I love reading. Those of you who have known me in real life for years don’t doubt or dispute that. In fact, I’ve spent more money on books than clothing in the past few weeks. So I knew it would only be a matter of time until I introduced a virtual book club/bookshelf. And to […]
Just in time for the United States Thanksgiving celebration this week, I want to positively but honestly, give thanks to cities for what they do well and right. So why am I thankful for cities? Public Libraries Big Books by Flickr user Tim Samoff You may have seen the above picture on some social media […]
Privilege. The one thing I can take from reading this article and reading my words back to myself on what it has been like living as a classical new urbanist over the past year. I cannot think of another way to illustrate how I feel vis-a-vis a young man, only two years younger than me, […]
I never thought I would ever live or work outside of Greensboro again. I’ve always felt like if I wasn’t there that the city wouldn’t figure out how to fix itself. That if my work didn’t have a connection to home or if it wasn’t respected at home, then it was completely worthless. That if […]
Last newsletter I spoke about the thunder and lightening of anxiety and depression. I’ve done this before, but the recent celebrity ones made me want to dig in a bit more. This letter, I want to speak to one key thing that gets me into that place of dread or panic. That key thing is […]
One of my pet peeves in reading through the various press on metropolitan areas is when the notion of suburb (and on occasion urban) is mislabeled. This happens one of two ways, when an incorporated town, and sometimes city is labeled a suburb and when suburb is used as a euphemism for white American. I […]
Recently, I was chillin’ with some DC artists who were visiting Elsewhere, one of my favorite creative spaces here in Greensboro. Many of the people, who live in a very culturally rich city, had been waiting years for the opportunity to go down and see this art space that is now getting a lot of […]
Looking back at San Francisco from the Rockridge Station in Oakland. I wanted to note one of last night’s victories, more money for the BART system. Image by Malcolm Kenton I assume most of you are probably in a state of either shock or fear or a combination of the two. I wanted to write […]
Privilege. The one thing I can take from reading this article and reading my words back to myself on what it has been like living as a classical new urbanist over the past year. I cannot think of another way to illustrate how I feel vis-a-vis a young man, only two years younger than me, […]
Like this luggage, sometimes I linger in the sunset at the crossroads of whether or not it’s worth picking up the baggage and moving on. (Credit: Flickr user: C.M. Keiner) Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my post graduate school place of residence. There are days that I would like to spend that time […]
During my time on campus, placemaking became more than a fantasy. It was ingrained. Let’s be honest here; if we think about how much we walked, shared things, and did all of our major business within a small set of buildings and blocks, we should all have at least some good nostalgia. In fact, I’ll […]
Prior to my father’s passing, he was in a state that I have come to term “functional homelessness.” He was often a fixture at the local soup kitchens and occasionally popped into the Interactive Resource Center (IRC), our local day center for those who are either homeless or in transition. He still had his home, intermittent […]
As I finish up this week’s theme of sprawl repair, I want to ask one last question. Can we let the people gentrify (or de-sprawl) themselves? As much as I love the tactical urbanism, the push to return to the neighborhoods left behind, and to fix the broken ones that have been built and broken […]
Recently, I was made aware of and responded to this series of threads on Twitter, that among my colleagues in the D.C. area, there’s a concern over how many practitioners of place, especially planners, exist in the metro area and how many folks want to be planners by name, versus just doing the work in many […]
