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 […]
Rethinking College Park
Click here to visit the new blog Rethink College Park. In May I blogged about an interesting op-ed published in the University of Maryland student newspaper written by Maryland undergraduate David Daddio. Although College Park is the home of the University of Maryland’s flagship campus with almost 35,000 students and has its own Metro station […]
D.C. Long Distance Commuter Buses
Although most people in Washington’s far-flung suburbs may get around by private automobile, they are served by a number of public bus systems operated by a variety of cities and counties in the region. These systems include a number of commuter buses providing regular service to downtown Washington on comfortable coaches from points 30, 40 […]
Metrorail Growth and ‘Gentrification’ Use
This post is third in a series on gentrification in the District of Columbia. Part 1 – D.C. Gentrification and Section 8 Subsidized Housing Part 2 – ‘Gentrification’: The Birth of a Word in D.C. Part 3 – Metrorail Growth and ‘Gentrification’ Use Part 4 – Neighborhood Revitalization and Displacement In my previous post I […]
‘Gentrification’: The Birth of a Word in D.C.
This post is second in a series on gentrification in the District of Columbia. Part 1 – D.C. Gentrification and Section 8 Subsidized Housing Part 2 – ‘Gentrification’: The Birth of a Word in D.C. Part 3 – Metrorail Growth and ‘Gentrification’ Use Part 4 – Neighborhood Revitalization and Displacement I find the term “gentrification” […]
Do You Believe in UFOs?
The UFO phenomena is so embedded in the contemporary American psyche it’s no wonder they would pop up on singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens‘ album Illinoise. The two minute first track, titled “Concerning The UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois,” ponders the meaning of a mysterious three-lighted craft spotted over the state in May 2000: “Or what it […]