The Little Way of Raymond Chandler
Or, "Shaken and Stirred: The Cosmopolitan, the City, and the Regime of God"
Queens, NY
The following essay was presented at FPR's annual conference in Louisville...
City Liberty, Country Liberty
It's clear to me that one of the primary things people (in the United States, certainly, but also elsewhere) think about when trying to...
Seeing Our (Non-Cosmopolitan) Selves
Some years ago, some of the folks behind F5, an alternative weekly newspaper here in Wichita, started a different (and, as it turned out,...
What Would the Father of Nationalism Say About Scottish Independence?
On Thursday, voters in Scotland will go to the polls and either choose "Yes," meaning that they want Scotland to become an independent state,...
From the Fire back into the Pan
Hillsdale, Michigan. Three years ago or so when the missus and I moved to Michigan from Philadelphia, we wondered how we would manage. Not...
Something’s Fishy–But Not Very–At Dinnertime
Ingham County, MI
As darkness falls upon what a friend of mine charitably calls “Jack-Ass Acres,” and as the promise of rain comes with the...
Place and the Role of Planning
“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Thus spoke Winston Churchill during the Second World War, during the debate over whether...
Trust, Community Ties, and Letting Your Children Play
The story has exploded all over the internet : Debra Harrell, a Georgia woman, dropped her 9-year-old child off at a park–not an isolated...
The Dumb Ass Suffers a Cardio-Semantic Arrest
It’s the Big One. Tell the kids I love them. Wait at least a week to remarry.
Architecture and Urbanism: Traditional vs. Modern
Grant me for the moment that traditional architecture and urbanism are more durable, more culturally and environmentally sustainable, more beautiful, and (in the long...