City planners, chambers of commerce, commercial real estate brokers, and Business Improvement District (BID) managers should have no difficulty finding common ground on a number of subjects. Generally speaking, they don’t run out of things to talk about. And while they might cavil about the finer points of what is more important in attracting investment
I’ll try not to get smug about this, but bear with me if I’m a little sententious about the ironies I’m witnessing, particularly regarding social distancing and masking rules for which we are rapidly approaching the three-year corona-versary. I’ll concede this much: few municipalities if any are still actively imposing restrictions at this point. Not
As the end of 2022 approaches, it’s essentially a truism that coronavirus-inspired closures devastated many small businesses. For a brief period, the unemployment rate was as high as 14.4% (the rate in April 2020), a condition on par with the peak of the Great Recession, but it got there much more quickly this time around.
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
I think the majority of Americans would at this point would agree that, in most respects, day-to-day urban life has deteriorated since COVD-19: higher costs to everything, escalating crime, visible vandalism, irregular cleaning and maintenance, and—perhaps this is just me (but probably not)—a general malaise that is either a cause or the effect of those
Two and a half years into the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have at long last reached a point where, even if the public health concerns have not yet dissipated, the public will for restrictions is all but completely absent. The CDC, WHO, and FDA may still issue occasional alerts and updates, but the thunk of
Surely I’m not the only one who remembers learning about the tragic story of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius onto the ill-fated Roman city of Pompeii in 79 AD. I think it’s something many of us in the Midwest learned even in elementary school. Our teachers described to us, in vivid detail, how it all
We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), better known as COVID-19, the number attributing the year in which epidemiologists
With holiday and work commitments colliding every day, my posts this past month have been unusually slight—shorter and less than pithy. This tendency may have to continue until the year’s end, since it isn’t going to let up all that much. But I still hope to home in on the obscure, the typically overlooked, or—something
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
City planners, chambers of commerce, commercial real estate brokers, and Business Improvement District (BID) managers should have no difficulty finding common ground on a number of subjects. Generally speaking, they don’t run out
I’ll try not to get smug about this, but bear with me if I’m a little sententious about the ironies I’m witnessing, particularly regarding social distancing and masking rules for which we are
As the end of 2022 approaches, it’s essentially a truism that coronavirus-inspired closures devastated many small businesses. For a brief period, the unemployment rate was as high as 14.4% (the rate in April
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
I think the majority of Americans would at this point would agree that, in most respects, day-to-day urban life has deteriorated since COVD-19: higher costs to everything, escalating crime, visible vandalism, irregular cleaning
Two and a half years into the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have at long last reached a point where, even if the public health concerns have not yet dissipated, the public will for
Surely I’m not the only one who remembers learning about the tragic story of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius onto the ill-fated Roman city of Pompeii in 79 AD. I think it’s something
We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent
With holiday and work commitments colliding every day, my posts this past month have been unusually slight—shorter and less than pithy. This tendency may have to continue until the year’s end, since it
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