Adventures In New Urbanism --- A Journal

[louisville327 0]

Date: 12/16/2004 7:11:43 PM
Author: UrbanLegend
Feel free to post your comments on New Urbanism here:
https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=58076

quote>


Thanks, but I'm already posting my comments right here, complete with illustrations.

I'm comfortable letting other people argue about it. Hopefully it will be an interesting thread.

I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Date: 11/21/2004 10:06:03 AM
Author: Monteferro
What a brilliant idea! This is very educational and it combines City-Building Concepts with City Journals, plus the story is very engaging in itself. With all the research you've done, the CJ is going to be a fascinating study as well as a test of SimCity's realism.

quote>

Ha! As it should be. I've been doing this in my cities for awhile...I've read the books by all of those authors myself shortly after I first played simcity 3000...

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Date: 11/21/2004 4:40:55 PM
Author: MayorTim

How true. Here in Florida, that is almost exactly how cities are layed out. While I have never been in an Urbanist Area, I am also very interested in the concept and also believe that it is the way to go. Sprawl does have a few good points, but it is, as you said, a traffic nightmare. I would much rather live in a New Urbanist area with a better road layout and fewer parking lots.

quote>

The downside, of course, is if you live in a city - you have to walk. You have to get out of the car, and walk. Or ride a bike. Take the bus (hopefully not just the homeless ride in your area). In the rain. In the cold. In the sun. Because, if everyone drives...well you get the point.

The good thing about cities (traditional kinds!) and new urbanism, is that they mix all the commercial and residential zones together, so you shouldn't have to walk that far. Usually. And usually they can support half-decent mass transit, but in the US, that's pretty rare.

If you want to help out, vote for every mass transit project that you can in your state, and vote against all the freeway projects!

[louisville327 0]

A Pause In The Action...

As a result of recent replies to this CJ, as well as a new debate thread begun in City-Building Concepts regarding the perceived merits and criticisms of New Urbanism, I thought I would take this time to address some of the misconceptions many people seem to have.

1) New Urbanism will take away your car. It is a very common misunderstanding that New Urbanist planning and policies seek to completely eliminate car usage. This is not true.

What New Urbanist policies and planning really seek to do is reduce the car dependency of cities and suburbs in modern America. Since 1950, most new construction has been based solely upon the false belief that everyone should drive a car everywhere and that gasoline will always be cheap and readily available. The result: traffic gridlock, increased commuting times, higher costs of living, toxic air pollution and increased rates of obesity and mental illness such as depression (due to ugly environment, social isolation).

New Urbanism does not seek to eliminate car use, only to reduce it to manageable and sustainable levels. The current levels are neither.

2) Everyone LOVES to drive, and will reject any other transit options. It is a common belief that though everyone is forced to drive their cars to get anywhere they want to go due to poor planning, the real reason everyone drives is because they love to.

Some people genuinely LOVE to drive their cars. However, many people, if presented with efficient, safe and reliable alternative modes of transportation, will choose those instead. Many millions of people in urban areas like Washington DC, New York City, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco frequently use alternative forms of transportation to get where they need to go. Also, cities that build attractive, pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and streets combined with mixed-use buildings and human-scale planning enjoy high rates of pedestrianism (and not just old ladies with ankle weights and warm-up suits). This is a good segue for:

3) People hate to walk and will not do so if given the choice. This is one of the most common contrary responses to New Urbanist ideas, and also the easiest to debunk. People hate to walk NOW because the areas in which they live are not conducive to walking. There are few sidewalks, fewer trees, too-wide and too-fast streets, and nothing is within walking distance anyway. Ever walked across a Wal-Mart parking lot in the middle of a hot Georgia summer? It's not pleasant. When that's the only walking a person will do for their entire day (since they have to drive to get anywhere else), naturally they will begin to develop a negative impression of walking. Ever walked down the tree-lined and wide sidewalks of DC's Dupont Circle neighborhood? Many people do. It's actually quite nice. The buildings are attractive, the streets are narrow and easy to cross, and various destinations (like shops and restaurants) are easy to access via pedestrian travel. In traditional main street small towns and big city downtowns, people walked everywhere---because everything was built for them to do so.

The old mantra of if you build it, they will come, can be updated by New Urbanism to say if you build it RIGHT, they will WALK.

