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84 articles

Guerrilla gardening at the crossroads: of daffodils and debris.

The eastern seaboard—and certainly the Mid-Atlantic—has dodged most of the winter bullets that hit the Midwest, the Great Plains, and even California (!) these past few months.  Washington DC did not receive any snowfall that lingered more than a few hours.  I espied the first blossoming trees on February 19, and though the blossoms at

Most controversial blog posts: a truculent top five (plus one).

With another year coming to a close, and ushering in what will be the start of my fifteenth year at this blogging venture, I decided to attempt something that is mostly good for a laugh: a ranking list.  A listicle, if you will.  Since this is a blog whose most loyal followers are relatively few

Crown Hill’s slippery steep slope: better just to close it off altogether?

My home city of Indianapolis is not, in most respects, a city of great topographic variation.  This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has either spent time in Indiana or who forms conclusions about the Hoosier State from its representation in popular culture.  It’s a state of primarily fertile land.  Corn.  Soybeans. 

Cumberland MD: where ancient Americana rolls out a welcome mat to trendy townhomes.

There was probably a point in history when virtually every American had heard of Cumberland, Maryland.  Not only that, it’s reasonable to surmise that a significant proportion of Americans had passed through it.  Aside from the fact that, for most of Maryland’s history, it was the state’s second largest city (its “Queen City” behind Lord/King

Bicycle boulevard in a crunchy college community (Ithaca)—and good at getting over gorges.

Bicycle boulevard: it’s not just another alliteration that’s fun to say (as they usually are).  It’s a topic for which aficionados have more answers than there are people asking the questions, which I recognize isn’t exactly a selling point .  But since this isn’t always a blog for dilettantes, i’ll posit those questions nonetheless.  What

Wildlife fences in Western Colorado: are they keeping out or letting out the elk?

The fencing that line both sides of Interstate 70 in western Colorado may lack the iconic character of those creosote-lined barriers that flank the highways surrounding Lexington, Kentucky’s horse country.  The green of those rolling Appalachian hillsides offers a critical backdrop to the black-as-pitch (literally!) wood that lends structure to the fences in the Bluegrass

Corner commercial lots: are they worth more? You can bank on it.

As recently as my last blog article, I alluded to an unusual dichotomy in the value of corner parcels: for the most part, residences on street corners are less valuable than homes on the rest of the block.  People don’t the reduced privacy one expects when a property fronts two streets, when they can easily