The Wall Street Journal visits some Colorado residents who are turning their yards into mini-farms.

My thumb is far from green and I can barely keep a cactus alive, but I can’t think of a more environmentally friendly way to use your yard and eliminate the costs of fertilizer and maintenance associated with keeping your lawn in golf course shape. Of course running a small farm takes another cost: Lots of time.

Among such challenges these urban farmers face are squirrels and mud trampled into the house (buy a roomba,) and also neighbors who would prefer to see green grass rather than dirt and radishes. The video doesn’t mention one major factor that could put the kibosh on these green thumbs: pesky HOAs, covenants, and their leaders who are bent on controlling every microscopic aspect of your community. However laws are being examined which would prohibit HOAs to restrict elements of “green” living - such as drying your clothes on a clothesline - and hopefully great ideas like this.

Screw keeping up with the Joneses. I’d love to see more of these!

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If you haven’t read my “Free Ice Cream at Safeway tip” you still have time to stock up on free Ben & Jerry’s 3.6 oz ice creams.

I popped in the Cherry Creek Safeway over the weekend and picked up a reasonable amount without emptying out their freezer.    On a diet?  No worries - put them in the ice box and save them for this fall’s trick-or-treaters.

ok - been a while since I emptied out my “news of interest” saved bookmarks into a post - so here we go:

From the New York Times - an article about the advantages of small cars.   Check out the gas mileage charts.  How can you not love these?  Or my friend’s new Smart Car.    And a related piece from the Boston Globe about the difficulties of selling large gas guzzlers.

The Denver Post documents the perils of cycling on 32nd Avenue in Golden.  This article comes complete with 52 comments (as of 10:22am)  mostly frustrated comments between motorists and bikers.

Fox Nomad - who writes and excellent travel blog with personal in-depth idea and excellent lists of travel tips and tricks is currently running a contest for “Sexiest Summer Travel Story“  Check it out and you could win a $250 airline gift card.   I would send him that story about that night in Munich last year, but co-workers and potential future employers might read my blog, sooo….

From American Magazine, I found this article on Houston and other “opportunity cities“ interesting.  This story details the shift from of business from established northeastern cities like New York and Boston to the sunbelt cities of the south where housing is affordable and job opportunities abound.  

The Atlanta Journal Constitution gives some high merits to the Denver Fastracks plan - our 15 year plan to expand current rail lines and build new lines to corners of the metro area, including Boulder and the airport.    More about Fastracks here.

More auto news:  Here’s an accident I saw at 7th and Josephine last week.  No one was hurt.  But how can that car hit the telephone pole with such straight on perfection?    

A girl, (about 10,) who was exiting the nearby soccer field reprimanded me for taking photos of someone else’s misfortune. I’m sorry. But thanks for speaking your mind young city stranger!

by James Van Dellen

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FINALLY!  How to opt out of phone books.  Sort of. 

In November I wrote about the frustrations of having useless fax machine size yellow dinosaurs constantly dropped off at my door. I wrote about it in November of ‘06 too.

Most readers agreed that these are about as relevant as an eight track player.  I also found another story about RETURNING phone books, (not just recycling them,) that was done up in Seattle by alternative weekly “The Stranger.”

From my original post:

Anywhere a phone exists there’s most likely internet access or WiFi, making your product obsolete. Even in my office at work I don’t see phone books in cubicles or workstations anymore. They’re as useful and as relevant as cassette tape answering machines, VCRs, and Blockbuster Video. 

Stop publishing these. It’s a waste of paper, and a waste of the plastic used to wrap them in. (Actually those make decent dog poop bags.) Also the only revenue these bring in - which is advertising, is sold under false pretenses. Just like magazines, phone book publishers base ad rates on circulation. So my handling of this book for five seconds between lifting it up, walking it to and heaving it into the recycle bin counts as an impression and/or user. Yeah right.

