Fashion, like architecture, says a lot. It is, according to Wikipedia, an “aesthetic expression at a particular time, place and in a specific context.” So it’s interesting to consider how fashion might translate, and not translate, around the world. This recent article by The Economist,… Read More
One of our partners sent me a terrific article last week by Sam Anderson on the founding of Oklahoma City. I have said this before on the blog, but I am deeply fascinated by the origins of cities because, oftentimes, the story isn’t all that… Read More
The National Center of Health Statistics just released this update on births and birth rates for the United States in 2017. The provisional number of births last year was 3,853,472, which represents a 2% reduction from 2016 and the lowest number in 30 years. The… Read More
Below is an excerpt from Warren Buffet’s latest annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders (2016). It represents an entire section dedicated to American optimism, which is something you’ll notice in most (all?) of his letters. I’m a big believer in optimism, because I find it has… Read More
I have largely avoided commenting on politics and Trump on this blog, but at this stage it is almost impossible to do that. Donations are starting to pile up for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as the tech community, and many others, begin to… Read More
The October issue of The New Yorker has an interesting piece called: Naked Cities – The death and life of urban America. I find the article ends up rambling a bit, but I like the idea presented right at the beginning. The idea that cities… Read More
If you’ve been reading this blog since last year, you’ll know that I’m hugely interested in Detroit. I went for a visit last fall and I hope to go back sometime this summer. I think the city has tremendous potential and I would love to… Read More
If you check out the “What I read” page that I recently added to Architect This City, you might notice a blog by Charlie Gardner called the Old Urbanist. I discovered it a few months ago (when he added ATC to his blog roll) and… Read More
I was browsing through Vishaan Chakrabarti’s new book, A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for Urban America, and I was struck by a diagram outlining the annual US Federal infrastructure budget. Here it is: It comes as no surprise, but it’s still a good reminder… Read More
Here’s an interesting graph I found on Businessweek that outlines retail sales growth in America over the past decade: What’s interesting is not that furniture stores suffered during the housing crisis of 2008-2009 – this much is obvious – but that there seems to be… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 