By Tom Peterson Every day fleets of trucks wend their way through our towns and cities. Their giant claws reach out to grab the heavy waste bins. They are denizens of our throwaway world. Almost half of our harvested food, millions of tons of plastic, entire neighborhoods. It’s sad to see so […]
By Tom Peterson As one who walks for exercise, I’m often surprised when places I used to think were so far away are, in fact, walkable. That’s why I like this guerrilla wayfinding effort. Urban planning student Matt Tomasulo founded Walk [Your City] based on signs that simply say, “It’s a __ minute walk to [destination].” The first […]
By Tom Peterson Jonas Salk asked, “What must we do to evoke the greatest potential from ourselves and from others?” Here’s a great starting point: a strong culture of innovation. That should result in better programs, stronger revenue streams, scaling up and revolutionary solutions to challenges. Note in the chart (right) the increased world […]
By Tom Peterson A friend of mine recently needed some blinds for his window, so we stopped into the local Habitat for Humanity “ReStore.” There he found a brand new set of wooden blinds for only $15. A real win! But winning didn’t stop there. The giant warehouse-sized store in North Carolina with […]
By Tom Peterson Ideas come to us in different ways. Some come in the shower or from dreams, others in a conversation over coffee. Over my life I’ve had lots of ideas, and you so have you. A few turned out to be really good. And that’s satisfying. But if you’re on […]
Local Power—David and Goliath. At stake is a highly-visible attempt of a local community to determine its own future for power. Mostly local, renewable power. At stake: can any U.S. community shift from abetting the climate change disaster to creating a solution. A couple of years ago, citizens of Boulder, Colorado, took on the snail’s pace of […]
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, talks about the flip side of make the world better — make it suck less.
Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” A great thought. Actually, he borrowed that image about borrowing.
Dan Frommer’s post on NYC’s new Bike Sharing system shows from a personal perspective how a single new ingredient in a complex system can make big changes.
100 Ways to Improve the NYC Subway. On his Tumblr site, he announced: “For the next 100 Days, I will propose various improvements to the New York City Subway.”
