I had hoped to get one more lengthy blog post published by the end of the month, but I’m unfortunately getting bogged down due to a persistent problem I have: the photos for the essay I have prepared are not sufficient, nor is the quality good enough, to get my point across. Hopefully I will
My latest is available now on UrbanIndy.com–about the possible loss of terrific retail space at the Barnes and Thornburg building. Though it’s probably only of local interest, I’ll mention it because of its opportunities for great photographs (provided I had a good camera and was a good photographer). Here’s the outside of this historic building:
A few years ago, I surveyed storefronts across the downtown of Cambridge, Massachusetts, interpreting their various placard signs as a proxy for the evolution of a city whose demographics and character have changed significantly over the years. As Cambridge has morphed from a old, intermittently gritty bohemian college town into an upscale tourist destination, the
I hate to write on the same topic for two consecutive blog posts, and I have covered plenty of ground with retail in the past, including the often-maligned strip mall. But this photo opportunity was too good to pass up, and it the construction in progress probably won’t look like this for much longer. From
I have chronicled the tireless migration of retail across metropolitan landscapes several times in the past; it formed the central topic of one of my earliest blog posts. Unfortunately, most of my posts have focused on the blight left by outdated retail typologies: the dead malls, exsanguinated big boxes, pockmarked parking lots, blighted strip malls,
As much as street-level engagement for large projects in city centers should, by this point, seem like a foregone conclusion, it continues to amaze how many big ticket items—in cities of widely varying size—either engage in terpsichorean negotiations around it or neglect it completely. When developers confront a zoning ordinance or design guideline that insists
When an instructor for a real estate and development class told his students, “You can’t own a view,” he said it with the nonchalance that suggested it should become a mantra. What he was implying was that neither the developer nor the prospective property owner should stake all of an investment on the quality of
Keeping the theme of gently altered signs, I offer a spray-painted follow-up on the “Huge Condos” blog post from two months ago. Though not as funny as the advertisement in Dayton, this sign manifests a completely different kind of error in judgment pertaining to real estate. For developers with comparatively low dependency on equity partners,
As much as I’d like to commend the efforts of Lady Bird Johnson, I have to confess: I love billboards. Maybe I’ve spent too much time living in parts of the country where the landscapes offer relatively little variety, and the billboards help compensate for monotony. But I also love the flattest, most treeless stretches
The coffeehouse isn’t just a destination for the bohemians these days. Long a mainstay in big cities, coffeehouses are visible now across all types of settings, from urban street corners to suburban or small-town strip malls, from tiny kiosks in parking lots to the exits of interstate highways. They have joined the ranks of 24/7
I had hoped to get one more lengthy blog post published by the end of the month, but I’m unfortunately getting bogged down due to a persistent problem I have: the photos for
My latest is available now on UrbanIndy.com–about the possible loss of terrific retail space at the Barnes and Thornburg building. Though it’s probably only of local interest, I’ll mention it because of its
A few years ago, I surveyed storefronts across the downtown of Cambridge, Massachusetts, interpreting their various placard signs as a proxy for the evolution of a city whose demographics and character have changed
I hate to write on the same topic for two consecutive blog posts, and I have covered plenty of ground with retail in the past, including the often-maligned strip mall. But this photo
I have chronicled the tireless migration of retail across metropolitan landscapes several times in the past; it formed the central topic of one of my earliest blog posts. Unfortunately, most of my posts
As much as street-level engagement for large projects in city centers should, by this point, seem like a foregone conclusion, it continues to amaze how many big ticket items—in cities of widely varying
When an instructor for a real estate and development class told his students, “You can’t own a view,” he said it with the nonchalance that suggested it should become a mantra. What he
Keeping the theme of gently altered signs, I offer a spray-painted follow-up on the “Huge Condos” blog post from two months ago. Though not as funny as the advertisement in Dayton, this sign
As much as I’d like to commend the efforts of Lady Bird Johnson, I have to confess: I love billboards. Maybe I’ve spent too much time living in parts of the country where
The coffeehouse isn’t just a destination for the bohemians these days. Long a mainstay in big cities, coffeehouses are visible now across all types of settings, from urban street corners to suburban or