4) New Urbanism is anti-growth and therefore anti-progress. The assumption here is that New Urbanism and its cousin Smart Growth seek to stop the expansion of cities dead in its tracks. To a certain extent, this is kind of true. New Urbanism and Smart Growth seek to stop sprawling OUTWARD expansion in its tracks and facilitate well-planned and well-designed UPWARD growth in its place. However, sometimes outward expansion is necessary, and when it is, NU and SG dictate that any new additions to a city's outer limits be in the same style of its already-existing developed areas: walkable, transit-connected neighborhoods with mixed-use structures located near traditional single-family homes.

Simply because you want to regulate growth and ensure that it will be sustainable in the future doesn't mean you're anti-growth. Just anti-sprawl.

This brings us, naturally, to the next misconception:

5) Sprawl exists the way it does today because people WANT it, and New Urbanism seeks to eliminate their freedom of choice. This is a very common misconception, and it's based on a very subtle vicious circle.

What else are they to choose if everything new is built as sprawl? People naturally seek new, attractive places to live. If the value of inner-city property continues to fall (due to bank redlining and various self-replicating social problems), people will move away in search of higher quality housing. It just so happens that in many US cities, the only place to find new, attractive housing with high value is in a subdivision in a sprawl zone. Re-investment and re-development of inner-city areas is at an all-time low in the US, and because of this people naturally will leave those areas when able. If all new homes were built in traditionally-planned and transit-oriented neighborhoods, people would move there. Unfortunately, that is not where most new homes are built. Since there are few other options, people continue to move into sprawl zones therefore increasing demand for even MORE sprawl zones.

If given a real choice between a pretty, mixed-use and pedestrian-friendly traditional neighborhood with high-value and attractive housing, and the current sprawl of car-centered, spread out, traffic-clogged subdivisions and strip malls, which would you choose?

6) Traditional and so-called New Urbanist planning forces everyone to live in apartments and destroys their right to privacy. My personal favorite.

For whatever reason, simply the mention of New Urbanism inspires doom and gloom visions of drab Soviet housing towers and New York City tenements of the 1920s. Regardless of the fact that every New Urbanist project built since the term was conceived has included single-family houses built on single-use lots, some people insist on arguing the opposite. New Urbanism DOES encourage the utilization of mixed-use buildings, and yes, that means some people will live in apartments. However, every traditional neighborhood in every US city has included single-family homes, and New Urbanism sees no problem with this. The New Urbanist developments of Seaside, Florida and Kentlands, Maryland (just as two examples) consist mostly of single-family homes radiating outward along interconnected streets from a small zone of mixed-use structures. Just like traditional urban neighborhoods and traditional small towns.

And finally, my favorite:

7) Mass transit is dirty, dangerous, and ridden only by poor people and the homeless. This is partly true, but for a very good reason. If the design of a city demands car use, naturally the only people who will ride mass transit are those who cannot afford cars. These people tend to be the poor and homeless. Also, if you spend all your tax revenue on building and maintaining hundreds of miles of multi-lane roads and giant parking lots, naturally you won't have much left over to spend on the mass transit system. It's difficult to subsidize mass infrastructure expansions to sprawl zones AND efficient, clean mass transit systems at the same time.

New Urbanism looks to Washington DC, Tokyo, London, Boston and many other cities as examples of transit systems that break stereotypes. The more people that ride mass transit options like subway trains, the safer they become. The more people that rely on mass transit for their daily commuting needs, the more they will seek to keep it clean and well-funded. The residents of New York City would be stranded without their subway trains, and as a result they demand good service, clean facilities, and safety. It's hard to ignore millions of people who drive the economy and provide billions in tax revenue, so the city government of New York gives them what they want.

If new developments are built with mass transit in mind, people will use it and will demand that it be well taken-care-of, just as they today demand well-maintained roads because they rely on them for travel. The mode of transit can be changed, and the demand for good service will naturally adjust to fit the context.

-----------------------------------
Hopefully, this will help to clear up any misconceptions. Of course, this won't satisfy everyone, and just might inspire further arguments and naive assumptions. I encourage everyone inclined to argue the merits of New Urbanism to send me private messages rather than post here. Or, if you want to debate in public, simply click over to City-Building Concepts and reply to the New Urbanism VS Urban Sprawl thread.

Thank you. We now return to your regularly scheduled City Journal...

