Sustaining Place

This Too Shall Pass

In Urbanism Without Effort, I wrote that storefronts have always made the city. One reason is the messages they communicate, which is why blank walls…

There’s Still a Place for a Metaphor

In England, a simple urban view is a regular contrast to the views that I saw while growing up. The latter showed a built environment…

Exploring the Sense-Based City of Change

In mid-May, I began Sustaining Place with an explanation of why and how to document emergence from lockdown in May and June. From a London…

Amid Protest: Simple Community, on Display

People blend with their surroundings in cities. Today, in our dual pandemic world of disease and social justice (including a new tragedy in Atlanta), we…

Of Monuments, Messages, and Change

Over the past several years, I have often posted a photograph and used it as a prompt for reflection. In Seeing the Better City, I…

Today in the City, Survival Means Transition

Pandemic or not, we tend to talk only about what we see, even though we instinctively know that things are not always what they seem.…

Place-Return, Evolving

Here in the United Kingdom, things are waking up again, with many pandemic-based recalibrations advancing to new venues. Things are much the same as before,…

Of Landscape and Hope

In Newbury, England today, the High Street landscape shows the early easing of lockdown, surrounded by a framing sky. Such views can transcend the frantic…

Place-Healing and the Role of Adaptation

How to manage disruptive daily news that impacts our sense of well-being, highlights social disparity, or recalls the fragile balance between health and economy? As…

Next Comes Place-Healing

During these all-too strange days of pandemic and protest, it is hard to say something someone has not said already, or to express outrage in…