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57 articles

Blotting out the by-line.

Keeping the theme of gently altered signs, I offer a spray-painted follow-up on the “Huge Condos” blog post from two months ago. Though not as funny as the advertisement in Dayton, this sign manifests a completely different kind of error in judgment pertaining to real estate. For developers with comparatively low dependency on equity partners,

Drivable Main Streets, Part I: Quaint, picturesque sprawl.

Despite all hullabaloo raised by various talking heads on the dire state of small town America—and it is true that much of it continues to depopulate, as it has for the past fifty years—not all rural communities have fallen into ineluctable decline. And high hopes prevail for many of the others that seem as though

Vestigial Judaism, Part III: Urbanization along the Cotton Belt.

The first two parts of this lengthy exploration of southern Judaica attempted to re-acquaint the readers with what in this day and age may defy typical expectations: Jewish enclaves in small towns throughout the rural Deep South. From approximately 1850 to 1950, in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama—as well as the other southern states—immigrants from Germany,

MONTAGE: Suburban tumbleweeds.

As the month’s end approaches, I’m due for another photo-centric blog post, and this time I have to reveal to my viewing community a particularly charming incarnation from the housing bust that shares an inextricable link to the economic downturn. Or perhaps not. This development, in Tangipahoa Parish, 60 miles to the northwest of New

Mall rot: how they do it in Dixie.

This blog is due for another photo montage, and while the subject this month is hardly original, it remains one of my favorite: the always fascinating dying mall. I’ve explored several examples in the past: two in Indianapolis and one outside of Detroit. But dying malls are hardly relegated to the Midwest—all across the country,

The College Avenue Interurban: Stop-by-Stop Snapshots, Part II.

My previous blog post used College Avenue as a launchpad for exploring how Indianapolis had once earned the moniker “Interurban Capital of the World”. College Avenue, heading from downtown northward to Broad Ripple Village and beyond, was one of many routes of this predecessor to today’s light rail that used Indy as a hub. The

The College Avenue Interurban: Stop-by-Stop Snapshots, Part I.

It’s been some time since I’ve included a post that emphasizes pictures over text, but my goal of one pic-heavy post per month is about to expire for March, so here it goes. This one can’t even claim complete originality: Urban Indy has featured several thoughtful posts on the city’s old streetcar/interurban network, devoting specific

An ecoburb before the word existed.

“Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks that wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile [sic] inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in

Storefront diagnosis? Down but not out.

Retail fatigue is generally easy to spot in both urban and suburban settings: it typically involves a high vacancy rate, occupancies that comprise undesirable tenants, or a combination of the two. But what are these “undesirables” exactly? They usually fall into two categories. The first one is predictable: strip clubs, adult video/novelty stores, windowless package

Retroactive land banking—urban and suburban.

Despite the fact that I always include images in my blog posts, more than a few have been on the wordy side. So I am going to try to include at least one post each month that is dominated by images, with just enough accompanying text to provide some background. I’ve already done this once

Blotting out the by-line.

Keeping the theme of gently altered signs, I offer a spray-painted follow-up on the “Huge Condos” blog post from two months ago. Though not as funny as the advertisement in Dayton, this sign

MONTAGE: Suburban tumbleweeds.

As the month’s end approaches, I’m due for another photo-centric blog post, and this time I have to reveal to my viewing community a particularly charming incarnation from the housing bust that shares

Mall rot: how they do it in Dixie.

This blog is due for another photo montage, and while the subject this month is hardly original, it remains one of my favorite: the always fascinating dying mall. I’ve explored several examples in

An ecoburb before the word existed.

“Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks that wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile

Storefront diagnosis? Down but not out.

Retail fatigue is generally easy to spot in both urban and suburban settings: it typically involves a high vacancy rate, occupancies that comprise undesirable tenants, or a combination of the two. But what