North Avenue has been closed while a crew repaints the el structure. I wish I could tape the noise, or rather lack thereof, because it’s heavenly.

Online travel: visit every UNESCO World Heritage site and savor fish in Hong Kong.

“It wasn’t the second helping on all-you-can-eat but the third” which brought the president of Red Lobster down.

Yesterday’s car-free day in Montreal created a street of smiles.

Now online: Break the Gridlock conference registration for only $10!

Instant geology, Carolina style: a new, rather permanent inlet splits Hatteras Island into two.

The pending McCain-Liberman “cap and trade” carbon dioxide bill, due for a vote this fall, would not only be a major first step towards cutting carbon emissions with market-based regulation, but it could also energize Chicago’s financial industry by opening a huge new market for the Chicago Climate Exchange.

According to this week’s Crain’s, the recently retired WBBM-AM call letters stood for “World’s Best Ballroom Music.” Still-alive WMAQ-AM came from the Daily News’ deeply investigative tagline: “We Must Ask Questions.”

Clean energy day: patterns for a conservation economy and, for the news-minded, a clean energy blog.

The death toll from France’s heat wave is widely being blamed on vacations distorting otherwise strong family ties. Still unanswered is the extent to which social capital and urban design mediated the impact, even in the absence of air conditioning.

Time to commit consumercide?

City Repair, a volunteer group in Portland, gets local and (kindly) takes back public space.