David Mieksztyn – The Urbanist Dispatch

Think Before You Demolish: Balancing Preservation with the Bulldozer

January 7, 2014

They don’t build them like they used to. It’s a sentiment expressed broadly across all kinds of segments of our society, but perhaps it is no more physically noticeable than when it comes to housing. And let’...

New Daleville, PA. Photo Source: http://sadsburyparkpa.com/photos.html

Lost Harvest

David Mieksztyn

May 21, 2012

Community and Neighborhoods, Featured

For those who have read Witold Rybczynski's Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville, the following story reveals what adding the housing market crash to cornfield-new urbanism looks like. Last Harve...

Madcap Coffee, Grand Rapids, MI. Photo by Author

The History of the Coffeehouse Conversation

David Mieksztyn

March 27, 2012

Culture

1

Next time you enter into a coffee shop, just stand up and dive into political discourse by speaking out loud to all the welcoming patrons. This is apparently doing it old school, as London historian Dr. Matthew...

Karachi’s Unplanned Poor

David Mieksztyn

March 15, 2012

Community and Neighborhoods, Economic Development, Featured

Imagine everything is new, bright and shiny. Imagine this new is something that also keeps you out, pushes you away, and finds you abandoning the place you once called home. When the poor in society are pushe...

SoCo Street Shot Austin, Tx. Credit: Payton Chung on Flickr

The Hipsterability Index

David Mieksztyn

March 2, 2012

Culture

If you have thought recently 'I wonder how hipster my city is,' hoping that you are catering to this segment of the population, think no longer. With no better judge of hipsterability than Austin, Texas, we ar...

REO Rental Properties and What to Expect

David Mieksztyn

February 23, 2012

Community and Neighborhoods

When the Obama administration announced the REO to rental program in the beginning of February there was finally a sense of large scale action on the abysmal housing situation in America. Real-estate-owned (RE...

Home in Warren for Rent. Photo courtesy of Zillow.com

(Slum)Lord of the Inner-Ring

David Mieksztyn

January 30, 2012

Community and Neighborhoods, Featured, The Burbs

1

Across the street is a partially run down home, with the front screen door off its hinges, peeling paint all around the house, and a partially collapsed garage door. This is the site you see outside your front...

Crying Over Spilled Gas, Cause it Might Cost More

David Mieksztyn

January 27, 2012

News

1

Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan has decided to do what the American people do not want, increase the gas tax. First, the poll results. Reason.com conducted a poll of Americans that found that 77% of the resp...

Parking Lot Hockey. Image courtesy of The Western Star.

A Parking Spot to Play In

David Mieksztyn

January 19, 2012

The Burbs, Transportation

1

Planners and urbanists have boisterously made the case that parking lots are a nightmare in terms of land use, and with good reason behind it. Considering the amount of land a typical shopping center's parking...

Highway to Greenway

David Mieksztyn

January 5, 2012

News, Sustainability

1

In Madrid, Spain, when a highway becomes noisy and pollutant, they bury it underground and put a park on top. The New York Times recently featured Madrid Rio, an urban park created on top of a once above groun...

Author David Mieksztyn