Several months ago, I featured two examples of integrating sustainability and conservation into the built environment through civic participation in a blog post. The Greensburg, Kansas example that I featured has been relatively high profile. By most measurements, it remains the most ecologically friendly small town in America: since recovering from a catastrophic tornado, Greensburg
A few years ago I was assigned to collect demographics on the downtowns of a number of different American cities of varying sizes, from Detroit to Lafayette Louisiana, using carefully defined census tracts that correlated as well as possible from 1970 to 2000. We were hoping to find similar characteristics to the downtown dwellers across
It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to guess that one of the greatest concerns in retaining the viability of historic urban centers involves the accommodation of parking. Ask anyone what his or her opinion of X downtown is, and chances are excellent that the issue of where to put the car will
In this widely suburbanizing nation, it is enough that our historic urban centers must continually seek assert their viability through new methods of socioeconomic or political re-branding in order not to implode. But what about the small towns, far removed from metro areas? In many cases they imploded long ago, devoid of a raison d’être,
In part one of this essay, I explored how the successful business, Trader’s Point Creamery, has become an archetype for the character of the community of Trader’s Point, a large spread of rolling wooded countryside still sitting squarely within Indianapolis city limits. This is a part of the city that, while affluent, has relinquished lot
As an antidote to my previous, text-heavy post, I offer one that focuses almost entirely on images, looking at remnants of small towns and rural communities in Marion County that have long ago been engulfed by the continuous urbanization of the city of Indianapolis. I’m not the first to attempt this. Urban Indy has featured
When a community takes a banal public works project and gussies it up, it is certain to divert a visitor’s gaze—what normally blends in to the landscape because of its ubiquity and sheer ordinariness has suddenly become remarkable. Other initiatives simply attempt to camouflage what the public almost unanimously agrees is an ugly piece of
Sometimes the most modest and unremarkable streetscape features can elicit subtly important results. A few weeks ago, I was driving through Mooresville, a small (population about 10,000) Indianapolis bedroom community, best known as the home town of folk hero/bank robber John Dillinger and, apparently, the pig from the Green Acres series. I was stopped close
When I was in school a few years ago doing research on various downtowns across the US, we had to spend twice as much effort on gathering demographics for New York City than we did for anywhere else. Of course this has something to do with the fact that the residential population of downtown Manhattan
Several months ago, I featured two examples of integrating sustainability and conservation into the built environment through civic participation in a blog post. The Greensburg, Kansas example that I featured has been relatively
A few years ago I was assigned to collect demographics on the downtowns of a number of different American cities of varying sizes, from Detroit to Lafayette Louisiana, using carefully defined census tracts
It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to guess that one of the greatest concerns in retaining the viability of historic urban centers involves the accommodation of parking. Ask anyone what
In this widely suburbanizing nation, it is enough that our historic urban centers must continually seek assert their viability through new methods of socioeconomic or political re-branding in order not to implode. But
In part one of this essay, I explored how the successful business, Trader’s Point Creamery, has become an archetype for the character of the community of Trader’s Point, a large spread of rolling
As an antidote to my previous, text-heavy post, I offer one that focuses almost entirely on images, looking at remnants of small towns and rural communities in Marion County that have long ago
When a community takes a banal public works project and gussies it up, it is certain to divert a visitor’s gaze—what normally blends in to the landscape because of its ubiquity and sheer
Sometimes the most modest and unremarkable streetscape features can elicit subtly important results. A few weeks ago, I was driving through Mooresville, a small (population about 10,000) Indianapolis bedroom community, best known as
When I was in school a few years ago doing research on various downtowns across the US, we had to spend twice as much effort on gathering demographics for New York City than
