Placemaking Gets Freaky

I’m a freak magnet. For reasons unknown, the more, err, colorful characters of the public realm seem to find my personal space especially attractive. If I go to a midday matinée and another patron — let’s say an agitated mumbler in a trench coat with shoes crudely fashioned out of car wash sponges — joins…

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Choosing to Overlook the Obvious

I live in an old house that overlooks a single-track CSX rail line. Between my front gate and the train is a two-lane, neighborhood-edge thoroughfare with a speed limit of 35 mph and an average speed closer to 40. Though it functions as an in-town, city street, it’s classified as a state highway by the…

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