For information about The New Colonist policies, plans, and themes, contact editor Eric Miller at 415-701-7626 or editor@newcolonist.com.
For information about the website, upcoming features, technical matters related to cross-linking, partnering, and so forth, contact Richard Risemberg at webmaster@newcolonist.com.
JULY 16, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: ERIC MILLER
412-322-2842
The New Colonist Encourages Cities To Turn on The Tap
PITTSBURGH--America's Mayors are being asked to encourage citizens to forego bottled water in favor of tap water. In the coming weeks, the editors of The New Colonist, a web magazine about sustainable city living, will be sending letters to several big city mayors asking them to stop purchasing bottled water for municipal uses and inform citizens of the value of drinking from the tap.
"When cities purchase bottled water for use in municipal offices, it raises the question of what's wrong with city water," said New Colonist editor Eric Miller. "In most cases bottled water is not discernibly better or worse than from the tap."
Miller pointed out that several cities including New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston and Portland have municipal water supplies so good it needs little or no filtration. More, some studies have shown that some bottled water actually contains higher bacteria levels than tap water and that federal bottled water standards are actually based on tap water standards.
"The reality is New York City water is more reliable and even cleaner than some of the bottled water out there," Miller said. "Yet you won't see Boston on a bottle of water, that doesn't sell."
It's the environment rather than economy that's the primary concern, however. The majority of the plastic bottles containing water end up in land fills. More, shipping water from France requires the burning of oil. That oil burning contributes to global warming, which leads to the melting of the ice caps pictured on so many bottles of water. These are among the reasons that have lead San Francisco and Los Angeles to stop purchasing bottled water for municipal use, and lead others, Salt Lake City, New York and Minneapolis, on a campaign to get consumers to open their faucets.
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JUNE 19, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: ERIC MILLER
412-322-2842
The New Colonist Releases Ten Commandments for Commuters
PITTSBURGH--In response to the Vatican's ten commandments for drivers, The New Colonist issued Ten Commandments for Commuters. "We applaud the Vatican for encouraging drivers to be polite and sober," said editor Eric Miller, "We just think they should be pointing out that driving isn?t really that good for us or society and isn?t the best way to get around."
Here are the Ten Commandments for Commuters:
1. Thou Shall Not Pollute. Cars pollute. Automobiles are a major source of C02, which causes global warming. The EPA now has the authority to regulate the pollutant C02.
2. Thou Shall Not Kill. More than 40,000 people die in the United States each year from auto-related causes. Almost five thousand pedestrians are killed in collisions with autos.
3. Love Thy Neighbor. This includes communing with thy neighbor on public transportation, sidewalks, parks, etc. Avoiding thy neighbor by staying in a car with the radio blasting is cheating.
4. Thou shall learn of others means of travel. Driving is not the only means of transit.
5. Love Thyself. This includes exercising which comes quite naturally when you leave your car at home or sell it.
6. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's car. Automobiles have become a status symbol and too many see buying them as a way to define personality. Automobiles don't define us, and they all do the same thing with varying degrees of efficiency. If you need a car, define yourself as conscientious and choose an efficient model.
7. Thou shall consider not only how far and how we travel, but how far products travel to get to us. Choose locally-grown products and locally manufactured products when possible.
8. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's shoes. More thou shouldst choose shoes manufactured by paying a fair wage.
9. Thou shall be considerate of pedestrians and bicyclists when necessity requires that thou drivest.
10. Thou shall consider where thou hast to travel before thou choosest a place to live. Where we live primarily determines if we need to drive and how much we need to drive.
Statement by New Colonist Editor Eric Miller on Closing of Downtown Pittsburgh Department Store
PITTSBURGH--Federated Department Stores announced this morning that the downtown Pittsburgh Lazarus-Macy’s store will close. The announcement follows a closing announcement of the downtown Lord and Taylor store. Both stores were subsidized and part of a larger plan to reinvigorate downtown with additional redevelopment.
Had the additional redevelopment referred to as the Fifth-Forbes plan, materialized, perhaps the stores would have met with more success. Still, the aim to make downtown a mid-high end shopping destination with department stores as anchors can never match a downtown filled with residents who buy the things they need for daily life on an ongoing basis.
These are the facts:
Downtown retailers drawing customers from the suburbs need parking. An oncoming rise in the parking tax to fifty percent not withstanding, retailers downtown can not compete with their suburban counterparts for shopping convenience.
Downtown residents may require parking, but can utilize stores on foot. They require more parking if the only shopping options are in the suburbs.
Downtown residents need grocery and household convenience items provided more by a discount retailer than a department store. A store like Target or K-Mart would much better serve downtown and city residents than a store like Lord and Taylor or Lazarus-Macy’s.
Today’s announcement would make it easy to want to throw in the towel and forget about the idea that Pittsburgh’s downtown activity can be on-par with that of New York or San Francisco. What both of those cities have downtown that Pittsburgh doesn’t is department stores, but it is also great numbers of residents.
