Back when I was younger and a lot poorer I built a small cottage in rural Hawaii. At the time I didn’t qualify for any sort of mortgage or construction loan so I built incrementally and paid for things over a period of several years on a cash basis. In the end the house cost … Continue reading Building Codes and the Self Built Mortgage Free Home
I’m in the process of filming a story about a woman who is opening a new business she’s calling the Locastore. Her goal is to provide a high quality alternative to corporate chain convenience stores that can be replicated and scaled up in many other rural communities. She will only be selling items … Continue reading The $100,000 roadside produce stand
Meet Alek and Anjali and their self-built mortgage-free Tiny House. They built their home while they were still living in Iowa and then relocated to northern California. They now live quite comfortably in the large back garden of a conventional home in exchange for maintaining the landscape. Anjali was determined to attend graduate school and … Continue reading Alek and Anjali’s Tiny House
I started keeping honey bees on my roof here in San Francisco five years ago. I wanted chickens but my neighbors put the kibosh on that one. It was probably for the best. We have no actual soil – just a small patch of concrete between buildings which only gets partial sun. I decided that … Continue reading Urban Beekeeping
When I was a freshman in high school many years ago I had a part time job as a draftsman at a local design firm. My boss owned a modest home in a quiet part of town composed mostly of old Victorians. He explained that as a young first time buyer he was able to … Continue reading Affordable Housing by Other Means
This is the house I grew up in. It wasn’t a terrible house. It wasn’t a great house. It was what my parents could afford. And it was nearly identical to all the houses that everyone in suburban southern New Jersey lived in back in the 1970’s. People with more money fixed up these little … Continue reading Suburbs and Class Identity
Lost in the suburban sprawl of New Jersey are remnants of previous forms of town planning from the pre-World War II era. One of my favorite examples is Island Heights along the Toms River in Ocean County. I’d like to describe the town and compare and contrast its urban form with the surrounding sprawl. Island … Continue reading Waterfront Development – Old vs. New
A while back I visited friends at their home on the New Jersey shore. The home was spacious and comfortable with a great water view. It was, in fact, a million dollar home. Like many homes along the coast in New Jersey there was a canal in their back yard. New Jersey is the most … Continue reading Aquatic Cul-De-Sacs, Finance, and Risk Management
Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns recently opened a conversation about race and inequality as it relates to urban planning in America. I’d like to respond. Half of all Americans under the age of five are either latino, black, or Asian – or more likely some combination of those three mixed with some European lineage. In twenty … Continue reading Race, Class, and the New Slums
Granola Shotgun 