The City Fix would like to welcome our newest contributor, Helena Cobban, who will be writing a column called “Eyes on the Street.” A writer and researcher, Helena has published six books and numerous articles on global affairs. For 17 years she contributed a regular column to The Christian Science Monitor, and she is a Contributing Editor of Boston Review.  She is currently a ‘Friend in Washington’ for the Washington, DC-based Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a long-established Quaker organization that lobbies the U.S. Congress on issues of public concern, including environmental issues.  In August 2007, FCNL received a Silver-level LEED certification for  it’s newly renovated headquarters building, which is the first green building on Capitol Hill.

Helena’s main blog is Just World News, which she has been writing since February 2003.  She is based in Charlottesville, Virginia and Washington DC, and is a weary veteran of the Amtrak and Greyhound connections between the two cities.  (Her main personal vehicle is a Vespa.)

Her next book is Re-engage!: America and the World After Bush, which contains an important chapter on the  need for strong US engagement in post-Kyoto diplomacy.  It is due out from Paradigm Publishers in Spring 2008.  Helena travels a lot in connection with her work, both within the US and internationally.  She generally tries to travel in a low-budget, low-impact way and is intrigued by the social as well as environmental consequences of choices made at the policy level on transport-related questions.