Coming on the heels of an article where I unexpectedly concluded that the best decision might be to save a strip mall in College Park, Maryland, I now view more or less the same subject through a different lens. Leaping across the Potomac River to Virginia, the state might change but the metro area is
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,
As a person who loves bicycling, I am hardly one to cavil when a municipality installs new bike-friendly infrastructure. Quite the opposite, in fact. As a general rule, most places in the US are still less bike-friendly than they could be. And while we have witnessed visible improvement over the last two decades, and I
Bear with me. This article is almost too dinky for a mini-post. Really more of a Tweet (what do they call those now, after the renaming?), so I’m stretching the content to its limits, inversely, by posting fewer words than just about ever. But the previous article on the Durham Can Opener took me way
The American black bear (Ursus americanus) is, by far, the most commonplace and widely distributed bear species on the planet. Its range includes nearly half of the US land area. Much of the country coexists peacefully with the beast. Despite the fact that they are smaller than all the other North American bear species, the
I have seen some ridiculous site selection decisions for Starbucks over the years. The concentration of Starbucks seems to surpass McDonald’s, Subway, 7-Eleven, or other seemingly ubiquitous chains, even though every one of the aforementioned has a larger US presence than Starbucks. But Starbucks proximity—one location’s placement near another—is notorious wherever Starbucks thrives, which is
A few lifetimes ago, when I lived in the northern suburbs of Chicago (the “North Shore”) I would routinely drive along Golf Road, an east-west arterial linking the city of Evanston (where they called it Emerson Street) and the seemingly never-ending concatenation of suburbs to the west. Continuing westward, Golf Road eventually terminates in Elgin,
Saying “I like Trader Joe’s” isn’t very edgy; it’s not going to instigate a revolution anywhere. They aren’t exactly fighting words. Ranking right up there with California phenomenon In-N-Out Burger as one of the least controversial chains that dole out food, a person is far more likely to provoke fisticuffs for saying “Trader Joe’s is
Continuing from where Part I left off, this article will explore the remaining 15 municipalities named Washington in the United States, the District of Columbia excluded. Ranking them from least to most populous, the previous article covered the smallest eight; this will conclude with the seven bigger Washingtons, up to the most populous of all.
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
Coming on the heels of an article where I unexpectedly concluded that the best decision might be to save a strip mall in College Park, Maryland, I now view more or less the
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
As a person who loves bicycling, I am hardly one to cavil when a municipality installs new bike-friendly infrastructure. Quite the opposite, in fact. As a general rule, most places in the US
Bear with me. This article is almost too dinky for a mini-post. Really more of a Tweet (what do they call those now, after the renaming?), so I’m stretching the content to its
The American black bear (Ursus americanus) is, by far, the most commonplace and widely distributed bear species on the planet. Its range includes nearly half of the US land area. Much of the
I have seen some ridiculous site selection decisions for Starbucks over the years. The concentration of Starbucks seems to surpass McDonald’s, Subway, 7-Eleven, or other seemingly ubiquitous chains, even though every one of
A few lifetimes ago, when I lived in the northern suburbs of Chicago (the “North Shore”) I would routinely drive along Golf Road, an east-west arterial linking the city of Evanston (where they
Saying “I like Trader Joe’s” isn’t very edgy; it’s not going to instigate a revolution anywhere. They aren’t exactly fighting words. Ranking right up there with California phenomenon In-N-Out Burger as one of
Continuing from where Part I left off, this article will explore the remaining 15 municipalities named Washington in the United States, the District of Columbia excluded. Ranking them from least to most populous,
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