This prompted a passionate copied and pasted response from “Yellow Pages Industry” leader Ken Clark:

The other myth is that the Internet is all we need. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that the broadband market is about tapped out. There will always be a good percentage of the population that will never have access to the industry’s Internet products. Barely more than 50% of households in the U.S. (about 56 million homes), currently subscribe to a high-speed Internet service. An additional 21 million households still use dial-up connections (yes, you read that right dial-up connections).

This week 9News/KUSA ran a story on cumbersome phone books, where to recycle them, and most importantly how to opt out:

Call 1-877-243-8339 to opt-out of receiving DEX phone books. Call 1-800-929-3556 to opt-out of receiving Yellow Book directories. If you want to opt-out of the Verizon phone book, you can call 800-555-4833.

The catch however?   You MUST provide your phone number, so they can call you back next year to make sure you still hate phone books.   Well at least its a start.  I’d still rather drop them off at Ken Clark’s house.

Story and video from KUSA.

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Thanks to a streak of non icy and slushy days I’ve been enjoying my daily bike commute uninterrupted for the past two weeks or so.

Robert Hurst, author of “The Art of Urban Cycling,” and “Road Biking Colorado’s Front Range” has a new blog:  The Industrialized Cyclist.

Robert shares my interest of urban geography and utility cycling.  In his blog, among biking articles and news, are some excellent photos of Denver landmarks, buildings, trip reports, and trail info.

If you want to see a cycling outlook beyond the sterile paths of Lodo and Riverfront Park check out Robert’s site and his books at theindustrializedcyclist.com

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Technology on wheels: Select San Francisco’s Muni buses now feature Wi-Fi and touch screen maps noting the schedules of connecting and intersecting lines.

I like the idea - and hopefully it will be simple enough for travelers to use and figure out, saving time for both visitors as well as commuters.

Some critics say it’s money being spent in the wrong places - and that the touch screens and various on-board technologies will be targets for vandalism. Hopefully this won’t happen. ok won’t happen to a level where it wasn’t worth the installation.

It would also save energy for some if the screens had an option for “Spare some change?” And then the screen could display the many variations of “Sorry man, No.”

“This is a smart bus in every way, shape and form,” Newsom said. “You can download music, you can play video games. It’s a bus where you are connected. It’s constantly generating information about your connection to the rest of the Muni system.”

The bus, part of Muni’s hybrid electric bus fleet, is painted green and black with a picture of Mother Earth and an electronic display panel boasting “270 tons of CO{-2} saved” and other “green” messages. But what really makes the bus different is inside.

SF Gate article. More at Cisco at www.theconnectedbus.com

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There’s a McDonald’s at 35th and Colorado Boulevard, and usually the only time I see it is en route to the airport. Running late to pick someone up a while back I grabbed a sandwich and saw this sign in their drive thru: “Backyard Habitat - A Special Place for Wildlife.” WTF I wondered? There’s nothing but woodchips and a few scraggly shrubs. I forgot about it for a few months, then finally had a chance to take this picture.

When I googled “Geta Asfaw,” (the name of the franchiser in the sign,) I found this 2003 Westword article by David Holthouse, who was as equally stumped at how a “wildlife habitat” could exist within the confines of a filthy semicircular drive thru peninsula. From his article:

The sign is staking out turf for any creature seeking refuge in the midst of mulch littered with wind-blown cigarette butts, stale french fries and half-empty ketchup packets. Hundreds of cars and trucks creep by every day, spewing exhaust fumes. Most drivers pay the marker no mind while they contemplate combo meals.

“I don’t know why they put those signs there,” says Jorge, the restaurant’s day-shift manager. “There are no wild animals living in our parking lot.“

Jorge hasn’t seen a four-legged creature stirring — not even a rat — in this special place for weeks. Nonetheless, the little oasis is endorsed and certified by the National Wildlife Federation as part of its thirty-year-old Backyard Habitat program. McDonald’s has fifty such areas nationwide, but franchisee Geta Asfaw says his is the only one in Colorado.

Thanks David Holthouse, my question is answered. And apparently this “habitat” has been in existence for at least almost five years now. Somehow I think the birds and little woodland creatures might be happier in and under my favorite arbor delight: The Ghetto Tree.

