As a follow-up from my City Journal article last week on the end of retail (and especially malls), neighboring broadcaster WBAL-Baltimore (1090 AM/101.5 FM) asked me to do a brief clip on the future of malls for the Bryan Nehman show earlier this morning. Nehman’s program runs on WBAL from 5a to 9a each weekday, and my
A small gas station in a little-known part of the east side of Baltimore is offering the nation’s best deals on gasoline. Here’s a pic taken from this past Friday. Can’t really get a better deal than that. It’s amazing how the Shell station in the background can even compete. But if I closed out
As the term “retail apocalypse” becomes increasingly mainstream, it’s a bit comforting to see an all-too-rare example of what appears to be a purely local business trying its hand along an American-as-apple-pie main street. It’s even more comforting when the entrepreneur locates in an architecturally challenging building…and succeeds.Here we witness Glyph, a stationery-centered boutique that
I’ve spotted the storefront church numerous times in the past, both in strip malls and in conventional main streets. Rarely (if ever) have I described it with flattering words. It’s not that I harbor any hostility to the exercise of religion, nor do I feel that church plantings need to take place in conventional ecclesiastical
On a quiet corner in a mostly residential area, a modest little gas station offers a visual time warp to the 1950s.Where are all the digital numbers? And how much would it cost just to keep those dinosaur gas pumps working in this day and age? Normally, when we encounter a service station with infrastructure
Just a few weeks after a moribund mall montage, I’m back, despite the fact that these photo-heavy articles take forever and a day to create. But I can’t resist: like the Midtown Mall in Worcester, this retrograde retail ruin gets little coverage. It’s not a conventional suburban mall—it’s an urban setting, and, also like Midtown,
The river-to-rail city of Cumberland, nestled between the prodigious hills that dominate western Maryland, may not be thriving, but it sure offers some charming, timeless vistas. As is too often the case, this photo only partially captures its objective: the Cumberland skyline—a city of churches. It isn’t a big city at all, so the
As pedestrianism intensifies and its strongest advocates promulgate the newest and best practices, we predictably witness compelling or examples well beyond the big-city antecedents. Not surprisingly, we witness the same incremental improvements in accessibility for persons with disabilities, often in tandem with pedestrian upgrades. This should come as no surprise: after all, sidewalks should serve
Like many of the satellite cities surrounding Washington DC, Silver Spring offers a dense, active, well-capitalized downtown with a mixture of uses and solid accessibility, thanks to the robust and ever growing DC Metro system. And the downtown sits just a half-mile from the northwestern corner of the DC boundary, in the prosperous expanses
Imagine if you can that you’re in Frederick—Maryland’s second largest city (a distant second, after Baltimore). You’ve just passed through the resurgent downtown, where a variety of restaurants and specialty shops line Patrick Street, the primary east-west corridor. Now, as you make your way past the bustle, you encounter a few businesses that suggest a
As a follow-up from my City Journal article last week on the end of retail (and especially malls), neighboring broadcaster WBAL-Baltimore (1090 AM/101.5 FM) asked me to do a brief clip on the future of
A small gas station in a little-known part of the east side of Baltimore is offering the nation’s best deals on gasoline. Here’s a pic taken from this past Friday. Can’t really get
As the term “retail apocalypse” becomes increasingly mainstream, it’s a bit comforting to see an all-too-rare example of what appears to be a purely local business trying its hand along an American-as-apple-pie main
I’ve spotted the storefront church numerous times in the past, both in strip malls and in conventional main streets. Rarely (if ever) have I described it with flattering words. It’s not that I
On a quiet corner in a mostly residential area, a modest little gas station offers a visual time warp to the 1950s.Where are all the digital numbers? And how much would it cost
Just a few weeks after a moribund mall montage, I’m back, despite the fact that these photo-heavy articles take forever and a day to create. But I can’t resist: like the Midtown Mall
The river-to-rail city of Cumberland, nestled between the prodigious hills that dominate western Maryland, may not be thriving, but it sure offers some charming, timeless vistas. As is too often the case,
As pedestrianism intensifies and its strongest advocates promulgate the newest and best practices, we predictably witness compelling or examples well beyond the big-city antecedents. Not surprisingly, we witness the same incremental improvements in
Like many of the satellite cities surrounding Washington DC, Silver Spring offers a dense, active, well-capitalized downtown with a mixture of uses and solid accessibility, thanks to the robust and ever growing DC
Imagine if you can that you’re in Frederick—Maryland’s second largest city (a distant second, after Baltimore). You’ve just passed through the resurgent downtown, where a variety of restaurants and specialty shops line Patrick
