A previous map I made of vacant property owned by a neighborhood church in my D.C. neighborhood has proven a popular and controversial post, attracting views and comments months after it was first published. Although the church does own a number of vacant buildings in the neighborhood, I have often thought they are singled out […]
Building a Community with Bits and Backhoes
As you read this, heavy construction crews are hard at work grading roads, laying infrastructure, and preparing to build homes and offices in Austin, Texas’s newest neighborhood. Located on the former site of the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport (which closed in 1999), the 711 acre Mueller redevelopment project will be larger in size than either […]
Free Your Data
While new websites have done a terrific job allowing people to share text, photos, and videos, one form of data that has thus far resisted the trend towards new collaborative tools is raw data. Even the best websites generally isolate data as downloadable spreadsheets, leaving it to the individual users to analyze the results and […]
Do You Know UNESCO?
Quick, can you name the 20 sites in the United States designated by the United Nations as World Heritage Sites? If you are like me, the answer is probably no. On my trip to South Africa, I was struck by how proud that country is of its 8 sites, which includes Robben Island and the […]
What’s Needed: Community Vacant Property Database
Like many U.S. cities, vacant properties are a stubborn problem that continues to plague the District. The city’s official list has over 2,000 properties listed, and it seems likely the actual number is much higher. An article in today’s Examiner describes how these properties can impact neighborhoods. Despite high demand for both housing and retail, […]
Who Wants to Live in Pabst City?
Soon, Pabst-loving hipsters will be able to live in the buildings where the beer they saved was once brewed. Founded in Milwaukee in 1844, the Pabst Brewing Company’s flagship beer earned its name during the 1893 Columbian World’s Exposition in Chicago, where it was awarded the blue ribbon as America’s best beer. However, economic realities […]
Fixing American Cities, the 21st Century Way
I just posted my monthly blog post to Planetizen. Here’s part: After the dramatic collapse of the Minneapolis freeway bridge last week, the collective hand-wringing began. The bridge was known to be faulty, but had not been replaced. Our entire public transit system is underfunded, we were told. In addition to transportation infrastructure, those concerned […]