I am by no stretch anywhere near the most well-traveled person in this fine country—that’s a singular achievement, and I’m many tens of millions of ranks below that elusive, eternally unknown #1. But I’m not badly traveled: in 2021 I finally made it to Alaska, my 50th state (a pretty clichéd 50th state if you
A city the size of Elmira, New York isn’t necessarily going to have much in the way of a robust old downtown. Its population according to the 2020 Decennial Census is a mere 26,523—nothing huge. Virtually any major metro has at least a few surrounding suburbs of similar size that lack any true organized, historic
With this article I’m presenting my second feature on crime prevention strategies in less than a month. This isn’t typical. But then, the sort of criminality urban America has countenanced these last few years hasn’t been typical either, though it’s rapidly becoming so. Given the double-digit year-to-year increases in violent and property crime, let alone
If First Lutheran Church, the subject of my previous blog post, seemed like familiar territory, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Here the once-mighty retailer Sears Roebuck and Company—AKA Sears—for at least the tenth time. I first started featuring this retailer over a decade ago, back when Sears was a staple in most middle-tier malls. Even
Some animals are just more opportunistic than others. In most cases, it cannot help but serve as a survival tactic. Bears are notoriously omnivorous and remarkably clever at finding ways to access nutrients that accommodate their diverse palates. It is for this reason that many National Park must use trash cans of a durable material
My latest post is on Urban Indy. It comes with the local news (WISH-TV) announcement that it has now been five years since Indianapolis grocery store chain Marsh Supermarkets closed all of its 44 remaining locations, having been run by private equity firm Sun Capital for the last 15 years. The chain, a staple of
If bar trivia offered a question, “What American city has the single largest grocery store?”, would any team get the answer right? One might expect the answer to be a sizable metro area like New York City or Los Angeles, with their high population density and proximity to major shipping ports. Good guess but no
Hot on the heels of those Manhattan Irish pubs, several of which sit frozen in time after St. Patrick’s Day, we encounter another example of Mt. Vesuvius erupting and coating everything in ash. But this time the Pompeii is a much more suburban setting. The Interstate 270 corridor bisects Montgomery County, the most populous county
Amidst the broader cultural polarization and the ensuing moral panics (or perhaps the moral panics that have prompted the cultural polarization?), we’ve witnessed far more people announcing their political loyalties than in the past, often through overt displays in their front yards. While one can find these sort of signs just about anywhere in the
We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), better known as COVID-19, the number attributing the year in which epidemiologists
I am by no stretch anywhere near the most well-traveled person in this fine country—that’s a singular achievement, and I’m many tens of millions of ranks below that elusive, eternally unknown #1. But
A city the size of Elmira, New York isn’t necessarily going to have much in the way of a robust old downtown. Its population according to the 2020 Decennial Census is a mere
With this article I’m presenting my second feature on crime prevention strategies in less than a month. This isn’t typical. But then, the sort of criminality urban America has countenanced these last few
If First Lutheran Church, the subject of my previous blog post, seemed like familiar territory, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Here the once-mighty retailer Sears Roebuck and Company—AKA Sears—for at least the tenth
Some animals are just more opportunistic than others. In most cases, it cannot help but serve as a survival tactic. Bears are notoriously omnivorous and remarkably clever at finding ways to access nutrients
My latest post is on Urban Indy. It comes with the local news (WISH-TV) announcement that it has now been five years since Indianapolis grocery store chain Marsh Supermarkets closed all of its
If bar trivia offered a question, “What American city has the single largest grocery store?”, would any team get the answer right? One might expect the answer to be a sizable metro area
Hot on the heels of those Manhattan Irish pubs, several of which sit frozen in time after St. Patrick’s Day, we encounter another example of Mt. Vesuvius erupting and coating everything in ash.
Amidst the broader cultural polarization and the ensuing moral panics (or perhaps the moral panics that have prompted the cultural polarization?), we’ve witnessed far more people announcing their political loyalties than in the
We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent
