While almost all urban aficionados have heralded the revitalization we have witnessed in downtowns large and small across the country, the sticklers and control freaks among us have continued to cavil about one nagging shortcoming: the form of mixed-use and multifamily projects has disproportionately favored big lots with monolithic structures that, while certainly better than
A bizarre piece of infrastructure like this will inevitably captivate a few more curiosity seekers than yours truly. As a Google Images search would prove, I’m not the first to snap a pic of something like this. Still, a fire hydrant elevated about 18 inches off the ground is hardly a typical sight even in
The climate of the American high plains may not be completely desert-like, but the similarities are uncanny: relatively little rain or moisture in the air, a temperature that plunges at night throughout the year, considerable variation between summer and winter, but fiercely hot in the former. Many of these characteristics incidentally bespeak high altitudes more
On a serene stretch of Interstate 70 in western Maryland—west of Hagerstown but not yet to the point where the freeway veers sharply northward into Pennsylvania—it’s still possible in mid April to see some antiquated power lines that parallel the road, even as dusk approaches. The foliage isn’t yet thick enough, so there they are.
In this day and age, with throngs of Baby Boomers approaching and entering retirement, quite a few are inevitably seeking to downsize from the comfy, commodious single-family detached homes where they raised heir kids. Some have already scaled back, and the exodus will only continue in the years ahead, as this unusually large and influential
Even if it’s not a commissioned piece like the mural from my previous post, the landscape of artistic expression in Detroit is rich. Since such a huge portion of it comes in the form of graffiti—which is almost always by definition an act of vandalism—it’s understandable that my opening sentence might carry a whiff of
Inevitably, communities evolve to reflect the personalities of their inhabitants. Such an assertion may come across as glib, and it probably is, but it’s far better than the opposite—when a character of its community seems at odds with its constituents’ goals. A fundamental goal of an effective representative democracy is that local governments allow people
When navigating through an unfamiliar place, either urban or rural, we tend to seek visual points of reference to aid us in further wayfinding. It is as instinctual of an action as folding the corner of a book to keep our place in lieu of a bookmark. Across the countryside, visual cues assume a variety
When an instructor for a real estate and development class told his students, “You can’t own a view,” he said it with the nonchalance that suggested it should become a mantra. What he was implying was that neither the developer nor the prospective property owner should stake all of an investment on the quality of
It probably doesn’t seem like the most savory topic, and it’s already my second blog post to reference the porcelain god. But wastewater removal is such a fundamental infrastructural component to sustaining dense developments that it is impossible to ignore or make light of it. For nascent settlements in resource-poor parts of the globe, it
While almost all urban aficionados have heralded the revitalization we have witnessed in downtowns large and small across the country, the sticklers and control freaks among us have continued to cavil about one
A bizarre piece of infrastructure like this will inevitably captivate a few more curiosity seekers than yours truly. As a Google Images search would prove, I’m not the first to snap a pic
The climate of the American high plains may not be completely desert-like, but the similarities are uncanny: relatively little rain or moisture in the air, a temperature that plunges at night throughout the
On a serene stretch of Interstate 70 in western Maryland—west of Hagerstown but not yet to the point where the freeway veers sharply northward into Pennsylvania—it’s still possible in mid April to see
In this day and age, with throngs of Baby Boomers approaching and entering retirement, quite a few are inevitably seeking to downsize from the comfy, commodious single-family detached homes where they raised heir
Even if it’s not a commissioned piece like the mural from my previous post, the landscape of artistic expression in Detroit is rich. Since such a huge portion of it comes in the
Inevitably, communities evolve to reflect the personalities of their inhabitants. Such an assertion may come across as glib, and it probably is, but it’s far better than the opposite—when a character of its
When navigating through an unfamiliar place, either urban or rural, we tend to seek visual points of reference to aid us in further wayfinding. It is as instinctual of an action as folding
When an instructor for a real estate and development class told his students, “You can’t own a view,” he said it with the nonchalance that suggested it should become a mantra. What he
It probably doesn’t seem like the most savory topic, and it’s already my second blog post to reference the porcelain god. But wastewater removal is such a fundamental infrastructural component to sustaining dense