Far be it from me to turn into a crotchety old killjoy who lambastes every pocket park I find, but I already did it once a few years ago, for a tidy but neglected little mini-playground in Alexandria, Virginia. Since a bigger, higher-profile, and splashier (literally) play area stands just a few blocks away, my
I’ll confess: a part of me wanted to feature The Hangar at Emerson Pointe apartment complex simply because I took such an amazing photo, completely unintentionally. I mean, look at that beauty! Doesn’t it look like the sort of professional rendering that marketing firm—or the marketing arm of a development company—might use to promote their
The expansive, oddly shaped downtown district of Arlington, Virginia (it’s a county, even though it feels like a city) features some unusual intersections, which no doubt confuse motorists and pedestrians who are unfamiliar with the area. These intersections were nowhere near as precarious back in the day, when most of the area consisted of low-slung
The photo below captures an item so banal that I don’t think it has yet entered popular conversation, and I’m not sure it ever will. It isn’t controversial to my knowledge, and it’s hardly conspicuous enough to arouse ire for visual blight. Yet. Virtually everyone understands why they exist, or if they don’t understand, it
The immediate area surrounding DC’s Union Market has witnessed a remarkable surge in population, activity, and energy over the last five years. I deliberately use the word “surge” instead of “resurgence”, because the “re-“ prefix is a misnomer; it implies that the action to which it appends (the “surge”) has happened a second time. But
Alexandria, Virginia, a place I cover frequently in this blog, is a medium sized city of considerable affluence. Sitting directly across the river from the District of Columbia, it predates the founding of our nation’s capital by a good forty years, meaning it never intended to function as a suburb. Neither a national capital nor
Urban planning, like most disciplines, endures its fair share of fads and passing fancies, many of which the advocates manage to elevate to temporary orthodoxy. And if “temporary orthodoxy” seems like an oxymoron, it shouldn’t require a great deal of introspection to realize that many orthodoxies remain doctrinaire for about a decade. And then they
I generally shy from events that are hot off the presses, not only because I’m not a good journalist for breaking news, but because I like things to simmer a bit. My work is less reporting and more empirical analysis. Forming a conclusion before the dust has settled is usually unwise, since the passage of
As garbage-strewn as my last article was, it was a pristine Eden compared to the content in this one. And though the example I’m about to feature is the worst I’ve seen, I have a feeling it wouldn’t be that hard to spot similar settings that out-trash the photos here. Just go to the closet
A city the size of Elmira, New York isn’t necessarily going to have much in the way of a robust old downtown. Its population according to the 2020 Decennial Census is a mere 26,523—nothing huge. Virtually any major metro has at least a few surrounding suburbs of similar size that lack any true organized, historic
Far be it from me to turn into a crotchety old killjoy who lambastes every pocket park I find, but I already did it once a few years ago, for a tidy but
I’ll confess: a part of me wanted to feature The Hangar at Emerson Pointe apartment complex simply because I took such an amazing photo, completely unintentionally. I mean, look at that beauty! Doesn’t
The expansive, oddly shaped downtown district of Arlington, Virginia (it’s a county, even though it feels like a city) features some unusual intersections, which no doubt confuse motorists and pedestrians who are unfamiliar
The photo below captures an item so banal that I don’t think it has yet entered popular conversation, and I’m not sure it ever will. It isn’t controversial to my knowledge, and it’s
The immediate area surrounding DC’s Union Market has witnessed a remarkable surge in population, activity, and energy over the last five years. I deliberately use the word “surge” instead of “resurgence”, because the
Alexandria, Virginia, a place I cover frequently in this blog, is a medium sized city of considerable affluence. Sitting directly across the river from the District of Columbia, it predates the founding of
Urban planning, like most disciplines, endures its fair share of fads and passing fancies, many of which the advocates manage to elevate to temporary orthodoxy. And if “temporary orthodoxy” seems like an oxymoron,
I generally shy from events that are hot off the presses, not only because I’m not a good journalist for breaking news, but because I like things to simmer a bit. My work
As garbage-strewn as my last article was, it was a pristine Eden compared to the content in this one. And though the example I’m about to feature is the worst I’ve seen, I
A city the size of Elmira, New York isn’t necessarily going to have much in the way of a robust old downtown. Its population according to the 2020 Decennial Census is a mere