Suburbia of 2026 might feel as middlebrow and car-dominated as it probably did in 1966, even if “suburbanization” was a novel phenomenon back then—a condition just emerging, of which social theorists were not yet fully aware. But the design of residential communities from sixty years ago reveals subtle if powerful differences, judging from the equivalents
As we approach the Chinese Year of the Fire Horse, food halls are everywhere. The largest metropolises, college towns, tourist traps, the repurposed warehouse in that shady part of town, office parks, strip malls. Originally primarily the domain of large, old, horizontally-oriented buildings in urban districts, they seem adaptable to almost every building shell and
I usually visit the south-side suburb of Greenwood annually, upon returning to my hometown of Indianapolis over the holidays. It’s the next town over. Unsurprisingly, I cover it every year or two through an article, devoting considerable attention to the small but mostly intact Old Town neighborhood, where West Main Street intersects Madison Avenue. I’ve
Potomac Mills, in the heart of the vast Washington DC suburbia that is Northern Virginia, continues to show remarkable resiliency amidst the widespread decline of many—perhaps even most—conventional enclosed shopping malls. Dead and dying malls are, obviously, a familiar subject on this blog; even from the earliest days in the late 2000s, I explored Lafayette
Through this blog, I strive to be a “noticer”. In many instances, no doubt, I’m realizing shifts or trends that unfolded many years ago, either so slowly that almost everyone failed to notice them (the boiling frog condition), or I’m just slow at catching on. Hopefully not the latter, and preferably neither, as far as
December 2025 has proven to be the most challenging and taxing month for meeting my blogging objectives in at least six years; I rarely struggle to get my five obligatory articles completed like I did here at the end of the year. I am not going to allow January to give me these same challenges,
Yes, this article is a filler; I fully confess. The demands of a November where I was out of the country for one-third, sick for another third, then in full Thanksgiving prep mode for the final third has made it hard for me to reach my quota. So I’m cramming this one at the end
I hate to title a blog article with superlatives, because they’re so often redolent of clickbait. Everyone knows an example: “the biggest box office flop”, “the most dangerous bridge”, “the ugliest dog”, “the heaviest married couple”. Guinness Breweries managed to build a spinoff empire out of its initial 1955 Book of Records, which according to
It’s been less than a year since my article on the The Block, a small food hall in Annandale, Virginia (part of the affluent Fairfax County suburbs of Washington DC) generated a fair amount of buzz—at least by my blog’s modest standards. At that time I pointed out that The Block had bucked the trends
Crossing the Occoquan River from Prince William County to southern Fairfax County in Northern Virginia doesn’t yield a lot of surprises. Regardless of the county, it’s all suburbia, albeit a lot less dense and urbanized than Arlington County or other parts of Fairfax that are closer to Alexandria and, of course, Washington DC. But, while
Suburbia of 2026 might feel as middlebrow and car-dominated as it probably did in 1966, even if “suburbanization” was a novel phenomenon back then—a condition just emerging, of which social theorists were not
As we approach the Chinese Year of the Fire Horse, food halls are everywhere. The largest metropolises, college towns, tourist traps, the repurposed warehouse in that shady part of town, office parks, strip
I usually visit the south-side suburb of Greenwood annually, upon returning to my hometown of Indianapolis over the holidays. It’s the next town over. Unsurprisingly, I cover it every year or two through
Potomac Mills, in the heart of the vast Washington DC suburbia that is Northern Virginia, continues to show remarkable resiliency amidst the widespread decline of many—perhaps even most—conventional enclosed shopping malls. Dead and
Through this blog, I strive to be a “noticer”. In many instances, no doubt, I’m realizing shifts or trends that unfolded many years ago, either so slowly that almost everyone failed to notice
December 2025 has proven to be the most challenging and taxing month for meeting my blogging objectives in at least six years; I rarely struggle to get my five obligatory articles completed like
Yes, this article is a filler; I fully confess. The demands of a November where I was out of the country for one-third, sick for another third, then in full Thanksgiving prep mode
I hate to title a blog article with superlatives, because they’re so often redolent of clickbait. Everyone knows an example: “the biggest box office flop”, “the most dangerous bridge”, “the ugliest dog”, “the
It’s been less than a year since my article on the The Block, a small food hall in Annandale, Virginia (part of the affluent Fairfax County suburbs of Washington DC) generated a fair
Crossing the Occoquan River from Prince William County to southern Fairfax County in Northern Virginia doesn’t yield a lot of surprises. Regardless of the county, it’s all suburbia, albeit a lot less dense