Urbanist with a soft spot for legacy cities, maps, and housing. OCD survivor.
Connecticut, USA
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This is, shall we say, a flawed methodology.
Dallas named the third 'most-walkable' city in the nation
bit.ly/44awM7p
Community note
This ranking is based on flawed judgment, as it uses the distance between five tourist hotspots of only thirty cities. The ease of reaching amenities for residents is not regarded.
preply.com/en/blog/most-w
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My friend sent me photos from Traverse City and freshwater beaches in the Midwest? I was not familiar with your game.
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If we're going to talk about people with disabilities, I suggest we don't impose a one-size-fits-all definition upon us.
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While I'm at it, 5 Most Overrated Cities:
(1) Austin
(2) Portland, Oregon
(3) Denver
(4) Atlanta
(5) Los Angeles
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Happy to unveil Big Apple Madness, a tournament to decide the best neighborhood in New York City.
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"We don't want a one size fits all solution."
We are not outright opposed to ADU's. But we do not need a one size fits all approach from Albany.
@lawler4ny
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It's almost like the gentrification narrative has been coopted by privileged early wave gentrifiers to promote their interests while comforting their ego.
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I intend to tweet a lot about Hartford's singular housing typology, the Perfect Six. And if you think this new gizmo is gonna stop me, you've got another thing coming.
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Twitter bracket time! 🎉🎉🎉
Get set for Chicago Madness, a Twitter tournament for people to decide the best Chicago neighborhood. 64 neighborhoods compete, but only 1 can be called the best.
First polls drop tomorrow, Thursday, December 8, at 6:00 pm EST/5:00 CST.
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Underappreciated fact: Public engagement is expensive. It's a huge time-suck for staff. It's an inefficient use of time in the public sector. And for private sector? It racks up those billable hours that consultants depend on to make bank.
A lot of public engagement by planners is worthless bc it starts with the wrong premise: finding out which plans or priorities "the community" prefers.
This is an unanswerable question and leaves everyone in the process feeling like their time has been wasted, because it has.
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I don't know. Maybe left NIMBYs could drop the market urbanism bugbear and explain why people living in the street is preferable to giving people a short-term option of living in an SRO.
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This in Jacobin is 100% true
jacobin.com/2022/11/gop-righ…
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It's all over! The voters have spoken: JACKSON HEIGHTS IS NEW YORK'S BEST NEIGHBORHOOD!
#BigAppleMadness
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New Jersey is much better than Connecticut and the suburbs listed are better than comparable suburbs in Connecticut
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My Trivia Pursuit victory was marred by an unfortunate incident.
I, the planner, got the question, 'What was the first planned suburb?' The card said Levittown. It was not Levittown. Chaos ensued, wrought entirely by me.
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The tourist attractions, such as they are, are all close together. But I searched the Perot Museum on Google Maps and found another flaw with just using distance.
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I don't think I'll ever understand why people get so upset because they have to park a block or two away from their destination.
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I was harassed while taking a photo of a perfect six yesterday. Perfect sixes are now a symbol of LGBTQ pride. I don't make the rules.
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Introducing DC Madness!!!!!!!! This is a 64-neighborhood tournament to determine the best neighborhood in and around the District.
1st Round voting starts at 5:00 pm EST today and will continue tomorrow. To vote, simply check my feed and vote in each 2-neighborhood poll.
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I understand preferring social housing to market-rate housing. I do not understand opposing market-rate housing because it isn't social housing. It's like saying we people shouldn't be allowed to enroll in private insurance because we haven't passed Medicare for All.
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Most underrated cities I've visited:
Baltimore
Buffalo
Capital Region, NY (Albany/Troy)
Cleveland
Cincinnati
Detroit
Grand Rapids
Lowell, MA
New Bedford
Providence
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Do you have a problem with historic preservation? Why? I'd like to include it in a presentation to preservation students.
Respectful answers only. These are preservation students after all.
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1. Staycations are great.
2. You can plan a vacation to some maligned domestic place - the Rust Belt, Appalachia, Florida - that has more cultural value than a lot of international destinations.