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The November issue of Dwell Magazine has a nice feature and photo essay highlighting the (hopefully popular) trend of urban cycling.  It’s light on text but heavy on bikes, bags, and gear to assist any newbie in hammering out the logistics of every day city cycling.  Check out the slideshows featuring commuter bikes, messenger bags, and accessories.  After all, owning a chic little city big is worthless if you don’t have some cargo capacity right?

I’m a big advocate of utilitarian cycling – or the every day use of bikes as transportation.  Whether commuting to work, running errands, or just getting from A to B, in many cities it’s much more convenient than using a car, keeps you active, and often much faster than using transit.

My only contrarian angle would be that some of this gear is, well, way too nice.  Many of us live in environments where we get bombarded with rain, snow, slush, and worse - thieves.  And we share our parking spaces other bikes which can scratch and chip our nice new gear.  It’s often better to just pick up a used beater bike, tune it up, and use that for your daily errands.  I prefer function over fashion anyway.  Still this is a pretty cool slideshow, and a hip way to roll around town.

Don’t forget to study up on “vehicular cycling” too.   Know the rules of the road to protect yourself.

Dwell article by Chelsea Holden Baker and photos by Andy Reynolds.  Pictured left:  Kona Bike’s “Ute“  and the Tektonic Messenger Bag by Silent Revolution.

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Another stop during my rushed stay in Chicago was A.Okay Official. This store opened earlier this year by husband and wife team Jason and Jessica Uzarraga, and is a blend of all things enjoyed and interesting to them. Their primary stock is custom and limited edition sneakers, and collectible and custom modern toys. Their store is clean, sleek, merchandised well, and contains a large selection in the moderate sized space.

Completing this independent business are paintings and works by local artists adorning the walls, which range in styles and prices. The entire establishment has a local, unique vibe which fits the community perfectly. Got some well conditioned stuff to sell? They do consignment too. Check out this Chicago Reader Article for more info and photos.

A.Okay is at 3270 North Clark just north of Belmont. Online at aokayofficial.com

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If you enjoy the History Channel’s “Cities of the Underworld” you’ll appreciate this group. Or perhaps not appreciate them. “les UX” is a group of Parisians who not only engage in the urban exploration of a city containing mountains of history below it’s streets, but also repair and restore many of the antiquated relics that they encounter.

Much to the annoyance of French authorities, these subversives break into old crypts, monuments, museums, and catacombs.  Not to vandalize, but rather to meet, converse, observe, and repair and restore.

Whether you agree with their methods or not, these people are bringing forgotten elements of urban history to light. History DOES belong to it’s people. If city leaders and historians are not acknowledging or protecting certain places and another group steps in to do the job - I see no harm in that. It’s quite respectable in my opinion. From UK’s Times Online:

Last year the Untergunther spent months hidden in the Panthéon, the Parisian mausoleum that holds France’s greatest citizens, where they repaired a clock that had been left to rust. Slipping in at closing time every evening – French television said that they had their own set of keys – they set up a workshop hidden behind mock wooden crates at the top of the monument. The security guards never found it. The Untergunther used a professional clockmaker, Jean-Baptiste Viot, to mend the 150-year-old mechanism.

When the clock began working again, officials were horrified. The Centre for National Monuments confirmed that the clock had been repaired but said that the authority had begun legal action against the Untergunther. Under official investigation for breaking and entry, its members face a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a €15,000 (£10,500) fine.

Hey Untergunther: come visit Gary, Indiana! Plenty of venues. Full story at UK’s Times Online.

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I’d hate to be living a life where I actually found myself climbing into this futuristic little pod on a regular basis.  But everyone has benefited from a 20 minute nap at one point, and there’s no better “away from the bed” method than this.

Christopher Lindholst and Arshad Chowdhury opened up “Metronaps” in New York’s Empire State Building to the delight of groggy commuters around the area.   Their 42nd floor station has several of these “nap pods,” with a built in alarm clock, mints, and hot towel when you awake.   

