H appy birthday to me! I’ve chosen to share a gift with you, the first episode of my podcast. Stream right here and please share this gift with others. For those of you who want to go back and read the Grist.org article I mention in the podcast, you can go here. Also, be patient […]
ShareI’ve wanted to do this for a while, but came up with all kinds of excuses. No more. Even if this is just a public way for me to clear my thoughts on a few articles that have come past my inbox, news feed and stream, then here it is. However, before I launch in […]
Share So your clothes are dirty. The hamper is overflowing. No big deal right? The washer and dryer are in the closet. Or maybe you have to lug them downstairs, but nevertheless, laundry machines are never too far away. Unless you are me and living in Downtown Greensboro, without the rental machines that cost way […]
ShareThe urbanist blogosphere has been on fire again over this idea of an urban hierarchy . I love Aaron Renn’s commentary as a whole he’s traditionally highlighted small cities. I also believe that he’s only digging deeper into what others have already said, namely Richard Florida, on the state of our cities. However, I believe […]
Share I had no intention of leaving the blog idle for this long. Yet, occasionally, living the actual life of an urbanist gets in the way of being able to write about it. Yet while away from my urbanist pen, I was able to experience two key events that I think have major significance in […]
Share From my observations, downtowns across America live and die by their arts institutions. I know this is the case in Greensboro. We are currently debating the need for a new performing arts center downtown, thanks to the need to update our current civic center auditorium and the opportunity to pay down debts. Yet, if […]
ShareBrother Langston’s classic poem “Dream Deferred” is heavy on my mind today. I woke up this morning after dreaming once again that my beloved enclosed mall, the Four Seasons Town Centre, is dying, along with our surrounding neighborhood. The mall had many glory days from the time it opened in the 1970′s, but starting in […]
Share It’s been roughly 48 hours since the last session at CNU 20 and I’ve been home about 24 of those hours with a sore throat and bruised heels from all the great debates, ideas, dances, food and fellowship that I encountered at the Congress. There were so many diverse viewpoints this year that it […]
Share Last week, I presented the case on Killing the Civic Inferiority Complex at CNU 20. I also released a companion e-book. It is part picture book of my hometown of Greensboro, NC and part self-help book for those who are having serious issues with the municipality they reside in. All of it is my […]
Share Today I am sharing my space with Katie McCaskey of Urban Escapee. She and I are examining different shades of the words “rural urbanism”. Below she examines the racial element and on her blog I explore the place-related element. Enjoy! Our rural urbanism captured my attention when I moved from New York City to […]
ShareWhat makes a suburb a suburb? It’s one of the major questions that is at the center of the battle for how governments or independent communities of people should regulate and create public space. This issue has been on my mind quite a bit in the last few months. First, it was Emily Badger’s Pseudosuburbanism […]
Share What is cool? There’s a new book about that, but it’s focused primarly on African-Americans. What about everyone else? What makes something cool? Why are people coming back downtown? This sign on the back of a building in Durham invites people to come to their main street and find it. I just look at […]
Want me to help you build a better community? Need to understand how to use marketing tools to help your cause or community? Want me to speak on culture and urbanism? I can help and my rates are reasonable. Here’s a basic list of my services Social Media Training and Site Maintenance Traditional Media Relations […]
Three major things are going on with me right now. The first is that I completed my masters of public affairs! For the last two years, I’ve been studying urban policy from the inside out with a wonderful group of classmates and challenging teachers. It was in an urban policy class that I decided that […]
