Improvements and updates to Dirt: AKA tilling the soil.
Little by little, as I’ve been meeting a goal of at least five blog posts a month, I’ve been making steady upgrades and improvements to this site. And they’ll keep rolling in over the months ahead, as I work to ensure American Dirt remains a chronicle of landscapes and the built environment, as internally consistent
Bike/ped trails and aesthetics: when the infrastructure is part of the scenery, and all of the brand.
Having recently achieved a trip to my fiftieth state (forty-ninth admitted to the union), I can say with a fairly high degree of confidence that one state surpasses all the others at having developed and maintained a consistent brand. I’ll confess that it’s been many, many years since I visited Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, South
Porto-johns and private business: a middle ground between serving customers and the community at large.
At first blush, it’s strange and disarming that a well-kept little retailer with tourist cachet wouldn’t even have a restroom available to customers. But that’s exactly what this sign in the front door of the Ulu Factory in Anchorage is telling us. It really couldn’t be more explicit. The winsome little chalet on the outskirts
Urban autumn: when a single favored tree like the gingko provides all the leaf-peeping a city needs.
The introduction of landscaping into densely populated urban settings has always been a thorny issue, pun fully intended. Steeped in emissions and incarcerated by impervious surfaces, plant life across urban environments typically only thrives against the odds. Certain flora that can flourish in a suburban front yard are scarce in downtown settings, for obvious reasons:
Cycle tracks in small towns: North Beach, Maryland has one, but does it really work?
Do you remember the good old days of bicycle advocacy, back when the prevailing ambition was the introduction of bike lanes, buy applying solid stripes on the pavement? If you’re older than twenty, you probably should remember those days; they weren’t that long ago. As recently as the mid-2000s, the standard for bike-friendliness was bike
The oversized rabbits of Valdez, Alaska: from invasive specie to unofficial mascot.
Verdant and breathtaking as much of Alaska might be, the Last Frontier is no great shakes when it comes to biodiversity. Such is the nature of boreal forests in general: they typically host few varieties of tree species, although the ones that thrive are as abundant as one might expect in a mostly uninhabited, vast
Roadside vegetable market update: still sexy produce. But less subtle.
Keeping my tradition of singling out particularly smart business models, I’ll shift my focus away from the previous article’s burgeoning ice cream chain Kilwin’s and, this time, return my camera’s lens to an old standby: a roadside produce stand off State Route 1 (Coastal Highway) in southern Delaware. I say “return” because I visited this
Fro-yo free fall: how a once surging business model can stabilize, by marginalizing itself.
Singling out an apparently unsuccessful business is even too cruel for a cad like me—especially when the business is still functional. (I have no problem conducting an entrepreneurial post-mortem though.) That said, since the business in question here not only is still operating but was in operation while I shot these pics, I have to
Glamping as a commodity: if the concept has reached rural Alaska, it’s gone mainstream.
Perhaps I’m a bit late to the party, but I only heard of the neologism glamping about five years ago. The spellcheck service I use for writing my articles does not seem to recognize it. But Merriam-Webster does, and it claims that glamping came into currency around the year 2005. So it seems I’m a
Staircases can be sexist: when the design of stairs is a hazard to high heels.
Of all the keywords used to organize my blog posts by topic, the number one by far is “signage”. The keyword (under my menu bar “Topics”) yields 193 separate articles. Given the aspirations of this blog, it’s a hard subject to avoid: one of the key elements of a human-conceived, built environment is that critical,
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Improvements and updates to Dirt: AKA tilling the soil.
Little by little, as I’ve been meeting a goal of at least five blog posts a month, I’ve been making steady upgrades and improvements to this site. And they’ll keep rolling in over
Bike/ped trails and aesthetics: when the infrastructure is part of the scenery, and all of the brand.
Having recently achieved a trip to my fiftieth state (forty-ninth admitted to the union), I can say with a fairly high degree of confidence that one state surpasses all the others at having
Porto-johns and private business: a middle ground between serving customers and the community at large.
At first blush, it’s strange and disarming that a well-kept little retailer with tourist cachet wouldn’t even have a restroom available to customers. But that’s exactly what this sign in the front door
Urban autumn: when a single favored tree like the gingko provides all the leaf-peeping a city needs.
The introduction of landscaping into densely populated urban settings has always been a thorny issue, pun fully intended. Steeped in emissions and incarcerated by impervious surfaces, plant life across urban environments typically only
Cycle tracks in small towns: North Beach, Maryland has one, but does it really work?
Do you remember the good old days of bicycle advocacy, back when the prevailing ambition was the introduction of bike lanes, buy applying solid stripes on the pavement? If you’re older than twenty,
The oversized rabbits of Valdez, Alaska: from invasive specie to unofficial mascot.
Verdant and breathtaking as much of Alaska might be, the Last Frontier is no great shakes when it comes to biodiversity. Such is the nature of boreal forests in general: they typically host
Roadside vegetable market update: still sexy produce. But less subtle.
Keeping my tradition of singling out particularly smart business models, I’ll shift my focus away from the previous article’s burgeoning ice cream chain Kilwin’s and, this time, return my camera’s lens to an
Fro-yo free fall: how a once surging business model can stabilize, by marginalizing itself.
Singling out an apparently unsuccessful business is even too cruel for a cad like me—especially when the business is still functional. (I have no problem conducting an entrepreneurial post-mortem though.) That said, since
Glamping as a commodity: if the concept has reached rural Alaska, it’s gone mainstream.
Perhaps I’m a bit late to the party, but I only heard of the neologism glamping about five years ago. The spellcheck service I use for writing my articles does not seem to
Staircases can be sexist: when the design of stairs is a hazard to high heels.
Of all the keywords used to organize my blog posts by topic, the number one by far is “signage”. The keyword (under my menu bar “Topics”) yields 193 separate articles. Given the aspirations
Recent Comments
Recent Comments
- on Improvements and updates to Dirt: AKA tilling the soil.: “Yup…and the back side of the old church where I learned how to play pipe organ.” Oct 24, 20:46
- on Improvements and updates to Dirt: AKA tilling the soil.: “Thanks Jeffrey. My webmaster recommended that I stick to the “medium” size for most photos. She believes that people who…” Oct 24, 20:35
- on Improvements and updates to Dirt: AKA tilling the soil.: “Thanks Chris. It’s been particularly challenging for the last two months because of my 9-to-5 (of which the former number…” Oct 24, 20:32
- on Improvements and updates to Dirt: AKA tilling the soil.: “Kudos to your commitment to the blog while so many others have decided to just let theirs rot on the…” Oct 21, 13:26
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