Each 20 minute nap is $14.  The Metronap “napologists” (ok I just made that up)  have assured us that a 20 minute nap is beneficial, but personally I prefer a nap of about 30-35 minutes to feel fully refreshed. 

From a travel angle an excellent use of Metronaps would be for the visitor arriving New York in the morning after a fidgety red eye flight from the west coast.   Why not?  See the view from the Empire State Building, then recharge for an evening out.   JetBlue flies Denver - N.Y. at 12am, which saves time by not eating up an entire day of flying, but any flight like that is bound to leave your head in a fog the first day.   I’d definitely use Metronaps on that schedule.

More about Metronaps at this Healthy Living NYC article

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The Monterrey Forum 2007 is an 80 day series of events being held in Monterrey, Mexico through December 8th.   The events consist of lectures, concerts, art, and exhibits.  Spanning a wide range of varied topics, the overall theme is living and sustainability via the discussion of education, science, human rights, politics, culture, and spirituality.

Not being a beach resort, the cosmopolitan metropolis of Monterrey and capital of Nuevo León is often overlooked by many travelers.  However Monterrey is located only about 250 miles from San Antonio in northeast Mexico.  It was ranked as the safest Latin American city in 2005, and one of the two safest in 2006.  Monterrey is an extremely modern and progressive city, and well educated being home to the University of Monterrey and the Autonomous University of Nuevo León.   It’s a hub of art, culture, and music - and also home to one of my favorite bands, Kinky.

More from MonterreyForum2007.org

In a period of accelerated globalization that is permeated by multi-culturalism and diversity, the Universal Forum of Cultures Monterrey 2007 promotes interaction, encounter, and dialogue to foster understanding and participation. 

The Dialogues program endeavors to: Achieve an exchange of values, emotions, and contents to encourage mutual acceptance with dignity and respect towards one another. Utilize the spoken word as a tool to listen more profoundly to the conversations of our fellow human beings. Promote dialogue as a vehicle for generating meaningful learning experiences.

Exhibitions:  Inspired by the objects, these exhibitions will encourage multi-sensorial and dynamic learning by creating an interaction between the graphics, audiovisuals and atmospheres, transforming each space. This will increase each object’s potential as well as its communication properties and meanings, emphasizing and accentuating the main subjects of the Universal forum of Cultures Monterrey 2007.

Culture:  A celebration of diversity: the music, words, language, traditions, beliefs, food and the obvious expression of humans.

This article from the Brownsville Herald describes more of the exhibits and events including ancient Egyptian artifacts, and the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.  Lots of art.  One city.

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Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome - but…

Over the weekend I made a pit stop in downtown Gary, Indiana.  I’ve sped over Gary on interstate 90 many times in the past, but never thought to actually look and explore underneath the milky layer of haze and smog that constantly envelopes the city. 

Only 30 miles south of the stellar skyline of Chicago, Gary is a town that the gods of new urbanism and gentrification have failed to smile upon.   Sadly, it has the appearance of a bombed out city that’s been abandoned and sealed off.   And what I find odd is that this isn’t a remote and hard to access town that the interstates have passed by leaving Main Street with no base.  It’s hard to travel through the upper midwest WITHOUT driving through Gary.  Interstate 90 cuts right between downtown and the old steel yards.  You can SEE the city from the highrises of Chicago!

I actually did find a small local populace in the Save-More Food Center at Broadway and 11th.  Two armed guards and the chaos of a refugee camp didn’t deter me from purchasing some batteries for the camera.  While waiting in the check out line it hit me:  The next series of the controversial CBS series “Kid Nation” should be shot in Gary.   The current location is an old ghost town ranch in New Mexico.  This would create a perfect change of location for the second season.  The kids will open up shops, bulldoze the crumbling facades, encourage tourism, develop an economic base, and play “Kid Sim City Gary” to no end.   Who knows - at end perhaps Gary will take an upward turn if managed by a bunch of 5th graders.  I haven’t seen the show, so I have no idea what the actual day to day operations are, but I don’t think they could make Gary, Indiana any worse.

