When sidewalks rule
In Northern New Jersey, this Halloween was sensational, thanks to its being on a Saturday and having warm weather. People were outside all day, ohhing over princesses and ahhing over superdogs. In Jersey City, where I live, people sat on the stoops with bowls of candy for passing sprites. Crowds in costumes congregated in the small front yards. I took granddaughter Lily to Hoboken where she went trick-or-treating. The usually difficult streets were impassable, clogged in the afternoon with small batmen and in the evening with slutty nurses. Lily rushed home to weigh her candy and was thrilled to have 8 pounds of the stuff. One of her classmates--an even more aggressive hunter-gathere

"Nobody" goes there
I had a wonderful visit to Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. In addition to spending time on the lovely campus, I got to poke around in the city, enjoying Historic Allentown especially. I walked on the Main Street, Hamilton Street, and took pictures as I do everywhere I go. In front of the city's tallest building a guard warned me that it was forbidden to photograph that location. There were no signs announcing this, but he insisted that if I were spotted on the cameras, the police would be called and they would take my camera away. My attachment to my camera is profound and this antagonized me, though I tried to remain civil. "I just telling you," he said in a tone that was none t

Civil Rights on Main Street
I went to Raleigh, NC, a while back, and to Birmingham last week. The two cities have this in common: they have a black Main Street parallel to the white Main Street. In decades past these were flourishing streets, home to an array of businesses and cultural institutions. Much of the strength has drained away, as commerce has shifted to other sites. But the streets remain a vital part of the history, including the history of the struggle for civil rights. My visit to Birmingham was led by two veterans of the civil rights movement there. As young people, they had faced the fire hoses and been to jail. They remembered the police coming down black Main Street and every spot in the days

Homesteading on the urban prairie
The large spaces in cities weigh heavily on urban function. They are evidence of really really bad policies carried out in the past. They cry out for really really good interventions in the future. Ecologist Rodrick Wallace, co-author of A Plague on Our Houses, has pointed out the policies that led to the burning down of New

Main Street Lunch
A full-service Main Street is many things to many people, but certainly one of them is a place to have lunch. Broadway in New York is one of the great Main Streets of the world, and I had lunch today with Dr. Mark Boutros just off Broadway. In American culture, which views work in a very Puritan fashion, lunch is not work. But in many parts of the world with productivity superior to that in US, lunch is understood to be a crucial part of work. Lunch is a pause, during which we reflect, we connect to others, we integrate work and play, and we recharge for the afternoon's duties. Many working people were lunching in the area: construction workers, office workers, finance and real estate