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How long does it take to get a dose of nature high enough to make people say they feel healthy and have a strong sense of well-being? Precisely 120 minutes. In a study of 20,000 people, a team led by Mathew White of the European Centre for Environment & Human Health at University of Exeter,…

Before it was torn apart by freeway construction in the middle of the 20th century, the Near North neighborhood in Minneapolis was home to the city’s largest concentration of African American families. That wasn’t by accident: As far back as the early 1900s, racially restrictive covenants on property deeds prevented African Americans and other minorities…

Architecture and planning students love to wrestle with big ideas. And while their end-of-the-quarter presentations sometimes include out-of-the-box ideas, they usually don’t have the attention of public officials. But this time was different. Students with the University of Washington Built Environments Studio, taught by Rick Mohler (Architecture) and David Blum (Urban Design and Planning) in…

A recent study named Seattle the No. 1 “gloomiest place in America.” The website Bestplaces.net, which ranks locations on all kinds of qualities, created a “gloom index” for the largest cities in the nation, based on weather data during the darkest months of the year. The index ranked the cities by looking at percentage of cloud cover,…

The holidays may be over, but that means shipping and returns season has begun. Right now the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is developing a project that could potentially help us send and receive our packages sooner. The $1.5 million project is funded by the D.O.E’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Vehicle Technologies and…

The reality today is that delivery is a bigger business than ever. With online shopping, it’s estimated the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and UPS will process, sort and deliver more than two billion packages between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. Amazon’s own fleet of delivery trucks is expected to handle 275 million holiday season shipments. And Amazon…

Where someone grows up is profoundly important for their life chances. It influences things like the schools they attend, the jobs, parks and community resources they have access to and the peers they interact with. Because of this comprehensive influence, one might conclude that where you grow up affects your ability to move up the…

The City of Seattle Office of Housing on Dec. 9 announced funds to develop Seattle’s first affordable senior housing development designed to be an affirming environment for LGBTQ seniors and the greater LGBTQ community. The project is led by Capitol Hill Housing, a nonprofit developer, along with GenPRIDE, the first LGBTQ-affirming senior center in Seattle/King…

The Doorway Project, a cross-campus and community-engaged project under Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, has been busy! Check out their activities and plans for the future in their latest blog post:   With the end of the year and the end of the decade approaching in the next few weeks, this moment feels like a perfect time to…

There’s little doubt that The Nehemiah Initiative faces an immense challenge combating the displacement of African Americans from central Seattle. When you drive through the Central District today, you see gentrification in its stark reality. New market-rate buildings line the intersections of 23rd Avenue and East Union Street, as well as 23rd and South Jackson…