Most cities’ Public Works Departments have several sub-departments within the larger entity. For Indianapolis, those smaller units consist of Customer Service, Engineering, Environmental Services, and Operations. Obviously I have no idea what the day-to-day events in this department entail, so I always need to approach any serious shortcoming with measured criticism. But it doesn’t take
Sometimes it’s impossible to determine the rationale of an urban infrastructure decision simply by looking at it, even though this blog has made it a habit of attempting to do so. I am totally at a loss for what might have prompted the City of Chicago to install this impediment at the intersection of Washington
My fascination with pedestrianism and the perspective of the walker along city streets extends to what most would consider tedious, minute details. But I have tried to follow every gesture in favor or against the pedestrian landscape that has transpired, both legislatively and from the private sector, over the past few years in Indianapolis. The
Fellow blogger Urbanophile recently pondered the absence of sidewalks in a high-end recent development in Nashville city limits. He marveled at an upmarket subdivision within the city limits having sidewalks on only one side of the street. Nashville, which apparently has suffered recent negative press for its pedestrian unfriendliness, outdoes any Midwestern city in terms
Sometimes the most modest and unremarkable streetscape features can elicit subtly important results. A few weeks ago, I was driving through Mooresville, a small (population about 10,000) Indianapolis bedroom community, best known as the home town of folk hero/bank robber John Dillinger and, apparently, the pig from the Green Acres series. I was stopped close
As I prepare for a significantly longer essay on the introduction of complete streets into the American landscape, I wanted to include a few images of a quiet but growing concern among planners and civil engineers: biofragmentation through the construction of roads. In his book Road Ecology, Richard T. T. Forman estimates that 1,000,000 animals
Most cities’ Public Works Departments have several sub-departments within the larger entity. For Indianapolis, those smaller units consist of Customer Service, Engineering, Environmental Services, and Operations. Obviously I have no idea what the
Sometimes it’s impossible to determine the rationale of an urban infrastructure decision simply by looking at it, even though this blog has made it a habit of attempting to do so. I am
My fascination with pedestrianism and the perspective of the walker along city streets extends to what most would consider tedious, minute details. But I have tried to follow every gesture in favor or
Fellow blogger Urbanophile recently pondered the absence of sidewalks in a high-end recent development in Nashville city limits. He marveled at an upmarket subdivision within the city limits having sidewalks on only one
Sometimes the most modest and unremarkable streetscape features can elicit subtly important results. A few weeks ago, I was driving through Mooresville, a small (population about 10,000) Indianapolis bedroom community, best known as
As I prepare for a significantly longer essay on the introduction of complete streets into the American landscape, I wanted to include a few images of a quiet but growing concern among planners