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Date: 12/11/2004 1:25:37 PM
Author: freakpower
Why do they have to go to Best Buy? Wouldn't a local electronics store down on the corner work just as well?

quote>

Interestingly, large big-box stores only exist under a few special conditions:

cheap high-capacity transportation (preferably freeways)
large, cheap parking lots - people have to drive to the store
cheap land - the stores are huge
little/no competition from specialized stores

see, big box stores need a ton of people to go shop at them, because the store's profit margins are so low. That means they have to move a huge volume of goods, and have a huge volume of shoppers. This ALSO means each person needs to buy lots of stuff; hence they must arrive by car. Bus riders and pedestrian shoppers just can't carry enough purchased goods back home with them to support a Best Buy, Wal-Mart or Costco (20 pound container of mayonnaise, anyone?).
This means freeways & cheap land. Interestingly, once land prices go up enough...the big box typically shuts down & moves farther out into the corn fields.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Date: 12/11/2004 11:53:47 PM
Author: gascooker
In terms of your CJ, if mixed-use buildings were a solution to urban-spawl, like the current euro thinking and how you descibe the US model used to be, does that mean that there will be no more need for urban planning?

Or in SC4 terms: if you zoned industrial, commercial and residential all together in clusters, does that mean there will be no more purpose to SC4?

quote>

I don't know about in Simcity, but in real life, mixed-use zoning requires MORE planning. Since people are going to be living, working, shopping, playing, and even raising kids in all of those places, it is much more crucial to pay attention to the little details of a project. You need good architects, good urban designers & planners to understand how every new project fits into the existing urban fabric - and how it will change it, for the better or worse.

There is also the fact that many cities have a vision for their cities, and the city will many times want to influence a new development to fit in with their goals. Ie, Portland is trying to build a bar-central, so they are very interested in getting clubs to move into the existing area. They would turn down a proposal to build a private elementary school nearby.

This example also shows why you need planning, as well. You don't want the local high school to be located nearby the chemical processing plant, because then all of the high school students develop cancer and die 5 years down the road. Or why would you locate the railroad tracks and heavy industry on the waterfront - it would be much better served by public parks, shops and condos with a nice view to maximize the cities' tax income - $$$$ cha-ching! - which helps fund everything else.

Mixed use cities with high density aren't uniformly developed. They usually acquire distinct districts - what urban planners probably should be calling place-making, and is the primary difference between a suburb and a city: a city is a place, a suburb is a non-place.

[Quack 0]

In Houston i dont think its like that... there is one MAJOR highway that goes from galveston to i think dallas and goes to an Interstate. but with this one highway like 20 highways are build off of it making highways as big as a 15 story building. there are so many ways to get to one spot from another...
http://www.mapquest.com and look for houston youll see 2 loops with 7. i think, other highways. This is a really good highways sytem cuz you can get off a highway and get on another instead of only being on one highway

[gascooker 4]

Date: 12/22/2004 5:05:24 PM
Author: zilfondel

..... to maximize the cities' tax income - $$$$ cha-ching! - which helps fund everything else.

quote>

So are you suggesting that urban planning is the slave to our good old friend: economics, urban sprawl or no urban sprawl? I think a lot of what Louisvilles talks about in this CJ is about the social well-being of a city's inhabitants Vs the lowest form of the economic denominator. The fact that Louisville has chosen in parts to illustrate this CJ in the narative, illustrates new urbanism's concern with the person.

In terms of elementry shool Vs Cancerous Chemical plant, perhaps mixed use would make citizens wary of the fact that cancerous chemical plants even exist. They sure as hell wouldn't like living next to them! Instead of shipping the nasty things out of site, mixed-use zoning has the potent power to make citizens realise the consequences of their lifestyles. Give up the cancerous plant or deny it? You choose.

I think urban planners should have a greater authority in the say of things, rather than leaving the important descisions to banks all the time.

I think your CJ is unveiling some very interesting solutions to the problems of the urban nature.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

well, enough of the philosophical discussions already - I'm ready for another update. =)

I'm curious if there are any other cities within this region, and what kind of relationship they have with their neighbors. For instance, you mentioned there are 10,000 residents and 8,000 jobs. Since this sounds like a real-life new-urbanist town, are approx. 3,000 extra jobs filled by people who live out of town in the countryside and sprawl-type suburbs?

Only another update will tell us...