In seriousness it’s a sad place to see, especially knowing that just 30 years ago this proud steel town was a driving and bustling force in the midwest economy.   I found some incredible photos of Gary’s decay at Forbidden-Places.net   They’re both eerie and profound, especially the photos of the theater interior.  A commenter noted that with high Chicago housing prices it could be a boon to revitalize Gary’s core and construct housing and condos for those wanting to live and work near Chicago.

But I doubt it will happen.  Seeing the destruction of New Orleans a year after Katrina I was impressed at how many people, even in the “bad” areas, were out and about engaging in construction and repair of their homes and businesses.  There’s a pride and sense of worth you find in certain communities around the country.  Unfortunately I don’t think Gary has seen that for decades.  In reading stories and articles on Gary what you find is recollections of the city for what is WAS in it’s heyday, and NOT for what it could be in the future.

More pics…

(more…)

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Wandering around Chicago’s lakeshore near the Shedd Aquarium I was walking over the Roosevelt Road Bridge and realized this rickety looking shanty (in my photo above the train) was actually in service as the Roosevelt Road commuter rail stop for the Metra. This station, which appears likely to ignite into flames at a single carelessly dropped match, is at the end of a gangplank like uneven wooden walkway. In addition, riders are forced to wait on a small narrow uncovered platform between busy tracks.

As far as the appearance of safety - it looks one notch above a hastily assembled carnival in a K-mart parking lot. I have a certain appreciation for “lost in time” structures, but I usually see that in semi-collapsed barns of the midwest. Not in a gleaming modern place such as this Chicago area.

Good news however for those who want to see this station updated: I googled “Roosevelt Street Station” and found this Sun-Times article describing plans for improvement which will commence shortly.

Built in the 1920s, the Roosevelt Road stop is a wooden relic noted for rickety stairs, a dilapidated station house and slick walkways and platforms. It’s also among the most unfriendly stops for riders with disabilities. As the South Loop area boomed the past 10 years, the station stuck out like a sore thumb amid new condominiums and other residential and commercial development.

Last year, the stop averaged about 1,000 riders a day, a 20 percent increase in the past six years, Metra officials said. In place of the old facility, plans call for rebuilt platforms, two new elevators and stairs to connect to the 11th Street pedestrian bridge.

The plans also include two new station houses connected to the inbound and outbound platforms, canopies and warming areas.

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Over the weekend I read several news stories about Sao Paulo’s new ban on outdoor advertising. In recent years outdoor advertising has run amok in Sao Paulo. In order to earn extra money property owners drape enormous ads on building fronts, covering up historic structures and modern highrises alike. Led by Regina Monteiro, Sao Paulo’s director of environment and urban landscape, the cityscape is slowly revealing the old edifices. Depending on your view of profit versus aesthetics this is a positive project for the city, or will have a negative impact on business and economics.

I consider myself middle of the road, although definitely leaning more to a city’s right to control the aesthetics and appearance. I don’t care for garish and over the top signs and banners, and like most I find advertising as litter disgusting: i.e. street spam and “work from home” ads tacked on telephone poles. But I understand in big cities like New York and L.A.’s westside vertical real estate is at a premium and can command a high dollar.

When you drive down a commercial corridor with little restrictions everyone thinks “yuck” in their heads, even subconsciously. Then visit a small town or neighborhood where local leaders and residents care about it’s appearance and take initiatives to do so and you’ll have a much more favorable impression of the city.

This doesn’t affect ALL outdoor advertising. It mainly targets the disproportionate oversize signs, as well has highlights design specification for storefronts and retail. Here’s a few stories:

Christian Science Monitor

The first phase of the program, dubbed the Clean City law, was designed to rid South America’s biggest metropolis of its ubiquitous advertising. Owners of apartment complexes rented space on the sides of their buildings to companies hawking underwear with 150-foot-high posters. Shops plastered their name in mega letters above the door. And drivers sped along highways lined with signs for everything from TV programs to cold meats to universities.

Ad executives said the billboards created jobs and helped fuel the city’s economy – and brought a splash of color to the overwhelmingly gray panorama. But city officials argued it had gone too far, creating “visual pollution.” The strict new code is backed with minimum fines of 10,000 reais ($5,000) for noncompliance.

Under the new law, all oversized ads must come down. Signage standards are shrinking, too. Stores with a shop front exceeding 100 meters (328 feet) in length are allowed two signs, but each smaller than 10 square meters (33 square feet). Smaller stores can have one sign no bigger than 4 meters (13 feet) square.

Of course Business Weekly had a more fiscal view…

Others predicted that the city would look even worse with the ads removed, a bland concrete jungle replacing the chaos of the present. North Korea and communist Eastern Europe were cited as indicative of what was to come. “I think this city will become a sadder, duller place,” Dalton Silvano, the only city councillor to vote against the laws and (not entirely coincidentally) an ad executive, was quoted as saying in the International Herald Tribune. “Advertising is both an art form and, when you’re in your car, or alone on foot, a form of entertainment that helps relieve solitude and boredom,” he claimed.

There was also much questioning of whether there weren’t, in fact, far greater eyesores in the city—such as the thousands of homeless people, the poor condition of the roads and the notorious favelas: wouldn’t Kassab’s time be better spent removing these problems than persecuting taxi drivers and shop owners? Legal challenges followed while, in an almost comical scenario, advertising executives followed marches by the city’s students and its bin men by driving their cars up and down in front of city hall in protest.

World Changing posted this response by Erik Assadourian when questioned on whether other city issues should take precedence:

Such laws are important for a perhaps less obvious reason: combating global warming. “It’s not simply greenhouse gases that cause climate change–it’s our consumer lifestyle that causes the greenhouse gases that cause climate change,” he notes. “Until we end consumerism and the rampant advertising that drives it, we will not solve the climate crisis.”

I say good for Sao Paulo. It certainly will make the city more beautiful and more livable, and encourage more to visit the frenetic bustling metropolis. Houston, are you listening?

Photo from Flickr.

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I posted on this beauty about 14 months ago, and I’m happy to say this tribute to urban non-renewal is still thriving.

I actually noticed it in January of 2006. Whatever the magic is it has been there since January and still going strong, despite some raucous windstorms too.

If you’d like to water, or decorate it for the upcoming holidays, the ghetto tree is located on Josephine Street between 14th and Colfax. Hopefully it will stand strong until Arbor Day rolls around next April.

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A year ago I read the book “Tearing Down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy” by former Denver resident Jeff Ferrell. I was reminded of his book while biking past the Flour Mill Lofts recently. In his book Jeff rails against the “Disneyfication” of American Streets, as well as the privatization of public spaces in order to establish control over them. This is an issue I agree with Jeff on, and something that needs to be closely watched.

I agree with most of Jeff’s views, even if some are taken to an extreme. Responsible development is necessary to create a vibrant economic climate. But I concur in that handing over parcels of city land to private companies we share in the common the loss of “free spaces”. Also this tends to drive away the small independent entrepreneurs via large corporations buying up parcels of city blocks to create THEIR vision and ideals. Through this they control who shops and lives near their properties, and discourage less than preferrered clientele from being there through arcane codes and quasi legal laws.

One urban project detailed in Jeff’s book is the “Flour Mill Lofts” on the west side of downtown Denver. During the 1990s this area was transformed from a transient “off the grid” area on the fringe of downtown to a healthy area of condos, modern high rises, light retail, and parks. I don’t feel this is all bad. The Platte Park area along Little Raven Street is a beautiful and green part of the city. Bikers and runners along the two rivers and sitting on the hills drinking over just people watching with the skyline in the background makes for a wonderful way to spend a weekend. In 15 years this area has been transformed from the urban blight to one of the most inhabitable areas of the city.

However In Jeff’s book he almost goes so far as to say the squatters and the homeless had a RIGHT to occupy the Flour Mill Lofts, and even fantasizes about them taking over the multi-million dollar condos at Flour Mill and reclaiming it for themselves. Strange concept. But, when you think about the difference between homeless and squatters versus those on fixed income occupying a piece of land that developers are salivating over, the difference really isn’t that great. Especially when developers are wooing city leaders for eminent domain rights in order to TAKE their land.

The Cherry Creek retail area near my home in Congress Park started with a population of World War Two bungalows and eclectic artist establishments. Following the Cherry Creek Mall’s inception in the 80s the area has continued to cater to a higher and higher dollar. Even the famous Tattered Cover Bookstore moved out last year to a less expensive location a few miles away. Now the area is furriers and jewelry stores, save for a few decent food joints like Cherry Cricket and Java Creek.

Another scary concept is the propagation of privately owned streets and city blocks. Again in Cherry Creek - there’s a block on Clayton between 1st and 2nd Street where you’ll find a Marriot and a steakhouse. This entire block is OWNED by the development company. Meaning if I wanted to hand out political flyers, fly a kite, or just be a bum I could legally be asked to leave. Having public streets run by private companies is a bad bad thing. I agree with Jeff on this entirely.

Back to “pushing out the little guy:” On a larger scale has anyone planned a Las Vegas trip lately? In the late 90s when I lived in California I’d frequently drive up on the weekends with friends. We’d get a cheap room, play some cards, consume $6 steaks and free drinks and have a great time. Now it’s difficult to find a weekend room for under $200. I don’t share any special bond with tacky old casinos, but watching 70 year old former cocktail waitresses tear up over a casino implosion is the same feeling I get when I see a “tear down” or “scrape off” every few weeks while biking to work - pictured left. (See my articles here about teardowns.)

Close to my home in Denver - the area of Colfax Avenue between York and Colorado is undergoing major transformations. High rises are going up near City Park, home prices are rising, and more money is coming in. That’s a wonderful thing for me, my home value, and ultimately my financial security. But if it’s at the expense of losing the “red headed stepchild” businesses such as tattoo parlors, dusty used bookstores, and independent food joints, I’d think I’d give up some of the glamour in order to keep the original fabric of my neighborhood.

Should cities, retail districts, and economic plans include ALL levels of income? I’m a person that promotes “infill”, meaning that instead of building and sprawling OUT to the exurbs, we take existing city blocks and parcels that can be utilized in rejuvenated as vibrant new places to live, work, and shop. But where do the people go that sparsely occupy these places go? The homeless may be an easy group to relocate, but others surviving on low means, without political clout, have a legal right to their space. THEY are a complex issue when it comes to redevelopment issues - as well they should be.

You can check out Jeff Ferrel’s book Tearing Down the Streets here.

Left: Flour Mill Lofts detailed in Jeff Ferral’s book. Right: Platte Park Area of Denver.

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Last week I attempted to hunt down err, well I don’t really know what it’s called.  I see guys around town with small satchels made of canvas and burlap.  You know, the kind worn by hipsters wearing metro tight jeans, shirts with patches, biking to a Bright Eyes concert.  They’re commonly known as a “murse”, or manpurse.   Or as Seinfield says, “A European Carry All!”

Being the gift buying procrastinator that I am didn’t grant me sufficient time to mull about Buffalo Exchange or other area consignment stores.  Fortunately a poster over on the “Your Choice” branch of Lonely Planet suggested Manhattan Portage.  Turns out they had exactly what I was looking for, and a plethora of other cool urban transport gear.

They carry a selection of backpacks, shoulder bags, “murses”, and laptop bags.  Not only are their styles unique, but their service is exception.  I called them up Friday to inquire about next day shipping, and after confirming it could be arranged my order was taken right over the phone, and I was guided to style and color suggestions for my recipient.  (Rather than being directed back to the web.)  Personal service like that deserves a plug.  Plus messenger and organizational stuff like that is just too sexy.

Their site is manhattanportage.com  And their retail store is at 258 Elizabeth Street, NYC.

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