The affluent, outlying streetcar suburb of Chatham, New Jersey offers a picturesque two-block downtown, which features what would likely come as a surprise to the unattuned. Sure, many of the storefronts are predictable: comic book shop, jewelry and watch repair, alterations, a few restaurants, dry cleaners. And, right in the middle of it all: a
I’ve predicted the implosion of malls—along with my reasoning as to why they’ll implode—many times on this blog. Though my predictions have yet to come to widespread fruition (and I really don’t want them to), it remains obvious that malls claim a much smaller swatch in the tapestry of American consumer culture than in the
A little while back, in a meticulously photographed post on the blog Urban Indy, I noted many emergent urban main street corridors that fall short of their full potential for a single simple reason: they can’t secure the optimal types of tenants. It was a challenging post, because I felt like I was taking two
Maybe it was the bohemian misfits converging in a once-floundering SoHo that prompted this approach. Perhaps it was the rediscovery of Classical values in 15th century Florence that spurred a continent toward unprecedented economic growth after centuries of stagnance. More likely it was neither. Quite simply, people operated on an hunch (mostly unconscious) that something
As I try to increase my volume of monthly blog posts, I owe it to both my readers and myself to bring back something I used to do regularly: a mini-post, which for me amounts to something less than 1,000 words. The fact of the matter is that I often try to write less, but
Particularly in the last few months, this blog has honed in on retail trends that usually point to the slow demise of the conventional, enclosed, middle-class shopping mall. I just can’t get enough of the topic. And most evidence suggests that, with the possible exception of the high-end ones, the mall is typically failing to
The impacts of government policies can be subtle, far-reaching and antithetical to their original good intentions. Identifying examples of this is part of my duty as a blogger. Sometimes, though, the evidence of a policy is right there in your face…called out by the person most affected. This former home in Greenfield, Indiana (about 20 miles
The previous part of this lengthy blog offered the essential background on Zarephath, a small religious community in northern New Jersey, originally known as Pillar of Fire Church, built entirely on a floodplain. In 2011, every building in Zarephath suffered devastation from flooding induced by Hurricane Irene. But that wasn’t the first time. Hurricane Floyd
Whether wildfires, tornadoes, power plant meltdowns, explosions, epidemics, bankruptcies, school shootings, Godzilla invasions, or roving bands of undomesticated alpacas on the loose, the essential agreement for a disaster to capture the public eye is magnitude. This isn’t brain surgery. Size is generally the variable that semantically distinguishes disaster from catastrophe, or separates predicament from setback.
How do you know when a commercial area is—to use a phrase I hate—“going downhill”? Take a good look at who the tenants are. Sometimes it’s merely a matter of rising vacancy levels, but if the occupancy levels are high while those tenants are radically different from just two years prior, something’s afoot. A potential
The affluent, outlying streetcar suburb of Chatham, New Jersey offers a picturesque two-block downtown, which features what would likely come as a surprise to the unattuned. Sure, many of the storefronts are predictable:
I’ve predicted the implosion of malls—along with my reasoning as to why they’ll implode—many times on this blog. Though my predictions have yet to come to widespread fruition (and I really don’t want
A little while back, in a meticulously photographed post on the blog Urban Indy, I noted many emergent urban main street corridors that fall short of their full potential for a single simple
Maybe it was the bohemian misfits converging in a once-floundering SoHo that prompted this approach. Perhaps it was the rediscovery of Classical values in 15th century Florence that spurred a continent toward unprecedented
As I try to increase my volume of monthly blog posts, I owe it to both my readers and myself to bring back something I used to do regularly: a mini-post, which for
Particularly in the last few months, this blog has honed in on retail trends that usually point to the slow demise of the conventional, enclosed, middle-class shopping mall. I just can’t get enough
The impacts of government policies can be subtle, far-reaching and antithetical to their original good intentions. Identifying examples of this is part of my duty as a blogger. Sometimes, though, the evidence of
The previous part of this lengthy blog offered the essential background on Zarephath, a small religious community in northern New Jersey, originally known as Pillar of Fire Church, built entirely on a floodplain.
Whether wildfires, tornadoes, power plant meltdowns, explosions, epidemics, bankruptcies, school shootings, Godzilla invasions, or roving bands of undomesticated alpacas on the loose, the essential agreement for a disaster to capture the public eye
How do you know when a commercial area is—to use a phrase I hate—“going downhill”? Take a good look at who the tenants are. Sometimes it’s merely a matter of rising vacancy levels,