[pressure 2]

This is great. Props on the journal so far.

Add me to the list of people that would like to see these principles on a somewhat larger scale. My city, which I may post a bit of later, was planned (somewhat unknowingly) under new urbanism, and I've had to turn away slightly from it because of the resident's #1 complaint: traffic noise. Either I've unsuccesfully used new urbanist principles or I've hit a SC4 simulation speedbump because everybody's commute is far too long, regardless of how close employment actually is to a given residence or an abundance of accessible mass transit.
A third option is that new urbanism doesn't work, but that's just not the case in my experience. Downtown Denver, Colorado appears a great success story considering accounts I've heard of the way it was 30 years ago - a ghost town after 6:00 pm, like many other business districts I've witnessed. The experiment continues as the Denver metro area embarks on one of the biggest mass-transit projects of all time. I'm excited to see the results. It's not all perfect though - crime has risen with population and the bar district (lodo) is like a WTO meeting riot every weekend. You can see the cloud of tear gas from 10 miles, and smell it from farther.

I'd like to see if you have any more success than I, so I then can steal it!

[dodothegoof 0]

Is there any chance, that we will see some new staff?

[juantrev 0]

Date: 12/15/2004 3:38:32 PM Author: UrbanLegend

Why do they have to go to Best Buy? Wouldn't a local electronics store down on the corner work just as well?

 

One really cool part of Los Angeles, in neighborhood between downtown and Beverly Hills, large retail chains lined the street.  There was one Office Depot I always went to had their storefront right on the city street.  Parking, since space is a premium in LA, was in the rear and on top of the building.  A small ramp on the side led to the rooftop, and an elevator took customers from the parking garage to the inside of the store.  Weird design I thought at first, but actually really worked for a crowded city like LA.

---

Louisville- a couple of things...

1.  First off, awesome design and layout of the cities.  I will really keep that layout in mind for commercial and residential areas.  I've always had problems with people complaining about long commute times.  This design is a great idea, and an obvious one.  I just couldn't think it out.  Yea I know, I am an idiot.

2.  Were did you get those pedestrian plazas?  I didn't know that people could walk across them.  In all my cities I prefer people walk or take public transportation, but, like I said, I have commute problems.

3.  Finally, were did you get those walkways outlying all your parks?  It looks really good and seperated from the rest of the area.

 

Keep up the nice work!

 

[PhilsCafe 8]

Seems that louisville needed a break after this. I can't help you with the walkways. But I may help you with the pedestrian plazas. They are on the STEX: GRY Pedestrian Plazas ver. 2 by bauerme . I'm using them in my city too. They really work (But you have to place them strategically correct) .

Louisville: great CJ. It has always been an inspiration for my cities. I'd love to see an update

- Phil

[Jetty Jockey 186]

Terrific journal ! This should be required reading. I'm looking forward to experimenting with New Urbanism in my sim regions.

[ThePeoplesPerson 3]

Very interesting CJ, its like a tutorial mixed with CJ properties.

[Prophet42 1,503]

I like the design of Norton.  I'm looking forward to more updates.  Also, very interesting CJ.  I like your exploration of New Urbanism using SC4.  It would be interesting to see the first city that you had in the journal (used as the spawl example) and use New Urbanism to reform it. 

 

You make some excellent points in your defense of New Urbansim.  I live in Chicago and am a victim of sprawl.  My work is 20 miles away and it takes me 30 to 40 minutes to get there.  I'd love to move closer, but I can't afford the housing in the area.  I've tried to ride my bike to work.  However there are a few spots that there are no sidewalks and I have to mingle with traffic that is going 50 mph.  Not very pleasant.  Also mass transit is not an option since I commute from suburb to surburb.  If I had a good option to ride my bike or take mass transit, I would definitely leave my car behind.  BTW, I love to drive, not sit in traffic. 

[flanig407 0]

Louisville:  Just wanted to say that I'm enjoying your CJ and I like the fact that you've explained New Urbanism so well that even someone who doesn't enjoy city planning would understand it.  I'm interested to see where this goes.

 

My only issue with New Urbanism would be increased crime.  Generally in a high-population density area, crime is high.  Is there anything that you could tell me about what New Urbanist have thought about this?  I'd be all for New Urbanism except for this fact.

