We’ve all had that moment of panic, and despair, as the screen on our computer suddenly goes blue. Marooned. Computer hell. And pretty common. The geeks have an acronym for this condition – BSOD – the Blue Screen Of Death. It might look like this:
When this blueness shows up, your situation is suddenly very problematic. You are in [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in The next city on December 29, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Waterside Mall, in Washington, is razed. Photo from flickr.
This is our 100th post on A Town Square. Thanks for being a part of the tiny band that visits from time to time.
I was absolutely dumbfounded and thrilled the other day, when I picked up the Washington Post and read the article, below in its entirety, by [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: food, The next city: infrastructure, The next city: urbanism, tagged Keynes, Paradox of Thrift, regionalism, The next city, urbanism on December 28, 2008 | 2 Comments »
The North Sea. Photo by Captain Tim.
Spend? Save? It turns out that economist John Maynard Keynes came up with a name for the quandary I am in about saving, spending, and an economy we are watching slip beneath the waves faster than a melting glacier. He called it the Paradox of Thrift.
The Paradox goes like this: [...]
Read Full Post »
By Tom Toles, the Washington Post.
In 9th grade, Mrs. Studer told me I was a total dud at math. I guess she was right: I just can’t figure out how things are supposed to work in times like these. I think I need some help with these equations.
Finally, folks seem to be spending less, and [...]
Read Full Post »
Posted in The next city, The next city: energy, The next city: food, The next city: infrastructure, The next city: mobility, The next city: urbanism, The next city: water, tagged energy, food policy, infrastructure, mobility, Obama infrastructure plan, plumber-in-chief, The next city, urbanism, water on December 17, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Announced just over a week ago, your new infrastructure fund is now gone, Mr. President. It’s all been spent already, several times over, by politicians, constructors, lobbyists, trade associations. Get your staff to try googling “Obama infrastructure plan,” and up pop hundreds of thousands of web sites, and nearly every newspaper, magazine, financial analyst, and [...]
Read Full Post »
Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn’t block traffic. Dan Rather
In the last post here, we found ourselves wondering what it would be like if our city, Washington, D.C., were much more dense than it is today. We wondered if a greater density of people, and uses, would create a more walkable, sustainable, durable [...]
Read Full Post »
Lisbon, Cadiz, Casablanca – some of our recent destinations. In each of these cities there is at least one district, or urban quarter, that is dense, rich, bustling with activity, alive, completely walkable, and as ever, fragile. Each faces pressure from gentrification, adjacent development, cars. (Only the Old Medina is so dense that cars are excluded, [...]
Read Full Post »
