suburbs - American Dirt.

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155 articles

Color choice: a gladiator match between brand green and brand red, in a strip mall coliseum.

November 9, 2023 2 Comments

The infamous book How to Lie with Maps initially offered a light-hearted attempt to explore how maps can entice, mislead, inflame, and generally propagandize, often without necessarily depicting anything geographically untruthfully. Juxtapositions (not always to scale), labels, color choice, and infographics can all endow an editorial skew on what seems like objective spatial representation. And

Asian imagery in a public restroom: an evocation of culture or just a signal for a place to pee?

October 14, 2023 4 Comments

So sue me: I’ve covered more than my fair share of public restrooms on this blog. To the best of my recollection, I’ve only featured the restrooms themselves; not the patrons. If there were ever a hint of another person lurking within the frame captured by my camera’s lens, I’d be a total creeper. But

Westwood Kmart: the company closes another. And then there were two.

September 28, 2023 8 Comments

All too frequently, what I expect to be a “small” subject ends up blowing out of proportion. For example, the last two articles took significantly more time and effort than I expected. The research bore fruit, and I struggled to constrain my analysis to a mere 1,500 words. Now I’ve finally found a subject that

Streetery of Wheaton Mall: a dining concept that pedestrianizes a garage?

September 22, 2023 2 Comments

Throughout the life of this blog, I’ve come down hard on malls. And I’ve done this, not because I fundamentally dislike them—they’re a paradigm for consumerism in the automobile era, whether we wanted it or not—but because malls in general have shown a diminishing ability to adapt to the shopping patterns of the last twenty

North Fillmore in Arlington: a street whose traffic flow changes mid-block.

September 14, 2023 2 Comments

The expansive, oddly shaped downtown district of Arlington, Virginia (it’s a county, even though it feels like a city) features some unusual intersections, which no doubt confuse motorists and pedestrians who are unfamiliar with the area. These intersections were nowhere near as precarious back in the day, when most of the area consisted of low-slung

Giant supermarkets: two companies, one turf. The name shines through with a neon glow.

August 29, 2023 8 Comments

It sure seems like the Mid Atlantic states have more than their fair share of Giant supermarkets. No, I’m not talking about anything on the scale of the one I blogged about in Fairbanks, Alaska a few years ago; that was a Fred Meyer (now a subsidiary of Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain), and

Brand refresh: Barnes & Noble goes on a tear. No books destroyed in the process.

July 20, 2023 2 Comments

A quick look at the photo above and it should be obvious that something’s afoot at this particular location of Barnes and Noble. Incidentally, I only heavily scrutinized a Barnes and Noble once before, also in Maryland, when I noticed a repositioning of merchandise within the interior just a few months ago. This time, the

Man cave goes luxurious…and literal.

July 8, 2023 No Comments

When it comes to residential real estate, amenities can fall in and out of saliency in a matter of months. By 2023 standards, it’s hard to believe that galley kitchens or intimate parlor rooms might have been popular at one time. Those of us of a certain age can recall an era when full-length mirrors

Bel Air and phantom storefronts: hiding the vacancy with little gems.

June 30, 2023 No Comments

First-time visitors to the town of Bel Air, Maryland aren’t likely to be surprised by what they see—at this point, a well-kept small-town main street isn’t exactly a rarity—but chances are it’ll still charm them. After all, Bel Air is a distant suburb of Baltimore – Charm City. It’s the seat of government for Harford

Towamencin Shopping Village: a strip mall, all dressed up for a date, but not a single suitor. (MONTAGE)

April 28, 2023 8 Comments

I’ve featured more derelict malls and shopping centers than the average reader can shake a selfie stick at. (An apt reference, since the oldest chroniclers of struggling retail—the sites DeadMalls.com and LabelScar.com—haven’t received updates since the popularization of the selfie stick. But they were great sites when I first started blogging!) As far as depressed

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