 

I live in Orlando which according to the Sierra Club is the worst spralwed medium-city in the US (Orlando's pop. is ~200,000, the metro area's pop. is ~1.8 million).  The City of Orlando has started a project called Baldwin Park which is supposed to be a journey into New Urbanism and Smart Growth.  I'll try to find a link for it, but I personally drove through this area just for kicks and I like what I saw.  Apartments with shops across the street, large parks, plenty of paths and walkways with a sort of village feel.  They're not completely finished, but they will be soon.  I was thinking about moving into that area sometime in the future (I'm a suburb resident currenty).

[flanig407 0]

Heres a link to a story about the area:  http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t8160.html

[louisville327 0]

Wow! Sorry it's been so long since the last update. You wouldn't believe how busy I've been these past several months. Updating this journal has just not been a huge priority for me with so much else going on.

Again, really sorry! As for when new updates will appear, I definitely can't promise anything, but I'll do my very best!

As for any questions that may have been asked in earlier comments that I wasn't able to address, all I can do is suggest that you consult James Kunstler's books Geography Of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere. He discusses at length the New Urbanist responses to urban crime, mixed use zoning and density planning, as well as basic transportation and commute time issues.

Please forgive my brief and totally insufficient update. I'll do my best to really update this thing when I have time!

[RadioheadFan 1]

Such a fresh outlook...this is definitely an underrated CJ, one of the brightest out there. Lack of updates doesn't really matter, although it has been a while. New urbanism does seem to make sense...I'll be following this CJ.

RHF

[LordoftheWise 0]

WOW'!! I am happy to admitt that this is the first CJ of which I have read each and every reply from the moment I started reading the first post. It took me an hour or so, but it was well worth it!! Great CJ and I totally agrea on the New Urbanism views. I myself am from Amsterdam, Holland and it is unfortunate to see that in some areas in my country we are now heading towards the situation that most american cities and towns are in today; segragation and urbansprawl. Am amazed that I didn't notice this CJ before. I will be sure to keep looking for updates!!

 

I'll say it just once more; LOVING IT!!

Thanks for sharing all this stuff!

 

Just one note that I feel I must make. I wonder why you felt the need to put this CJ out here. My guess would be that you feel New Urbanism needs more attention and that there are many misunderstandings surrounding this subject. Wouldn't it be only fair to reply to people who disagree with you or 'do not get it yet'?? I understand that this should not be done within this CJ but I think it is only fair that you adress these people, either on the newly made topic concerning New Urbanism, or through private messages. Please correct me if I'm wrong in guessing your intentions.

 

Greetz

Alexander

[mtbrocket 2]

What happened to this CJ?

[jbridgman 0]

He got imprisoned for his radical ideas....j/k.
Perhaps this have moved into discussion and the cj has sort of terminated for it has illustrated some major points of new urbanism. It'd be interesting for the otherside to created a cj in the sprawl style (except many cj already are built in this style)

[choco1 4]

Brilliant CJ, love the design. Keep it up!

[louisville327 0]

Janice Jacobs is actually much taller than I had imagined. She carries herself with the kind of grace and poise that only taller-than-normal women can pull off. I sat quietly as she readied her presentation at the other end of the conference room.

For a second, I felt like it had been months since I was last in this room, but the feeling went away and I focused on the presentation.

Today, we're going to examine several real-world examples of both the proper way and the improper way to build urban areas. Our point of focus will be the largest city in Kentucky, Louisville, she said.

On the screen is an aerial map of Jefferson County, in which Louisville is located. Circled and labeled is the traditional downtown center of Louisville. Please note the major roads and highways highlighted in red---commercial development is focused along these roads, and they are linked by three main rings: two expressways and a divided arterial highway.

This closer view highlights the central, traditional neighborhoods of the city, while circled are the two major sprawl zones of the upper-class, predominantly white East End. To the north is Springhurst, to the south is Hurstborne/Jeffersontown.

What's with the name 'Hurst', I wonder, I asked with a grin.

The names aren't important to us right now, only the design of the areas.

Sorry, I stuttered. Ms. Jacobs is not one to kid when she's talking business.

Let's examine the Hurstborne area first, shall we? she asked as she produced a new image on the screen.

This is one of the busiest areas of the Hurstborne corridor. Hurstborne Parkway runs north to south at a slight western tilt, while Interstate 64 runs west to east across the top of the aerial view. Do you notice anything significant in this picture?

