For those accustom to my usual topics about urbanism and D.C., permit me a brief digression about a University of Michigan “leadership” society with a controversial history, that recently re-named themselves from Michigamua to The Order of Angell. The Ann Arbor blog Left Behind in the Fishbowl has posted what appears to be a copy […]
Detroit Plans Airport City
But will the aerotropolis be ‘cool’? Cities have always developed around modes of transit, whether they were key crossroads, strategic port harbors and rivers, or major railroad depots. Why not around airports? That question is being asked more often as the volume of air travel continues to increase and airports and the land around them […]
The Historical Idlewild
While OutKast’s new movie Idlewild (IMDB, official site) may be set in a fictional Georgia town in the 1930s, it shares a name with an actual Michigan place. Idlewild, Michigan was founded in 1912 by a group of four white businessmen as an African American resort community for the growing black middle class. The creators […]
Detroit’s ‘Dream Cruise’
Last Saturday’s Woodward Dream Cruise, billed by organizers as “the world’s largest one-day celebration of car culture,” is a car show featuring over 40,000 cars cruising along a 16-mile stretch of Woodward Avenue through nine different suburban cities. (I was able to catch a bit on Friday when I was in the Detroit area visiting […]
Is Michigan Amazing?
“Michigan has a million stories to tell,” gushes MichiganIsAmazing.com, a new blog launched by Ann Arbor public relations company Hass MS&L. The blog will feature text, images, and video submitted and voted on by users showcasing “all the great things about our state.” Everyone who submits a story idea will receive a “small gift,” and […]
My Vacation in Links
I just returned from visiting my girlfriend Libby in Michigan and parents in Maine. In Michigan Libby and I stayed at the Inn on Ferry Street, ate a Coney dog, saw a Tigers game, browsed the shelves in John King Books North, and spent time in Ferndale and Royal Oak. I noticed construction has begun […]
Student Housing in Ann Arbor
My friend Dale has just posted a rough introduction to his urban planning thesis to his blog. He is making an ambitious argument — perhaps too ambitious — but I’m interested to see what he uncovers in the process of investigating it. In this thesis, I argue that students individually and collectively were agents of […]