Vacation and resort towns exist—and thrive—usually in response to a market demand to visit, to experience, and (to some extent at least) to linger in a specific location. Whether a beach, a mountain, a landmark, an insanely agreeable climate, or some other locus of beauty or distinction, the resort town owes its prosperity to its
Just spitting distance from the municipal boundary of the independent city of Richmond, Virginia is a small, inconspicuous shopping center called Triangle Park. Truth be told, all of the photos in this article depict properties just outside the commercial property called Triangle Park. However, these photos still sit within the same triangle shaped superblock where
Most chain restaurants focus their branding on a few key visual elements: logo, font, colors. Take Starbucks, for example. It started in old-school, urban commercial storefronts like Seattle’s Pike Place Market, expanded to other big-city milieus, then went suburban into freestanding structures with parking lots and drive-thru windows. It adapted the interior model to shopping
It was inevitable…eventually. But it’s still a shame. The bold, celestial blue panels of the Kaufman’s Building in downtown Wheeling, West Virginia are coming down. They looked great as recently as December 2024, when I covered the building as an architectural novelty. Truth be told, it’s really more of a façade novelty, because the original
As a metro area urbanizes, the old country homes built off of major highways become less appealing as residences and more appealing as commercial entities. This isn’t surprising; the quiet metamorphosis has taken place for decades. A subtle commercial conversion. People don’t want to live directly alongside throngs of fast-moving vehicles if they can help
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
Belfield, a city (per the legal definition) in southwest North Dakota just a brief drive from one of the state’s biggest attractions, has seemingly bucked the trend of similarly sized communities throughout the Great Plains. Specifically, it isn’t dwindling to nothing. Instead of experiencing dramatic population loss, Belfield has largely hovered around 1,000 persons for
Washington National Cathedral, among the highest-profile religious institutions in the country and certainly in the capital city, has long attracted visitors (pilgrims?) not just for its harrowing Neo-Gothic architecture, or its frequently filmed interior (the site of many presidential funerals), but also for the celebrated green space, which together occupy a hilltop plot measuring 57
The building featured in this final elegy has probably served as the thumbnail photo more than any other structure, in my nearly sixteen years of writing for this blog. I’m talking about none other than Sanctuary on Penn, FKA First Lutheran Church, FKA Mount Pisgah. The late Gothic building, on the National Register of Historic
Hot on the heels of the previous article, in which I explored how an Iraqi bakery (temporarily) replaced an old Quiznos, this time I touch on internationalism with a much, much larger retail footprint—an entire mall. The mall in question is Security Square, a few miles to the west of Baltimore city limits, at a
Vacation and resort towns exist—and thrive—usually in response to a market demand to visit, to experience, and (to some extent at least) to linger in a specific location. Whether a beach, a mountain,
Just spitting distance from the municipal boundary of the independent city of Richmond, Virginia is a small, inconspicuous shopping center called Triangle Park. Truth be told, all of the photos in this article
Most chain restaurants focus their branding on a few key visual elements: logo, font, colors. Take Starbucks, for example. It started in old-school, urban commercial storefronts like Seattle’s Pike Place Market, expanded to
It was inevitable…eventually. But it’s still a shame. The bold, celestial blue panels of the Kaufman’s Building in downtown Wheeling, West Virginia are coming down. They looked great as recently as December 2024,
As a metro area urbanizes, the old country homes built off of major highways become less appealing as residences and more appealing as commercial entities. This isn’t surprising; the quiet metamorphosis has taken
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
Belfield, a city (per the legal definition) in southwest North Dakota just a brief drive from one of the state’s biggest attractions, has seemingly bucked the trend of similarly sized communities throughout the
Washington National Cathedral, among the highest-profile religious institutions in the country and certainly in the capital city, has long attracted visitors (pilgrims?) not just for its harrowing Neo-Gothic architecture, or its frequently filmed
The building featured in this final elegy has probably served as the thumbnail photo more than any other structure, in my nearly sixteen years of writing for this blog. I’m talking about none
Hot on the heels of the previous article, in which I explored how an Iraqi bakery (temporarily) replaced an old Quiznos, this time I touch on internationalism with a much, much larger retail