The Burbs
Cities and Free Markets: The Manufactured American Dream
For some reason or another people seem to associate cities with socialism and suburbs with the capitalist American dream. The notion that the strong middle class created American suburbia has been engraved in our minds for all of recent American history. Contrary to popular belief however, it wasn’t always like this. In fact, as far [...]
5 Takeaways from “Defend Your Ride”
Towards the end of last year I had the opportunity to produce a blog feature for CBS Detroit called Defend Your Ride (which is why there was a bit of a lull in posting for a while). The segment is being done in numerous cities around the country and I was called on to head [...]
(Slum)Lord of the Inner-Ring
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 window every day. What you also see are the kids that leave for school every morning from [...]
A Parking Spot to Play In
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 lot takes up, there is a lot of ‘dead’ space in our communities. But what if parking lots are truly [...]
Urban Planning 101 – Walkability
You’ve probably never heard of Collingwood, Ontario. It’s a smaller municipality on the north shores of Ontario, Northwest of Toronto. They have a YouTube channel where their planning department takes a look at different planning principles of planning and aspects of what they do. This video is a segment on walkability. You can check out [...]
Community Growth and Crisis Challenge
Here’s an interesting little documentary from 1959 warning people about the dangers of suburban sprawl. And who produced it? The National Association of Home Builders. An interesting prophecy to say the least.
Bus Rapid Transit is the new reality for Detroit, no light rail in sight.
In the city of Detroit this holiday Season, the city council isn’t taking a vacation. In the city of Lansing, the state of Michigan is reviewing the books for Detroit. When they are done, the city council may not have a job waiting for them if they leave. In the city of Washington DC, Transportation Secretary Ra [...]
Night of the Living Burbs
When I was a kid, I grew up in a subdivision in Clinton Township, Michigan (a northern suburb of Detroit). Despite being part of the urban sprawl that is the greater metro United States, this neighborhood was about as non-walkable as could be. There were (and still aren’t) any sidewalks, many of the houses were set fairly [...]
How does one rebuild “trust” in Detroit?
Detroit is at a crossroads. We can take the opportunities we have been given and make something great, or we can continue to squabble away our future because we simply cannot get along with each other. The Detroit Free Press ran an opinion article yesterday written by a member of the Detroit Revitalization Fellows (you can read [...]
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