more efficient vehicles, such as hybrid cars, and lower-carbon fuels, such as...

These days, real estate is no longer primarily about your house, how much you value it and how much others value it. Why? Because transportation, its cost increasing as oil supplies tighten, demand for fuel grows and...

Oil is the bloodstream of the global economy, but its time as the dominant source of energy, powering everything from our cars and trucks to our pharmaceuticals and farming practices, is coming to an end.

At least,...

Whether you think being "green" - in your company's use of energy, transportation, etc. - is mostly a matter of putting on a good and trendy corporate face (with side benefits) or mostly a matter of doing what's right, you...

Not all real-estate meltdowns are created equal. That's the upshot of this San Francisco Chronicle column which delivers data suggesting that sprawling suburban areas are seeing higher foreclosure rates than compact, urban...

A university can thrive in a city or a suburb, but a city, by its nature, has certain immediate advantages over the 'burbs.

In a city, you find historic buildings in need of redevelopment, ample sidewalks and...

If you're a farmer or rancher in Washington state, you're optimistic about the economy. And new numbers issued by the state Department of Agriculture Tuesday back up your optimism: Exports of food and agriculture products topped...

Sound Transit wants to pick your brain. The mass transit agency serving urban King, Snohomish and Pierce counties is asking the public to weigh in on what the agency should do with light rail, commuter trains and buses to improve...

Perhaps it's a function of our swirling, blathering, attention-decifit-disordered 24-hour news cycle, but it's often difficult to find any kind of sober analysis of our current economic situation.

Yes, the sub-prime mess and...

We're worried about the economy like everyone else, but at least we're not miserable.

By miserable, I mean we're not Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Flint, Mich., Stockton, Calif., or Charlotte, N.C., all deemed...

If you think the sub-prime real estate fiasco is bad, just watch what the Baby Boomers have in store for us. At least, that's the upshot of a new report by the American Planning Association which concludes that retiring boomers...

You can tell a lot about the future of a metro area based on how it deals with tensions over plans to develop its land. Zoning laws, which help determine everything from building heights to building and land values, set a...

That's not the planet you see heating up - it's the 60-day Washington legislative session getting ready to boil over as the politics of global warming and transportation gets under way.

To bring you up to speed: If you remember...

Bellevue continues its march toward a more urban and vibrant downtown this weekend as Washington Square, the $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion mixed-use development, officially opens its first condo tower, which is 90 percent sold...

One metro area's mess is another area's opportunity.

So it goes with sprawl, the post-cheap-oil age and the sub-prime real estate fiasco. On the one hand, you could argue that it was the height of foolishness (or devilishness)...

In 2002, Dustin Goss, just graduated from UW, launched POW (Prisoner of Winter) Gloves Inc., a small manufacturer of action-sport gloves. Six years later, sales are up and his business is getting a little...

Sky-high oil prices, and airline and roadway traffic headaches, are conspiring to make Amtrak an excellent alternative for commuters and travelers, including in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, Amtrak, the national passenger rail...

Forget congestion pricing. Forget any new Proposition 1-like tax measures.

We just need to brake earlier - and softer - to curb traffic congestion. At least, our inattentiveness as drivers is the big problem behind most...

It's been rumored. Now it's official: Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood will be home to Amazon.com's new corporate headquarters.

The deal, announced Friday, means Amazon.com's new headquarters will...

Los Angeles transit officials and commuters are embroiled in a brouhaha over whether three freeways in the region should be converted from free-of-charge car-pool lanes to toll roads.

The switch would come as a relief...

Yesterday, I blogged about the assessment of one of the nation's top site selection consultants that the Atlanta metro area's traffic mess is keeping businesses away. I wondered whether we'll become the next...

Everyone knows traffic congestion hurts the economy, but "the economy" is abstract, non-specific. Sure, traffic gets worse, but businesses still do business and commuters still commute.

Now, we've got something a...

Though it lags behind Google and Yahoo in online advertising revenue, Microsoft is flexing some newly-formed online ad muscle by putting ads into its MSN Mobile portal on cell phones.

The software giant, which...

Transportation is the backbone of the private-sector economy.

And Washington state faces some big and tough decisions about transportation in the years to come, including how to pay for a reworked...

I couldn't resist a post about the city I've called home for the past six years: Tacoma, T-Town as those in the know call it, just got a tad more friendly to small businesses as the City Council has approved...

Federal Way, the suburban city known mostly for its mall, just made its long-running effort to create a downtown out of nothing official: The City Council has approved selling 4.1 acres to Vancouver, B.C.-based United Properties...

You remember Amtrak, right? The United States' national passenger rail service? Turns out no one knows what to do with it, and nearly every suggestion involves either cutting it or killing it.

And those "choices" don't make...

Transportation takes a long time to get right, and the first thing you don't do is give up.

That's what California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lee County, Fla., and Sound Transit have in common right now. They're just moving...

The green-building movement has yet another reason why you should take it very seriously:

In one of the first initiatives under its new sustainable real estate management platform, CB Richard Ellis plans to commit 100 "major"...

There's no doubt the Puget Sound region's commercial real estate market is strong and growing. A report by the Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers recently ranked the region second only to New York City in overall...