I don’t have a reason to visit College Park, Maryland all that often, even though it’s only a handful of miles away from my current home and hosts a major academic institution. But when I do visit, the small city reminds me what an outlier it is: a freestanding municipality encompassing a major flagship university,
I don’t really think that flag lot is part of common parlance anywhere outside of the domain of real estate and land development. But it’s such a common condition—and such a simple concept to understand—that it’s kind of surprising most people don’t really know about it. I certainly didn’t until I dipped my toe in
By and large, what people refer to as Northwest DC—especially the area west of Rock Creek Park—has never faced the problems of disinvestment and depopulation that plagued much of the capital city in the 1970s and 80s. Even at that point when Washington DC was “the murder capital of America” (as it was for a
Far be it from me to turn into a crotchety old killjoy who lambastes every pocket park I find, but I already did it once a few years ago, for a tidy but neglected little mini-playground in Alexandria, Virginia. Since a bigger, higher-profile, and splashier (literally) play area stands just a few blocks away, my
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
When it comes to residential real estate, amenities can fall in and out of saliency in a matter of months. By 2023 standards, it’s hard to believe that galley kitchens or intimate parlor rooms might have been popular at one time. Those of us of a certain age can recall an era when full-length mirrors
Alexandria, Virginia, a place I cover frequently in this blog, is a medium sized city of considerable affluence. Sitting directly across the river from the District of Columbia, it predates the founding of our nation’s capital by a good forty years, meaning it never intended to function as a suburb. Neither a national capital nor
Two articles in a row that resuscitate topics from less than a year ago…am I losing my edge? Maybe. But when you’ve been hacking away at this for twelve years while using little more than social media to promote yourself (but swearing off Twitter and Patreon and Youtube), it’s hard to say what constitutes an
There was probably a point in history when virtually every American had heard of Cumberland, Maryland. Not only that, it’s reasonable to surmise that a significant proportion of Americans had passed through it. Aside from the fact that, for most of Maryland’s history, it was the state’s second largest city (its “Queen City” behind Lord/King
It’s uncommon that I feature an article where I strive to keep the location mostly or completely anonymous. After all, that “sense of place” is often a critical feature, and it’s one of the primary ways I organize/classify them: by major city, by state, and (in rare instances) by country. Only one example comes to
I don’t have a reason to visit College Park, Maryland all that often, even though it’s only a handful of miles away from my current home and hosts a major academic institution. But
I don’t really think that flag lot is part of common parlance anywhere outside of the domain of real estate and land development. But it’s such a common condition—and such a simple concept
By and large, what people refer to as Northwest DC—especially the area west of Rock Creek Park—has never faced the problems of disinvestment and depopulation that plagued much of the capital city in
Far be it from me to turn into a crotchety old killjoy who lambastes every pocket park I find, but I already did it once a few years ago, for a tidy but
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
When it comes to residential real estate, amenities can fall in and out of saliency in a matter of months. By 2023 standards, it’s hard to believe that galley kitchens or intimate parlor
Alexandria, Virginia, a place I cover frequently in this blog, is a medium sized city of considerable affluence. Sitting directly across the river from the District of Columbia, it predates the founding of
Two articles in a row that resuscitate topics from less than a year ago…am I losing my edge? Maybe. But when you’ve been hacking away at this for twelve years while using little
There was probably a point in history when virtually every American had heard of Cumberland, Maryland. Not only that, it’s reasonable to surmise that a significant proportion of Americans had passed through it.
It’s uncommon that I feature an article where I strive to keep the location mostly or completely anonymous. After all, that “sense of place” is often a critical feature, and it’s one of