The letters “OBX” adorn many a back bumper, at least among vehicles in the eastern half of the country, particularly concentrated among the states along the Eastern Seaboard. (And typically cares at the level of Volvos and Subarus…or pricier.) It’s safe for me to wager that most people in these eastern states—loosely equating to the
I enjoyed creating my first-ever listicle article a few months ago; it was New Year’s Eve, and I didn’t feel like revving up my gray matter. And covering my most controversial blog posts was easy. This time, I’ve decide to delve into something a lot wonkier—a lot more number-crunchy. Sure, it’s just basic arithmetic, but
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
Several weeks ago I noted what I believe is a misbegotten campaign loosely branded “hostile design”, which seeks to galvanize criticism toward the now-ubiquitous effort of preventing people from getting too comfortable in shared public spaces—so comfortable it constitutes (in some people’s option) outright abuse of that shared civic trust. We’ve all seen examples: carefully
“Too many cooks…” It was an aphorism decades before it became a cult short film–maybe even centuries. We all know how it ends. And we can all think of examples. After thirteen years at the helm of this blog (American Dirt is finally a teenager!), I had to use my website’s own search function to
Hoboken, New Jersey isn’t a particularly obscure suburb. Peering right across the Hudson River toward Greenwich Village, it’s a fortuitously located municipality that basically everyone in metro New York knows. Odds are good that most adults living in the tri-state area have passed through it at one point in time. Tiny though it may
Having recently achieved a trip to my fiftieth state (forty-ninth admitted to the union), I can say with a fairly high degree of confidence that one state surpasses all the others at having developed and maintained a consistent brand. I’ll confess that it’s been many, many years since I visited Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, South
At first blush, it’s strange and disarming that a well-kept little retailer with tourist cachet wouldn’t even have a restroom available to customers. But that’s exactly what this sign in the front door of the Ulu Factory in Anchorage is telling us. It really couldn’t be more explicit. The winsome little chalet on the outskirts
Do you remember the good old days of bicycle advocacy, back when the prevailing ambition was the introduction of bike lanes, buy applying solid stripes on the pavement? If you’re older than twenty, you probably should remember those days; they weren’t that long ago. As recently as the mid-2000s, the standard for bike-friendliness was bike
Let’s face it: it doesn’t matter how big or vibrant your city’s downtown is. Generally speaking, the civic plazas immediately outside the major municipal buildings are dead on weekends. There just isn’t any magnetism, given that these buildings host city government functions, which typically operate during regular business hours, Monday through Friday. (Emergency and corrections
The letters “OBX” adorn many a back bumper, at least among vehicles in the eastern half of the country, particularly concentrated among the states along the Eastern Seaboard. (And typically cares at the
I enjoyed creating my first-ever listicle article a few months ago; it was New Year’s Eve, and I didn’t feel like revving up my gray matter. And covering my most controversial blog posts
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
Several weeks ago I noted what I believe is a misbegotten campaign loosely branded “hostile design”, which seeks to galvanize criticism toward the now-ubiquitous effort of preventing people from getting too comfortable in
“Too many cooks…” It was an aphorism decades before it became a cult short film–maybe even centuries. We all know how it ends. And we can all think of examples. After thirteen years
Hoboken, New Jersey isn’t a particularly obscure suburb. Peering right across the Hudson River toward Greenwich Village, it’s a fortuitously located municipality that basically everyone in metro New York knows. Odds are good
Having recently achieved a trip to my fiftieth state (forty-ninth admitted to the union), I can say with a fairly high degree of confidence that one state surpasses all the others at having
At first blush, it’s strange and disarming that a well-kept little retailer with tourist cachet wouldn’t even have a restroom available to customers. But that’s exactly what this sign in the front door
Do you remember the good old days of bicycle advocacy, back when the prevailing ambition was the introduction of bike lanes, buy applying solid stripes on the pavement? If you’re older than twenty,
Let’s face it: it doesn’t matter how big or vibrant your city’s downtown is. Generally speaking, the civic plazas immediately outside the major municipal buildings are dead on weekends. There just isn’t any