It’s impossible to deny a sad truth for anyone who has used transit regularly in the last few years: the shameful act of turnstile jumping has reached epidemic levels in most cities where turnstiles serve as a primary means of fare collection. And this includes almost any American city with light- or heavy-rail transit. I
Durham, North Carolina: as is often the case, a railway bisects the downtown. It became a viral video feature long before it became a commodity. And, somewhere along the way, it achieved something akin to meme status—though I’ll admit that I am stretching the definition of meme pretty generously to get there. Oh well. I’ve
I’m not exactly making bold a proposition when I assert that, if a community experiences an overall decline in its income levels (and a growth in poverty rate), the economic health of its primary retail nodes is likely to deteriorate concurrently. Such a statement isn’t exactly going out on a limb. Any significant change, in
“Fast food with style.” That’s the motto that I, coming of age in the late 80s and early 90s, associate the most with Rax Roast Beef. But let’s face it: when this formerly thriving restaurant began floundering, the slogans shifted with the seasons. Thirty years later, it’s hard to say which marketing campaign is the
It’s rare that I feature two back-to-back articles on the same subject, and even rarer that the subject includes massive, opulent houses. But these houses—each one a castle, or what we would contemporaneously (and pejoratively) call “McMansions”—are the backdrop for what ultimately is an entirely different focal point. Over on Geist Reservoir, in the northeastern
I promise—cross my heart and hope to die—that I didn’t plan this blog article in light of recent events. A single closed bank branch is hardly cause for alarm, especially compared to what’s been happening to the entire operations of some fairly large banks these last few weeks. And we may still be fully in
The US earns its reputation for encouraging urban auto dependency, largely by eschewing any good provisions for pedestrians and reducing far too many of its streetscapes to vehicular sewers. Nonetheless, now and then we can come across some remarkable little pedestrian provision that surprises us. And it doesn’t have to be in a historically pedestrian
I rarely feature a one-photo blog article, but this post is an example where I have no real choice. I took a single photo on a lark, not realizing at the time that it would generate a significant analysis that justifies other photos to help flesh out the argument. Thankfully, as is often the case,
For the last decade or so, it’s been not too difficult to spot a specific type of vehicle parked on the street or driveway in residential neighborhoods. Here’s an example in a quiet lower-middle class part of Alexandria, Virginia: Yes, it’s the formerly ubiquitous (but hardly obsolete) food truck. Before its explosion in popularity about
For much of the twentieth century, it was an all-too-common occurrence: an old commercial structure in a declining downtown struggles to compete with the strip malls cropping up everywhere on the outskirts. Over time, the old building—retail on the first floor, office or warehousing on the next two/three/four levels—becomes functionally obsolete. It’s drafty, the plumbing
It’s impossible to deny a sad truth for anyone who has used transit regularly in the last few years: the shameful act of turnstile jumping has reached epidemic levels in most cities where
Durham, North Carolina: as is often the case, a railway bisects the downtown. It became a viral video feature long before it became a commodity. And, somewhere along the way, it achieved something
I’m not exactly making bold a proposition when I assert that, if a community experiences an overall decline in its income levels (and a growth in poverty rate), the economic health of its
“Fast food with style.” That’s the motto that I, coming of age in the late 80s and early 90s, associate the most with Rax Roast Beef. But let’s face it: when this formerly
It’s rare that I feature two back-to-back articles on the same subject, and even rarer that the subject includes massive, opulent houses. But these houses—each one a castle, or what we would contemporaneously
I promise—cross my heart and hope to die—that I didn’t plan this blog article in light of recent events. A single closed bank branch is hardly cause for alarm, especially compared to what’s
The US earns its reputation for encouraging urban auto dependency, largely by eschewing any good provisions for pedestrians and reducing far too many of its streetscapes to vehicular sewers. Nonetheless, now and then
I rarely feature a one-photo blog article, but this post is an example where I have no real choice. I took a single photo on a lark, not realizing at the time that
For the last decade or so, it’s been not too difficult to spot a specific type of vehicle parked on the street or driveway in residential neighborhoods. Here’s an example in a quiet
For much of the twentieth century, it was an all-too-common occurrence: an old commercial structure in a declining downtown struggles to compete with the strip malls cropping up everywhere on the outskirts. Over