My third book, Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices (with Tigran Haas), will be released by early 2021 and is available for pre-order from Rowman & Littlefield, AmazonUS, AmazonUK, Barnes and Noble, and legacy bookstores worldwide. The essays and photographs exhibited on this website are a […]
Throughout the past few months, it has been harder than ever to understand ideas and experiences of place, and the forces that contribute to their definition. With the nature of safety, equity, and human behavior in tangible spaces redefining every day, I’ve looked for grounding and meaningful events to offset […]
If anyone doubted how concerns for public safety and associated protective rules guide human behavior, take a look at the seating configurations depicted above. In my mind, I hear Fred Kent, Kathy Madden, and other inheritors of William H. Whyte’s legacy. “I told you so,” they say, as public spaces contextually […]
After months inside, the outside certainly beckons, an invitation to explore from an old and treasured friend. Where better than where the Romans walked, across a West Berkshire field? In Speen, the “mother of Newbury,” post-Roman history was lost and re-emerged in Saxon times, and, later, in the Domesday Book. […]
The essays and photographs exhibited on this website are a serialized prequel to Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020/21). You may recall the excerpt from the book’s Introduction, featured on July 8, as well as references to the book’s general approach in […]
From the outset, defining the culture and character of a city is a daunting task. It involves storytelling and study, from within and without; it draws on art and science, religion and myth. It encompasses expectations, fantasy, and reality. Every individual has a different viewpoint based on his or her […]
Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping.“I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why”Counting the cars on the New Jersey TurnpikeThey’ve all come to look for AmericaAll come to look for AmericaAll come to look for America Paul Simon It’s the strangest Fourth of July […]
A phrase used on BBC News at 2:00 today is my newly adopted mantra: “A Time of Excitement and Anxiety.” I’ve adopted it as a fair summary of the balance between public health and the economy. It’s also an example of where I’ve been stuck in my head for over […]
