Asterisk

A Placemaking Journal

Retail Redemption: Skivvies Uncovered, then Promptly Covered

Howard Blackson
Howard Blackson Twitter Instagram
A couple months ago I rambled on here about my inability to purchase a particularly critical item of men’s apparel during an extended tour of new urban projects throughout the southeast. Modesty was not my problem. Rather, despite healthy commercial activity most everywhere I went, I could find no walkable stores catering... Continue Reading
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Zoning as Spiritual Practice: From me to we to Thee

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
Get right with God. Fix your zoning. That’s not something you hear regularly from the pulpit, maybe. But it’s gospel nonetheless. Here’s why: If there’s one common thread woven through the world’s most enduring religions, it’s the call to connectivity: Self to others to everything. Not everyone gives... Continue Reading
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Fat-tastic! Can Small Thinking Solve Our Super-Sized Problems?

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
According to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- more commonly known for crunching global budget and employment numbers  -- the United States is on track to be 75% obese by 2020. 3 out of every 4. And if you check with researchers at Johns Hopkins University, they’ll... Continue Reading
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Katrina’s Fifth Anniversary: Getting Real in Mississippi

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
Every year since Hurricane Katrina mauled the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coasts, I’ve returned to Mississippi around the storm’s August 29 anniversary to renew friendships and refine my capacity for humility. The friendships have turned out to be the most rewarding outcomes of the 2005 Mississippi Renewal Forum,... Continue Reading
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Wrestling with Jane, Robert and Andrés

Howard Blackson
Howard Blackson Twitter Instagram
Recently, I have been intrigued by newly emerging books and articles critical of Jane Jacobs’ legacy on our built environment. Fifty years ago, she was the community activist who ‘saved’ New York city’s Greenwich Village and went on to become the post-modern icon to inspire citizens and urbanist to this day. She... Continue Reading
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Sustainability’s Triple Bottom Line: Tool for Commit-a-Phobes?

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
As a recovering journalist, I’m working hard to suppress old impulses. But habits of a couple decades are hard to shake. Which is why I’m struggling with familiar twitches of cynicism when it comes to “sustainability.” We’ve reached a point where just about everybody is laying claim to a sustainability strategy,... Continue Reading
Category Public Policy
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The Suburbs: Arcade Fire, Childhood Memory, and the Future of Growth

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
I’m in my 40s. I grew up in the suburbs. It was awesome. And then it wasn’t. Never before and, perhaps, never again will there be as efficient and reliable a machine for manufacturing idealized childhood memories. The suburbs of the 60s and 70s, maybe even the 80s, were like some sort of paradise. (more…) Continue Reading
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Brave New Codes Reach Tipping Point: When, Where, Why?

Hazel Borys
Hazel Borys Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
A year ago, Apple's sales of its iPhone and iPod Touch eclipsed 40 million units, confirming their potential to fundamentally retool our future opportunities and patterns of daily life. Today, a year later, form-based codes hit a similar milestone, with similar implications, as over 330 cities and towns around the world... Continue Reading
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Considering Community in the Face of Tragedy

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
Something terrible happened in my neighborhood. The specific details of the incident have been covered elsewhere and are not especially relevant to my point here so I’ll spare you the rehash. Suffice it to say that, during what was reportedly a messy divorce, one of my neighbors killed his five year old son rather... Continue Reading
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Back to the Farm (And to the Bunker)

Ben Brown
Ben Brown
Just when reporters were beginning to buy into the hopefulness of “sprawl repair” and “ag is the new golf,” Andres Duany trips them up with visions of the dark side. Or at least the really hard side, as in the hard work ahead if we’re to reverse the direction of 20th century excesses. "Our wealth as a nation... Continue Reading
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