Blogspot - urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com - Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space
General Information:
Latest News:
Washington, DC and protest 24 Aug 2013 | 11:56 pm
Being the National Capital, Washington, DC is a symbol of the nation, and the National Mall is frequently a place of celebration; such as events held during the Presidential Inauguration; festival, su...
DC wastes $122 million on new high school: evidence of failures in capital improvements planning and budgeting 23 Aug 2013 | 10:42 pm
While DC politicos and alumni of Dunbar High School celebrate the construction of a new school ("DC leaders, alumni to celebrate new Dunbar High School facility" from the Post), all I can think of is ...
Casinos in Atlantic City may be a losing proposition 23 Aug 2013 | 06:51 pm
Scale & Positioning I was talking with someone about "The Nook," the e-book created by Barnes & Noble. We were talking about "scale." B&N is a big company, with more than 600 bookstores, plus the c...
Testing changes to zoning with demonstration projects 23 Aug 2013 | 02:48 am
This coop in Ballard is tucked in the corner of the lot, against the back alley. One of the big problems with zoning is that it is an all or nothing phenomenon. Usually there are a number of author....
Photo query: NSA-related graffiti in DC 23 Aug 2013 | 01:48 am
A government official's email on community lists is seeking reports of NSA-related political graffiti, to be able to send out crews to eradicate it. But I'd like to see some if people have come acro....
Will carriage houses destroy city life as we know it? 16 Aug 2013 | 03:15 pm
Last Friday's (8/9/2013) Express/The Washington Post's "Ready to Rent" section featured the carriage house as a desirable place to live. See "Your Own Private Hideaway." I haven't figured out where t...
Interesting wrinkle on neighborhood revitalization: investor fixing nearby properties to raise own property values (part two) 15 Aug 2013 | 06:50 pm
There is an older blog post, "Does it matter who is buying foreclosed homes in Oakland?," by Callie Shanafelt of the California Health Report about the prevalence of investor acquisition of foreclosed...
Interesting wrinkle on neighborhood revitalization: investor fixing nearby properties to raise own property values (part one) 15 Aug 2013 | 06:35 pm
The Wall Street Journal has an intriguing article, "Companies Spruce Up Neighborhoods, Putting Gentrification in Overdrive," about how a company, REO Homes LLC, which scooped up a bunch of single fami...
Bike-based library outreach (and similar active outreach efforts by public agencies) 15 Aug 2013 | 02:03 am
Notions Capital calls our attention to this NPR piece, "'Books On Bikes' Helps Seattle Librarians Pedal To The Masses," although it also turns out that Library Journal wrote about Seattle Public Libra...
Public buildings as vehicles for community improvement (continued) 15 Aug 2013 | 01:15 am
I have a bad habit, as long as my pieces are, of taking some things for granted so I don't write them out. In the recent entry about the "Reeves Building Myth" ("It's time to retire the old saw about...