Retail stores like K-Mart or Lord and Taylor naturally, economically and without subsidies locate where there is a residential population to draw from.
Moving forward, downtown Pittsburgh should move immediately to increase the number of condominiums and apartments downtown. New residential construction in the city has been met with more success in recent years than any commercial attempts. Lofts in the Strip, the Lincoln at North Shore complex and developments on the South Side are examples.
To facilitate downtown housing, the city should pursue groceries and discount retailers large and small (from Dollar General to Target), perhaps filling the Lazarus building with such a retailer in order to make daily life in downtown Pittsburgh practical and convenient.
These stores will also be a draw from other neighborhoods including those within walking distance and those connected by the East Busway or South Hills light-rail lines. Those customers will also support in some degree the remaining two department stores downtown--Sax Fifth Avenue and Kaufmann’s as well as smaller stores like Barnes and Noble and Burlington Coat factory.
For a lively downtown, housing is the answer and stores to make daily life convenient are a close second.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 6, 2003
CONTACT: ERIC MILLER
415-613-4451 or newcolonist@newcolonist.com
White Paper: The New Colonist Outlines Urban Issues for Aspiring Governors
SAN FRANCISCO--California is headed toward terminal gridlock in all
major metropolitan areas and their suburbs, and the proposed recall of Governor
Gray Davis, regardless of outcome, presents Californians with an opportunity to correct the problems of today and
direct development in a way that will ensure a sustainable future for
California.
"Now is the time for us to begin the long task of reconfiguring our
cities in ways that are independent of the automobile for mobility and
access," said Eric Miller, editor of the online urban magazine The New
Colonist. "It's also an opportunity to nurture community and personal
tranquility and creativity without condemning residents to long hours
of driving just for getting to work, buying the necessities of life, or
finding company and entertainment. "
High Speed Rail from San Diego and Los Angeles to San Francisco and
Sacramento will reduce our dependence on fuel-wasting, ozone-wrecking,
highly-subsidized air service and reduce the need to dedicate yet
vaster tracts of land to airports and their associated feeder roads
and parking lots; property tax reform and enlightened zoning guidelines
can go a long way to improving California's business and urban
environment; and watershed management can forestall water shortages
while bettering the quality of life in our cities and suburbs. These
are the most important issues facing California and her cities, as
outlined by the magazine's editors.
"California has historically been at the forefront of urban
environmental issues," Miller said. "But now we are falling behind. It
is important now to build for the future, not the past. Good
development policy makes good cities, and good cities benefit the
countryside by making sprawl less attractive, thus preserving the
attractiveness, health, and effectiveness of the state as a whole."
Miller went on to lay out the building blocks the magazine sees as
essential components of an agenda for the next governor. He added that
the magazine would be willing to publish statements from candidates
addressing these issues, and that any candidate making these issues
part of his or her campaign would be endorsed by the site.
The issues are as follows:
Effective Public Transit
The new BART extension to the San Francisco International Airport is a
long overdue necessity other California communities should emulate, and
the addition of the stunning new Gold Line to the rail matrix in Los
Angeles shows that even in the world capital of car culture, rail is
popular, convenient, and effective. Further investment in mass transit
should be a priority for a new administration.
High-Speed Rail
For too many years California has looked to highways and airlines for
transportation solutions. This has not worked. High-speed rail has shown itself to be able to
compete against airlines and win--even Lufthansa, the German airline,
now invests in rail. With China and Pennsylvania preparing
high-speed rail projects, California has been behind the wave for too
long. There have been enough studies. We know it works. It's time to
build.
Watershed Management
Aquifers are vanishing throughout the state--in fact, throughout the
west. Meanwhile, global warming is preparing us for years of droughts
that may make the Great Seven Years' Drought of two decades ago seem
like a lark. We have paved our way to disaster. We must begin a
judicious depaving of our cities--a process that that transit-oriented
development (such as is already taking place around Los Angeles's Metro
stations) . We must establish water control parks everywhere in our
cities, even far upstream from the Los Angeles River and other flow
collectors.
Zoning for Mixed-Use and Higher Density
Encouraging mixed-use--apartments over retail, corner stores, and so
forth--makes a city more convenient as well as more exhilarating, and
since small businesses provide over half the jobs in our country,
allowing neighborhood businesses will increase employment, competition,
and economic activity in general. Higher-density development is the
opposite of sprawl, and much cheaper for the state to maintain, as not
only is there less public infrastructure--roads, sewers, schools,
libraries, etc.--and less need for policing and maintenance, but a
development that needs less pavement, and has in its place homes and
businesses, pays more taxes per square mile, while requiring less
output in cash and labor from the state.
Property Tax Reform
The state should tax properties according to the value of the land, not
according the value of what is built on it. A land value tax will
result in better housing, richer retail development, more density, less
paving, and more commitment to community values.
For more on these issues, please see our White Paper at:
