Welcome to Two New Urban Indy Bloggers
Running a collaborative blog has been rewarding. We have recently added 2 new bloggers, who I hope you will enjoy. Jim Walker is the head of Big Car Gallery and Made for Each Other. Basically, if there’s something cool going on around town, there’s a good chance Jim has his hands in it. Scott Russell is the blogger from Go Indy Go. He’s a passionate believer in the potential for Indianapolis, and has a background in data analysis. Please join me in welcoming these two as our blog continues to grow. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Neighborhoods
Indianapolis + Columbus: Similar Surfaces, Opposite (Urban) Cores
This article originally appeared on urbanOut in May 2010 and gained a lot of attention in the Columbus blogosphere so I figured it should be shared on Indy’s prominent urban blog as well. People love to compare cities and pit them against each other in an attempt to understand strengths and weaknesses of places, analyze overall regional urban patterns, and try to learn from other place’s successes and failures. One comparison I always hear, see, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Neighborhoods, Pedestrian
The importance of street presence
What does it mean to have a visual connection between inside and out? What is the impact of having street presence? In commerce, it could mean the difference between success and failure. Take for example the former Taste of Tango restaurant. As far as know, it was a fine restaurant. But I never dined there. Why? I walked by the place several dozen times. But I could never see inside. I could never determine what kind … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Neighborhoods
Indianapolis’ CSO project
A little known or seen part of our every day built envrionment will be the focus of one of the city’s largest infrastructure projects ever in coming years. What is commonly called a “CSO” or “Combined Sewer Overflow” is a structure that was implimented in the late 19th and early 20th century. A single system of buried pipes were used to collect sewage and storm water runoff so that surface pollution was eliminated. At the time, this … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Neighborhoods
Double 8 Foods
Double 8 Foods provides a vital link to fresh foods for residents of the Near Northside of Indianapolis. Some might be surprised to find out that it is a locally owned family business, and is operated by the relatives of Zoltan Weisz, who was the first grocery store owner in the state to hire an African American store manager. The store at 46th and College was recently renovated to display large picture windows at … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Neighborhoods
Sacred Heart Neighborhood
Sacred Heart Neighborhood on the near South Side has seen a renewed interest, due in large part to the promotions of a concert venue at the Vollrath Tavern. Can a bar revitalize a neighborhood? I’m not sure, but attracting people from around the city to a little-known street with a boatload of potential is a win in my book. The street in question is Palmer Street: The neighborhood is a photographer’s dream, ranging … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Neighborhoods
Lafayette Square livability
As part its annual A Monumental Affair program, Keep Indianapolis Beautiful hosted a charette on Nov. 5 with the goal of cooking up innovative ideas for improving the Lafayette Square area. Local architects, designers, engineers, planners and artists teamed up to create a variety of big ideas presented at the end of that day and as part of the A Monumental Affair awards ceremony on Nov. 11, at the Indiana Roof Ballroom. You can see the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Neighborhoods
The Privatization of Indianapolis
The people who run our cities … think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit, which makes their opinion worthless. The people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. -Banksy, Wall and Piece, 2005 It is a common idea these days for politicians to speak of running a city like a company. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, Neighborhoods
Envision Union Station
Last week, I was asked to speak at an Envision Broad Ripple (EBR) meeting. EBR, is a community effort being put forth to change the future of Broad Ripple’s built environment. They are looking at an entirely new zoning structure, and it will be based upon a vision now being developed by community leaders, as well as residents. I was asked to come in and speak about my recent trip to Portland and what I learned … Read entire article »
What Indiana spends on its roads
In light of my recent posts about Indyconnect gutting the light rail portion of the plan for Marion County, I thought it would be a good time to put some of this financial talk in context by displaying what some recent, and ongoing, roads projects in the Indianapolis area are costing us. This is a partial repost of an old article I did for my personal blog before joining Urban Indy ————- I want to take this opportunity … Read entire article »
Filed under: Neighborhoods, Transit
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