I’m not very good at selling my blog as a product, partly because I don’t try, and partly because I just can’t for the life of me talk things up. And so I begin with this post with a disclaimer on how tiny and inconsequential of a subject it is. At the very least, I
Long a means of securing seasonal tenants in shopping centers, the pop-up shop has only emerged as a standard bearer for retail nodes within the last five years or so—about the same time that economic forecasters began realizing how badly online shopping was undermining conventional bricks-and-mortar retail. And that’s how they work: they fill a
It’s not typical of me to post follow-up blog posts within a month of the original, but I’ve already done it once this month, so how much longer can I keep making this claim? Truth is, when I blog about situations close to where I live, it’s easy to revisit and find something new that
It’s unusual for me to create a follow-up article so quickly on the heels of its predecessor, but in this case, the timing makes it worth it: less than two months ago I wrote about the retail environment at the mega-development known as The District Wharf (or just “The Wharf” as the locals prefer). A
The store featured in the image below isn’t likely all too familiar to many Americans, but it’s possible that it soon will be. As far as I know, it’s the pilot location for a convenience-oriented spinoff of Lidl (rhymes with “needle”), a long-successful German grocer that has been scoping the American market for a point
The ubiquity of Starbucks locations in America’s dense urban centers is a running joke, and it’s not even a new one. The insufferable yuppie couple of the 2000 movie Best in Show famously joked about it: “We met at a Starbucks…not the same Starbucks. But we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street.”
Ever since it opened in late 2017, Washington DC’s mixed-use waterfront development known as The District Wharf (“The Wharf”) has become a premier attraction for locals and visitors who are in the know. Unlike so many riverfront investments in recent years, it doesn’t look like a single developer conceived it, even though it owes most
The winsome town of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, though in most respects a free-standing municipality, has essentially morphed over the last thirty years into an exurban bedroom community to Washington DC, which lies approximately 70 miles to the southeast. No doubt bolstered by the presence of the well-regarded Shepherd University, the town has an urban, activist
Silver Spring, Maryland hugs one of the corners of the District of Columbia. Thanks to this proximity, it’s booming as a bedroom community, much like the better-known, ritzier Bethesda just five miles away. It’s an edge city, a satellite suburb with an unusually high concentration of jobs, which owes its current employment density to its
Multiple times in the past I’ve compared building design to clothing styles, and while such an analogy may gall both architects and fashion designers, I’m going to hold my ground on this one. The two professions clearly fall within the discipline of design, and, as such, they rely heavily on the transitory nature of prevailing
I’m not very good at selling my blog as a product, partly because I don’t try, and partly because I just can’t for the life of me talk things up. And so I
Long a means of securing seasonal tenants in shopping centers, the pop-up shop has only emerged as a standard bearer for retail nodes within the last five years or so—about the same time
It’s not typical of me to post follow-up blog posts within a month of the original, but I’ve already done it once this month, so how much longer can I keep making this
It’s unusual for me to create a follow-up article so quickly on the heels of its predecessor, but in this case, the timing makes it worth it: less than two months ago I
The store featured in the image below isn’t likely all too familiar to many Americans, but it’s possible that it soon will be. As far as I know, it’s the pilot location for
The ubiquity of Starbucks locations in America’s dense urban centers is a running joke, and it’s not even a new one. The insufferable yuppie couple of the 2000 movie Best in Show famously
Ever since it opened in late 2017, Washington DC’s mixed-use waterfront development known as The District Wharf (“The Wharf”) has become a premier attraction for locals and visitors who are in the know.
The winsome town of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, though in most respects a free-standing municipality, has essentially morphed over the last thirty years into an exurban bedroom community to Washington DC, which lies approximately
Silver Spring, Maryland hugs one of the corners of the District of Columbia. Thanks to this proximity, it’s booming as a bedroom community, much like the better-known, ritzier Bethesda just five miles away.
Multiple times in the past I’ve compared building design to clothing styles, and while such an analogy may gall both architects and fashion designers, I’m going to hold my ground on this one.