As a San Franciscan I get a lot of raised eyebrows when I mention that I recently bought property in Cincinnati. “Huh?” Then I walk them through it. Here’s the mom and pop business district along Hamilton Avenue in the Northside neighborhood during a recent Summer Streets event. This is a classic 1890’s Norman Rockwell … Continue reading Low Hanging Fruit
I’m a huge fan of the city of Cincinnati. I love the magnificent architecture, the cool people, and the gorgeous natural beauty that surrounds the city. And I’m incredibly excited that many of the best historic neighborhoods are beginning to come back to life after a fifty year slumber brought on by middle class exodus … Continue reading Revitilization in Walnut Hills, Cincinnati
I filmed this short video in a small town in Ohio to show what new accessory dwelling units can be like when the local authorities permit them. My friend Kirsten Dirksen here did a great job editing the story and I encourage people to check out her site for many similar videos. Alex and his wife are … Continue reading Ohio Accessory Dwelling Unit
Here’s what a tradition street grid looks like from Google Earth. This is how most towns in America were organized until about 1945. Kids walked to school. Families walked to church on Sunday. People could easily get to work and access the local bakery, hardware store, library, etc. without a car. This was Norman Rockwell’s … Continue reading Paved to Death
Over the last fifty or sixty years most towns have been dedicated to accommodated cars in order to cultivate business and permit people to live better more convenient lives. For new developments out in a former corn field this was effortless since everything was custom built with the automobile in mind. But older towns that had … Continue reading Towns With a Past, Towns With a Future
North America is populated with endless examples of previously great neighborhoods that have fallen on hard times. How do we reactivate these places on a super tight budget without resorting to the usual Silver Bullet build-it-and-they-will-come model of the heavily subsidized casino, stadium, outlet mall, aquarium, or convention center which are all proving increasingly ineffective … Continue reading Shoestring Pre-vitalization: Walnut Hills
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Chapman University professor and urban geographer Joel Kotkin here. But I tend to engage in a little philosophical tug of war with him over a few of his finer points. For example, Mr. Kotkin is entirely correct when he says that the vast majority of people in … Continue reading Compromised
I recently interviewed Alex Melamed and Andrew Kline of Green Generation Building in Yellow Springs, Ohio Here for an upcoming video story. They design and build highly insulated homes that meet the Passive House standard. A Passive House uses innovative construction techniques to keep itself warm in winter and cool in summer with almost no fuel. The initial cost … Continue reading The Passive House Movement: Super Insulation and Radically lower Energy Bills
I recently encountered an article on Apartment Therapy entitled, “What Are You Willing to Compromise for Location?” Here The article went on to list the many common indignities people endure in order to live in a fabulous city: multiple room mates, crazy high rents, satanic landlords, cramped windowless apartments and so on. The photo depicted my neighborhood … Continue reading What Are You Willing to Compromise for Location?
Gracen Johnson of Another Place For Me recently sent out a request for examples of adaptive reuses for outdated buildings. This is part of her exploration of what’s likely to happen to all the cheap, ugly, poorly constructed, disposable structures that currently litter the landscape all across North America. First, here’s an example of a completely … Continue reading Adaptive Reuse: Old Stuff, New Life
Granola Shotgun 