Potomac Mills, in the heart of the vast Washington DC suburbia that is Northern Virginia, continues to show remarkable resiliency amidst the widespread decline of many—perhaps even most—conventional enclosed shopping malls. Dead and dying malls are, obviously, a familiar subject on this blog; even from the earliest days in the late 2000s, I explored Lafayette
For being a licensed city planner, I’ve avoided using one particular term in this blog common within my profession’s jargon: urban sprawl. Applying the search tool, it has only appeared as content within 72 articles—pretty rare considering that at this point in September 2025, I have produced 956 blog posts. Keep in mind, many of
It’s not a rhetorical question, but it’s one that I would have struggled to answer until recently. After all, I’ve spent years exploring some of the dreariest corners of underperforming American retail: one or two dead malls in my hometown of Indianapolis (which has resisted mall decay more than most cities, almost entirely due to
By and large, what people refer to as Northwest DC—especially the area west of Rock Creek Park—has never faced the problems of disinvestment and depopulation that plagued much of the capital city in the 1970s and 80s. Even at that point when Washington DC was “the murder capital of America” (as it was for a
I didn’t approach the year 2024 with the expectation that I would devote multiple articles to the sorry state of urban public land, but here it is: the second feature already on the topic for January, and it most certainly isn’t going to be the last. Incidentally, that previous article was a bit of a
In 2024, it’s a rare moment when Washington DC is competently providing a municipal service we should all expect…and yet somehow, in this case, it’s disappointing. I recognize that this is really my problem: my intent with this article was to say, “Here what a road looks like without street sweeping for an entire year”.
My latest article is on Urban Indy. It represents a sort of sequel to an article I wrote about 18 months earlier, where I followed a single Kroger supermarket on the south side of Indianapolis as it kept changing locations–four separate places in about twenty years, all new construction. And none of those locations were
All too frequently, what I expect to be a “small” subject ends up blowing out of proportion. For example, the last two articles took significantly more time and effort than I expected. The research bore fruit, and I struggled to constrain my analysis to a mere 1,500 words. Now I’ve finally found a subject that
First-time visitors to the town of Bel Air, Maryland aren’t likely to be surprised by what they see—at this point, a well-kept small-town main street isn’t exactly a rarity—but chances are it’ll still charm them. After all, Bel Air is a distant suburb of Baltimore – Charm City. It’s the seat of government for Harford
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
Potomac Mills, in the heart of the vast Washington DC suburbia that is Northern Virginia, continues to show remarkable resiliency amidst the widespread decline of many—perhaps even most—conventional enclosed shopping malls. Dead and
For being a licensed city planner, I’ve avoided using one particular term in this blog common within my profession’s jargon: urban sprawl. Applying the search tool, it has only appeared as content within
It’s not a rhetorical question, but it’s one that I would have struggled to answer until recently. After all, I’ve spent years exploring some of the dreariest corners of underperforming American retail: one
By and large, what people refer to as Northwest DC—especially the area west of Rock Creek Park—has never faced the problems of disinvestment and depopulation that plagued much of the capital city in
I didn’t approach the year 2024 with the expectation that I would devote multiple articles to the sorry state of urban public land, but here it is: the second feature already on the
In 2024, it’s a rare moment when Washington DC is competently providing a municipal service we should all expect…and yet somehow, in this case, it’s disappointing. I recognize that this is really my
My latest article is on Urban Indy. It represents a sort of sequel to an article I wrote about 18 months earlier, where I followed a single Kroger supermarket on the south side
All too frequently, what I expect to be a “small” subject ends up blowing out of proportion. For example, the last two articles took significantly more time and effort than I expected. The
First-time visitors to the town of Bel Air, Maryland aren’t likely to be surprised by what they see—at this point, a well-kept small-town main street isn’t exactly a rarity—but chances are it’ll still
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