I’ve been in DC for the week, which has been an interesting coda to my recent travels.  Although I’ve previously lived in DC for a fair amount of time (two years as a kid, three years in college) and can lay claim to a certain urbane smugness in knowing it well enough, it’s also aRead moreRead more

Thanks to all the folks who responded, in one way or another, to my last post.  There were some clamors for the full “Harry Potter” post, so I’ll get to that, but first I just wanted to float a few other ideas relevant to it…   Entertainment and social consciousness has long been a preoccupationRead moreRead more

I have decided to spare everyone the epic, hugely pretentious “Harry Potter” analysis I spent the past couple of days penning, although it has prompted some other thoughts that I’ll be doling out in smaller portions.  One issue I included in that overlong post was my consternation at the casting of Robert Pattinson as CedricRead moreRead more

Urban planning puns are what all the cool kids are droppin’, amirite?   Ta-Nehisi Coates offers an excellent response to a discussion about how maybe rising property values (the central feature of gentrification) really aren’t THAT bad for residents after all.  His usual insight is nicely buttressed by a commenter, whose experience in gentrifying BaltimoreRead moreRead more

Man, wouldn’t rational political discourse be so much easier if people stopped clinging to disproven ideologies-masquerading-as-theories and started recognizing reality instead?

I’m back stateside… and happily so.  South America was exhilarating (and my Spanish improved tremendously), but to be from the US is to be accustomed to a constant supply of consumer goods that isn’t available everywhere.  Being cut off from such luxe living can, in many ways, be a good thing, offering the opportunity toRead moreRead more

This post over at The Urbanophile really struck a chord – perhaps it’s my sadness at hearing about the massive cuts to the Oakland library system while I was gone (nearly all of the branches and services which made the system nationally renowned – its Spanish-language collection, its Chinese-language collection, its tool lending library, itsRead moreRead more

One more for today: the NYTimes has a beautiful, moving personal essay from a Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter, coming out as an undocumented immigrant (aka illegal alien).  It made me cry in public, and the only other time that’s happened was when I broke my ankle.  I still remember the moment I found my mother’s green card,Read moreRead more

Two good posts today, with divergent takes on urban experience:   1.  Colorlines discusses ground-up initiatives in urban agriculture – this time, coming from immigrant communities and people of color.  The foodie movement is easy enough to dismiss as the purview of rich white people, but doing so overlooks both the movement’s goal (inclusive foodRead moreRead more

I’m almost out of South America – I leave in two days – and throughout much of my trip I’ve been meditating on some of the issues I raised in my last post about ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, which you can find here.  Part of it is that the last episode I watched before myRead moreRead more