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
Never afraid to rouse the ire of urban activists by challenging their orthodoxy, I’m going to give it a try in what will remain my current stomping grounds at least a little while longer: Washington DC. Yes, even amidst all the eggheads around these parts, and despite a generally commendable urban fabric (most of DC
When it comes to establishing a cultural or sociological partition between civic art and graffiti, I recognize that I often have to walk a fine line. After all, I’ve chronicled enough murals on the sides of buildings—some publicly sanctioned, others not so much—to judge when the artistic effort is going to stand the test of
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
Among transportation planners, it is almost universally acknowledged that two-way streets are healthier for downtown vitality than one-way streets. Storefronts on two-way streets tend to command higher lease rates, indicating that demand among prospective tenants is greater than a similar storefront that fronts a one-way street. It’s not because one-way streets get less traffic; in
Where I grew up in the Midwest, most county seats enjoy an almost overbearingly consistent urban form at their historic core. With few exceptions, they feature the archetypal courthouse square. The four blocks fronting this courthouse—the four sides of the square—serve as the commercial core, with a variety of different sizes of 19th century buildings:
After seventy years of steady and often astronomical growth—from 1940 to 2010—suburban Fairfax County Virginia finally slowed in the 2010s to a more modest pace. It had no choice. This county opposite the Potomac River from Washington DC is developed across about 75% of its 390-square-mile land area. Even more impressive is that isn’t even
As I fine-tune and finish up a much longer blog post, I wanted to fill this dry spell with some amusing content that serves as a follow-up to an unexpectedly popular blog post from about a year ago. I noted last spring the strange, recent proliferation of bumper stickers (magnets in actuality) alerting passers-by of
By far the most common keyword I’ve used in this blog is “signage”. At the time of this post, I have written 205 articles that feature the topic. This should come as no surprise. After all, it’s a blog on the built environment, and signs are ubiquitous anywhere humans have a presence; additionally the fundamental
It’s hard to imagine this in 2022, but there was indeed an era when meme was not a part of common parlance. Such a time may be hard to conceive for the Generation Zoomers, but most older Millennials and all Xers can recall when they somehow knew and fully understood what the term means, even
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
Never afraid to rouse the ire of urban activists by challenging their orthodoxy, I’m going to give it a try in what will remain my current stomping grounds at least a little while
When it comes to establishing a cultural or sociological partition between civic art and graffiti, I recognize that I often have to walk a fine line. After all, I’ve chronicled enough murals on
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
Among transportation planners, it is almost universally acknowledged that two-way streets are healthier for downtown vitality than one-way streets. Storefronts on two-way streets tend to command higher lease rates, indicating that demand among
Where I grew up in the Midwest, most county seats enjoy an almost overbearingly consistent urban form at their historic core. With few exceptions, they feature the archetypal courthouse square. The four blocks
After seventy years of steady and often astronomical growth—from 1940 to 2010—suburban Fairfax County Virginia finally slowed in the 2010s to a more modest pace. It had no choice. This county opposite the
As I fine-tune and finish up a much longer blog post, I wanted to fill this dry spell with some amusing content that serves as a follow-up to an unexpectedly popular blog post
By far the most common keyword I’ve used in this blog is “signage”. At the time of this post, I have written 205 articles that feature the topic. This should come as no
It’s hard to imagine this in 2022, but there was indeed an era when meme was not a part of common parlance. Such a time may be hard to conceive for the Generation
