A sight last night intrigued me. It was a young black couple: hip, with hip black hair, casual but stylish clothes, doing a waltz. Not just any waltz, a waltz with an accomplished sense of style and an edge that didn’t reek of geek.
Now, it wasn’t just the color, style and age of the couple [...]
This online article, On Borrowed Time: Urban decline moves to the suburbs — was sent to me by a local guy whose thinking I respect tremendously. It’s a looooooong article. And I recommend it for some expanded thinking about the challenges suburbs everywhere are facing.
One of the things I find maddening about the Values Wars [...]
My goodness! A $650,000 home for sale on Thunder Hill Road. Mind you, that doesn’t include any landscaping … not even a line of one-gallon azaleas planted too close to the house. It’s right by the intersection of Thunder Hill and Route 175, no less. I guess that’s a selling point as it offers “easy [...]
Just got this link from a fellow Xer Bill Santos, who is a regular reader of Cooltown Studios. Why does walkability have to be only an urban thing? Why can’t we take the suburban scene and add some adaptive thinking and create a functioning, walkable shopping area?
My, how I wait for / push for / [...]
Here’s an online survey requesting community feedback about what to do vis-a-vis OM and community-building. It takes about five minutes to complete, if you feel so inclined to participate.
These are the opening words to a 1997 essay about my hometown, Columbia, Md., written by Alex Marshall and published in Metropolis Magazine. (My bolds.) You’ll find this paragraph inside:
Roughly a third of the land was dedicated to what in developers lingo is known as “open space,” which gives Columbia its ambiance of greenness and [...]
Child of the ’70s I am. (Back in Columbia’s early days … when Columbia was fresh and new and exciting.) Sonny and Cher on Sunday nights! Here’s my girl, singing and bringing it on.
Sonny and Cher in 1967, Columbia’s birth year.
Now, as successful [...]
By Guest Blogger, Cherie Beck
After watching this provocative video clip from 2004 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference (it’s about ideas worth spreading) it became even more obvious to me that the posturing we are doing around downtown development, particularly the argument and focus related to building heights, is way off the mark.
Below is a link [...]
Oh, dear. Well, I really do want this blog to be a collection of perspectives from my generation, but I’m bubbling with thoughts just now, so I’ll add some more of my own postings, hoping others will join me here soon.
OK, so I just read this great trail of 26 comments on a particular blogpost [...]
On their website, Coalition for Columbia’s Downtown borrows a quote from the Great Law of the Iriquois Nations Confederacy: “In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”
Exactly.
Setting aside the majority of Columbia’s lakefront area as a “protected Historic District,” as advocated by this group, [...]
