I’ve engaged in some speculation before about the size and character of Google’s effort to digitize the nearly 5 million volumes in the University of Michigan library as part of their plan to digitize the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Oxford, and The New York Public Library. I’ve also […]
Shaw’s Buried Stream
Regular visitors to D.C.’s Shaw-Howard University Metro Station will be familiar with the water. Year-round, a soft trickling sound can be heard in the damp station, and sometimes the water visibly flows over the southbound rail bed. In the photo to the right, the flow has slowed leaving a series of puddles. Although the station […]
Catholic City, University Rises in Florida
Ave Maria, Florida is a lot of things. To its developer, it will be a “compact, walkable, self-sustaining” city of 30,000 people. To Ave Maria University, it is home to their new campus, the first major Catholic university constructed in the U.S. in 40 years. To its founder Tom Monaghan, it will be a conservative […]
Announcing Planetizen’s Interchange
All too often when I tell people I am studying urban planning, my statement is met by a blank stare. Some will mumble something about a city they’ve been to, or admit they don’t know much about it. Urban planning’s lack of visibility extends to the web, where there is a depressing lack of good […]
Analyzing Washington’s Block 450
For a recent assignment for a class in urban design I am taking, I analyzed a block in downtown Washington, D.C. The block is located at Mount Vernon Square, bounded by New York Avenue NW, 7th Street NW, and L Street NW. The block is part of the original L’Enfant plan, square 0450 in modern […]
Mapping Development in College Park
Today at Rethink College Park we launched an interactive Google Map of all the various development projects we have written about so far on that website. It also serves as a graphical index to the site, since each point is linked to a page containing all our posts on the project. While it’s not as […]
Discuss D.C. Neighborhood ‘Turf Wars’ Thursday
This event featuring a new book about the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood caught my eye. It’s the first I’ve heard of the book which sounds quite interesting. As a note, Mt. Pleasant was also the subject of Brett Williams’ 1988 work, Upscaling Downtown: Stalled Gentrification in Washington DC, meaning it has been “gentrifying” in somebody’s mind […]