3. Plan your itinerary around the proximity of coffee shops. You'll thank me later.
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Presenting Philadelphia Madness, a Twitter ‘tournament’ where 128 Philly neighborhoods face off to decide which is the city’s best. Each round will last 20 hours, beginning at 5:00 pm and ending the next day at 1:00 pm.
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Detroit's white-hot growth between 1910 and 1930 is astonishing. So much of the city's built landscape comes from that era.
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I'm starting to think people have trouble grasping the basic contours of their local housing market.
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Few things would improve communities more than having a grocery store within walking distance.
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I demand Chicago legalize the Perfect Six and remove all zoning and building regulations on them forthwith.
Advocates are calling upon Mayor Brandon Johnson to nominate a Zoning Committee Chair who will tackle common-sense zoning reforms that will make it easier to build housing for all Chicagoans: 🏘️new.urbanenvironmentalists.o…
ALT Image showing a Chicago six-flat with a bicycle parked out front.
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I've been looking at Milwaukee on Streetview since it's been voted the best city in America. 🧵
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What's a neighborhood that's not well known nationally but has great urbanism?
I'll start: Frog Hollow in Hartford.
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"The people who live in new buildings aren't from here so they don't count. Real New Yorkers live in old housing."
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Yup, in 1930 the architecture field got together and went, 'wouldn't it be cool if we demoralized everyone'
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Oooh look at me. I'm Autumn and make impromptu trips to cities just to photograph old apartment buildings.
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What's the best place in Metro Boston? Introducing The Hub: The Tournament, a March Madness-style Twitter tournament to decide the best place in the Boston region.
The 1st part of Round 1 starts today, Thursday, at 5:00 pm EST with Part 2 beginning tomorrow.
#TheHubTournament
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A personal update: I'm going to work for the City of Hartford. I accepted a Senior Planner position and I'm very excited to live and work in the community.
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Hey, @nytimes, what's up with using a NIMBY phrasing like "overdevelopment" uncritically?
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And also the rampant antisemitism
cnn.com/2024/11/12/us/univer…
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New York Times poll from 3 days ago:
- 67% of Democrats think trans women should be banned from women's sports (79% overall)
- 54% of Democrats think gender care should be banned (71%)
- 78% of Democrats favor a ban of puberty blockers (87%)
Trans activists lost. Badly.
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My father-in-law is a builder. He is insanely gifted. We were walking past a playground in Fairfield County years ago and I asked him what it would cost to build today. I will never forget his answer...
"We can't, we don't know how to do it."
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This begs the question: What city neighborhood have suburbanites told you to avoid because of crime?
I'll start: East Rock in New Haven; Old City in Philadelphia; Anywhere in Jersey City
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I try not to make it too personal when ordinary folk are NIMBYs since many haven't spent a lot of time thinking about land use.
But planners who are NIMBYs? I get very judgey very quickly.
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People On Here were shocked Connecticut has to add opt-out provisions to pass ADU and parking reforms. People underestimate how suburban planning culture is taught as if its God-given. Most suburbanites think as if single-family zoning has been in place since Plymouth Rock.
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I don't want to dunk, but prioritizing "the people who live in a neighborhood" can be a hugely problematic paradigm.
They hope that if they can brand you with the NIMBY label, with its echo of segregationism, they can avoid having a serious discussion of questions like: should the people who live in a neighborhood, or the money of developers, decide whether existing residents are displaced?
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Question: If you had to live in a suburb but had the freedom to choose, where would you live?
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Flushing defeats East Village/Alphabet City for 3rd place. NEW YORK'S TOP THREE NEIGHBORHOODS ARE IN QUEENS.
#BigAppleMadness
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*picks up takeout*
"Here's your takeout order, Autumn"
*person approaches*
"Excuse me. Are you the Autumn that posts the architectural photos on Twitter?"
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Simsbury has a median household income of $123,000, far higher than the $75,000 in Hartford County. The town didn't care about preserving this land until a developer proposed affordable housing. This is segregation that lets rich people pat themselves on the back for Dr. King.
Former Simsbury Tobacco Field Where MLK Jr. Worked to Be Preserved nbcconnecticut.com/news/loca…
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I need to tweet more about the many, many, many 3-story apartment buildings built in Hartford in the 1910s and 20s.
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I mean, it makes since symbolically to descend to the lower depths since you're going to Long Island.
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