I hope you enjoyed my 2025 Ignite Annapolis talk “Need or Greed” about the competing priorities in the housing market as to whether housing is considered a fundamental human need (so we want costs to go down) or as an investment product (so we want values to go up). Unfortunately, you can’t really have it both ways. This is the current housing crisis we find ourselves in.… Read More Ignite Annapolis! (2025)
After dreaming about and planning a bikepacking route from Annapolis to Cleveland for over 10 years, I finally did it. 600 miles in 8 days.… Read More WTF Cleveland, Indeed
Now that the fire of the proposed City-wide Prohibition on New Drive-through Windows has abated with its passing by the city council on December 9, 2024, it’s time to share my opinions publicly without any possibility of conflict of interest.… Read More Drive Thrus – It’s Complicated – JK Not Really
Revisiting the Market House five years later. It’s a flourishing third place downtown and this is why.… Read More Market House is Flourishing
We spent the 2022 Thanksgiving week in Barcelona. In general, it exceeded expectations with all of the interesting aspects of any large European city, excellent walkability, good transportation options, great cultural amenities, interesting architecture, and oh the food! Because of my interest in urbanism, it’s always fun to experience a new city with that lens, especially one that has been written about extensively in urbanism circles. But, of all of the possible facets of city planning to observe, the one that really jumped out for me was the extreme mixture of uses and how it manifests in the city.… Read More Mixed Up In Barcelona
The Westfield Annapolis Mall is for sale (again). This should come as no surprise given the changes in the retail scene over the last 20 years, the 2007 economic crisis and the latest effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The big question is “Now What”?… Read More The Annapolis Mall Is For Sale (Again)… Now What?
A recent project that came before the Annapolis Planning Commission was made very challenging by the planning dogma that arose in the mass suburbanization era of the last half of the 20th century. The choices made 40-50 years ago to the development pattern in Annapolis that seemed like the next great thing at the time required us to choose the least bad option. What can we learn from that?… Read More Dealing With The Planning Dogma Of The Past
The land use and mobility goals of the Parole Town Center Master Plan are incoherent and there needs to be real change if we want the area to be more than an inside out mall that you have to drive to.… Read More Can Parole Ever Be Anything But An Inside Out Mall?
My day job at NASA came to an end July 30, 2021 after 35 years. Here’s a recap of the last five months since then and how I’ve moved on.… Read More T Plus 5 Months: Every Day Is Saturday
Short term rentals have been professionalized far beyond their original intent with deleterious effects.… Read More Housing, Not Lodging
Team Pline 