The Register Guard recently reported that the State of Oregon has given Eugene approximately $200k to clean up the city in advance of the Olympic Trials.

This has been fantastic, and has discouraged graffiti “artists” from polluting sidewalks and signs in parks. It has also impacted Eugene citizens’ perception of their city, and city leadership. Temporarily at least.

All for $200k. I encourage the City of Eugene to make this type of cleanup a long term commitment. Part of a long term plan to renew the city. For all the millions being spent on wooded acreage that the elite 5% of the city uses (and a good thing it’s not all residents, or it would fall to ruin), the city could take a small % of those city/county/state $ each year and maintain the resources closest to residents.

Thank you Olympic Committee and the State of Oregon!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Avot Media is working with Home Depot to provide in-store “how to” videos for certain Home Depot product lines.

Here’s an even better use of this technology:

1. A home buyer drives by a house in a neighborhood they like, and takes a flyer.
2. On the flyer (or the box if the agent forgot to refill it), is a text number.
3. The person, an avid American Idol fan, knows how to text.
4. They text to the number, and receive a video link.
5. Assuming their phone can handle non-proprietary video, and many do (except that elegant iphone), they watch a video tour of the home.

Or they could just start with Cell Trust,although their products appear to introduce far more feature bloat.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Which Northwest city was hit hardest in 2007? Difficult to say. Each of these cities were hit equally hard.

However, these cities may have narrowly missed the negative equity tide that washed away markets in a number of California cities, especially Vallejo.

In fact, the charts below suggest that the NW is pulling out of a relatively mild real estate slump.

First, Eugene..

Then Portland..

And Seattle..

Thanks again to Zillow for the amazing “open source” statistics!

Popularity: 22% [?]

Springfield has pushed through another coup. They are targeting lower class sizes, on average, than Eugene.

Another bold approach for a City that is doing its best to climb out of, and make the best of the Simpsons (ironically, a source of pride)/Anti-anyone-different reputation their community leaders and citizenry helped to cultivate for over a decade.

A magnificent new hospital that Eugene lost, street repairs (in contrast to potholes EVERYWHERE in Eugene), fresh downtown development, a new community policing approach…Springfield is becoming all things innovative while Eugene is behaving like grandpa in the easy chair. Nothing wrong with grandpa’s easy chair; if all you want to do is look in the rear view mirror.

Popularity: 27% [?]

So Trulia has incorporated Google maps’ Street view into their listings. Here’s an example from a listing in Portland. It’s not exactly a tour of the home. In fact, you can hardly see the home from the street, but it does give you an opportunity to tour the neighborhood without driving to it.

I’m sure that Trulia would like to have a street view for Eugene as well. Unfortunately Google has focused almost all of its Oregon-based Street View photography efforts on Portland, as you can see from this map. If that changes, and Eugene gets Street View images, you will be the first to know!

Popularity: 32% [?]

I received an email today from Smartups.org, an organization sponsored by Palo Alto Software (my former employer) and the Lundquist College of Business (my Alma Mater). Yes, this city can feel very small at times!

Smartups is holding their first “Pub Talk” on April 2nd. Local startups will present their business plans to a panel of sober, gavel-wielding judges. Ok, I don’t know if they’ll have gavels, and I doubt they will be 100% sober, but how else could they look judgely? Wigs would be an excellent start…

Here is the link, and here are the details:

When: Wed., April 2nd, 2008 from 5:00-7:30 pm

Where: Davis’ Restaurant

Cost: $10 - pre-register now! Or $15 at the door (includes hors d’oeuvres and one free beverage)

What: A presentation of 4 new start-up companies. Each company will have 10 minutes to pitch their company. We will have a panel of judges who will then have 10 minutes to ask questions. The audience will also be given an opportunity to vote and ask questions.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Joel Burslem over at FOREM posted an excellent review of Roost, a new real estate search engine platform built upon IDX functionality.

He makes some great points, and one especially relevant to a lot of people who visit this site - the listings are complete. You can quickly search MLS listings for multiple brokers at once.

Time to add it to the Find a Home tab..only to have ZERO people come back to visit this blog once they discover how great Roost is!

Popularity: 42% [?]

When I think of blight, several things come to mind:

1. A rotten tomato.
2. Certain neighborhoods South of the Willamette.
3. Certain neighborhoods North of the Willamette.
3. Two giant cesspools full of rainwater downtown.
4. This blog.

Eugene has a blight problem. People leave stuff everywhere. From Cigarettes to lawn chairs to sailboats (see the last LTE). Not art, junk.

So what should conscientious Eugeneans (all five of us) do to protect the value of our biggest asset, especially in a soft housing market?

Well, that’s for the poll of the week..

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Popularity: 40% [?]