The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s all the suburbs’ fault. You know, everything -- traffic congestion, overweight kids, social alienation. Oh, and lest we forget, global warming and rising energy costs, too.

That latest knock against the burbs has caught on widely. With their multiplying McMansions and exploding Explorers, the burbs are the reason we’re paying so much for gas and heating oil and spewing all those emissions that are heating up the atmosphere --or so a host of urban proponents tells us. It’s time to… more

The value of saving is finally making a comeback. After years of over consumption and accelerating debt -- and more than two years with a negative personal savings rate -- Americans are finally beginning to fret over their empty coffers and negative balance sheets. As headlines profile subprime borrowers going into default around the country, the average American’s sense of economic security has jumped from unease to panic. As policymakers scramble to develop new policies to bolster working families, echoes… more

Power in America is shifting from George W. Bush’s Sun Belt mafia -- with its roots in post-1950s aerospace, energy and development -- to a new political triad: a handover of control from one oligarchy to another.

This new triad draws its power from three key postindustrial power centers: technology, entertainment and finance. Its geographic orientation is different as well. Rather than having its primary bases in boomtowns like Houston, Dallas, Charlotte or Phoenix, the new elite clusters mostly in the… more

Oil on the Brain: Adventures From the Pump to the Pipeline.By Lisa Margonelli. Doubleday. $26. 325 pages.Verdict: A fascinating drive.Like many journalists, Lisa Margonelli knows a little bit about a lot of topics. Like many freelance writers, she moves from one unrelated topic to another, depending on what strikes her fancy and on what an editor will buy.On Oct. 28, 2002, Margonelli took a fancy to writing about oil. The result… more

WASHINGTON -- President Bush sits down to a White House dinner Wednesday with Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, two crucial U.S. allies who have been launching increasingly bitter accusations at each other for sheltering al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

"It will be interesting for me to watch the body language of these two leaders to determine how tense things are," Bush said Tuesday after an Oval Office meeting with Karzai...

Joking aside, the tension between Karzai and Musharraf… more

Before he decided to open a high-end Japanese restaurant in a generic strip mall in southern Cobb County last year, chef Tomohiro Naito considered Midtown ("too expensive to rent") and then an industrial area of Decatur (too much competition from established Chinese eateries).

"I heard this location [on Cobb Parkway] was very favorable," Naito says amid a recent noon-hour rush at Tomo, now touted as one of the best restaurants in metro Atlanta. The proximity to several mega-malls… more