I only had to look for a second before I recognized the tell-tale signs of urban sprawl. Sure, I said, all the different zones are severely separated, most likely according to use, and everything feeds into the arterial highway, rather than in a more interconnected pattern.

Very good. In the next picture, I've color-coded each zone according to designated use. Nothing is mixed---just as modern zoning laws dictate.

Everything is separate. Residential zones are green, commercial zones are blue, and industrial zones are yellow. Simple enough.

I shook my head. This is pretty much a perfect example of how NOT to build an urban area.

And why is that?

I cleared my throat, then said, Because separating urban zones like that spreads them out---it lowers the density and increases the space used for the various urban activities in which people are involved. The more spread out an area, and the farther apart the different uses, the less people will be able to walk to where they need to go. Less walking means more automobile use---unless of course the city provides efficient mass transit, which doesn't appear anywhere in these aerial photos.

You're very right, she said. We'll hold that thought about walking and car use for a minute and look at a couple more photos.

Tell me what you see.

I see an extremely wide intersection on a divided arterial highway, I said. Each direction is at least four lanes wide, for a total of eight lanes.

If everything is spread out, necessitating car use for everyone in this area, you'll end up with a whole lot of cars. Lots of cars demand lots of space on the road, which means wider roads. She pointed to the photo. You can imagine how intimidating it must be to walk across eight lanes of traffic, and a dividing strip of grass as wide as two more, for anyone unfortunate enough to be on foot here.

I nodded. It's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can't really walk anywhere because everything is so spread out, and even if you did want to walk, the roads are so wide and threatening---and oppressively hot in the summer---that you'd be putting your health at risk. So people don't walk because it's inefficient, and come to regard walking as unpleasant because of the hostile environment around them. That intersection really was huge, I thought to myself again.

Notice also in the photo, she pointed to the intersection again, that almost everything visible is paved over. The only trees are in the residential area to the left. Everything else is spread out, flat, and covered in concrete. I've been to this intersection, and trust me when I say it looks like the surface of the moon. It's depressing.

Clearly.

She nodded towards the screen. Every commercial zone highlighted in this photo follows the same dull style---the building as an island, floating in a lagoon of asphalt parking lots. No connection to the street, no consideration of aesthetics and no relationship to anything other than personal automobile traffic.

She loaded another aerial photo. Look now at this apartment complex I've highlighted in green.

What do you notice about this complex?

I looked at the photo and noticed something especially disturbing. The apartment complex is wedged between the giant arterial highway to the east, the interstate highway to the north and an exit ramp to the south. It's completely surrounded on all sides by fast-moving traffic.

Right. And the complex is quite typical---it consists only of multi-story buildings surrounded by parking lots.

I shook my head again. That makes sense, since the only way the residents are going to get anywhere is by car. There's no safe way to walk anywhere from there. Whoever designed this complex should be shot, I thought to myself.

Jacobs furrowed her brow and pointed to the photo. Where, she asked, do you suppose children play in that apartment complex? Where do you suppose they ride bicycles?

If I was a kid, I probably wouldn't go outside very much, since all I had around me was pavement, high-speed traffic and more pavement. Riding a bike around the same parking lot every day could get pretty boring, I imagine.

And what happens to children stuck inside because their physical surroundings are so miserable?

I thought about my console game system sitting at home in my living room. They get fat, lethargic, and increasingly dependent on mass media for entertainment. It's a good thing American mass media is so dominated by positive messages for children.

Your sarcasm is noted. She loaded another slide on the screen. Let's look at a different section of the Hurstborne corrider, and analyze the problems caused by separating zones by use and spacing them out across vast distances...

[radenskloof 0]

Hooray!!!

 

The return of a really interesting CJ

 

[louisville327 0]

Just in case nobody noticed, above is my first real post in nine whole months! Don't ask why I was gone so long, or why I suddenly decided to come back, but I was gone and now I'm back.

Look for more updates in the very near future!

[nofunk 1,933]

Jane Jacobs would ask where are the sidewalks.

This is a really fantastic journal and I'm glad to see you've decided to continue with it! I just stumbled upon it tonight, but you can bet I'll be keeping an eye on it.

[ACEfanatic 7]

Nice to see you back, louisville.

-ACE

[Kwakelaar 92]

Interesting reading, and nicely illustrated.
And welcome back.