To borrow a phrase, all happy cities are alike; each unhappy city is unhappy in its own way. To learn a bit about what those unhappy ways are, three economists at Harvard and the University of British Columbia sifted through the responses by some 300,000 Americans to a national survey run by the Centers for […]
urbanism
Posted inOpinion
Advice and dissent
Rendering from a 2007 project by U of I architecture students envisioned mixed-use development on the YWCA block. “Give it back to the Indians,” I thought when I read the State Journal-Register’s call for ideas about what to do with the YWCA block downtown. “Give it back to nature. Give it to anyone other than […]
Posted inOpinion
Cakes on a plate
In a recent column (“Keeping Springfield weird,” April 25, 2013) I tried to explain why Springfield’s built environment strikes so many visitors as off-putting. I mentioned as likely causes parking lots and incoherent zoning practices and tawdry construction. I also mentioned ill-defined streetscapes, which can induce confusion and unease in the first-time visitor. So much […]
Posted inOpinion
Pedestrian design
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that a company that runs stores called Country Markets built a new one in the middle of Springfield that sits on the street like a roadside vegetable stand. In March, Steve Patterson, a St. Louis architect who blogged about the project at UrbanDesignSTL, criticized the indifference the new store […]
Posted inOpinion
A double shot of urban-type feel
“Everyone wanted it to have an ‘urban’ type feel,” said one focus group participant to the State Journal-Register about the new supermarket that Niemann Foods Inc. plans to build at Second and Carpenter, “although it’s in a neighborhood.” The County Market’s potential shoppers were talking about Starbucks and a deli counter. A surer way to […]
