by admin | Oct 2, 2016 | Disaster, Environment, History, Industry, Movies
I have just returned tonight from seeing Deepwater Horizon at the movie theater. It has been a while since I used this blog to review a movie, but I feel compelled. This one, I am willing to say, is well worth your time and money. Peter Berg, as director, has done an...
by admin | Jul 4, 2016 | Activism, Books, Civil rights, Government, History, Immigration, Political philosophy, Racism
Long ago, in a graduate urban planning course at the University of Iowa called “Collective Decision Making,” I had an interesting exchange of views with Professor Mickey Lauria, now at Clemson University. We are both much older than we were in 1982, so it might be...
by admin | Jun 25, 2016 | Environment, Floodplain management, History, Parks, Public health, Recreation, Travel, Water
Two weeks ago, I wrote about Cleveland’s Flats Entertainment District, where restaurants and bars now line the sides of the once filthy Cuyahoga River that now hosts boats and rowers. The Flats is but the last reach of a river that extends south into the Akron area....
by admin | Jun 11, 2016 | Economic development, Environment, History, Industry, Personal history, Restaurants, Travel
Let’s start with the fact, obvious mostly in retrospect, that I should have printed out a map of the Flats Entertainment District in Cleveland rather than relying on Onstar, the GM dial-in navigation system in our Saturn, for directions. (I could also have used my...
by admin | Jun 5, 2016 | Chicago, History, Infrastructure, Recreation, Restaurants, Transportation, Urban Planning, Water
Chicago is already quite rich in parks and tourist attractions. What can it add downtown? In the past, I have written about the 606 Trail in Chicago, which is experiencing its first anniversary after opening a year ago. Despite some of its well-known challenges and...
by admin | Apr 10, 2016 | Books, Government, History
I may be one of the few non-historians to have read at least one biography of every U.S. President from George Washington through Barack Obama. The fact that I earned a B.A. in Political Science at Cleveland State University way back in 1973 may make my quest seem a...
