Commentary on public policy, place and social relations
Rising rents are just one obstacle to opportunity today (Source: Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University ) Some time ago, First Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids engaged me to do two talks, on justice and social welfare. Since they were scheduled close together, I've treated them as a two-part series, even though I don't think that's how they were conceived, and I'm not even sure…
Hope he gets some of that coffee: Statue of Thucydides in Vienna, Austria (7/31/2026) A long time ago, according to the ancient Greek historian Thucydides (c. 460-400 BCE), a delegation from Athens went to the burg of Melos to demand its surrender. Melos, which was trying to stay neutral in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, resisted. The Athenians offered to argue it out with them,…
You can get there from here! The Cherokee Trail, which eventually will run all across the west side of Cedar Rapids, is complete between Cherokee Park and Morgan Creek County Park. The next step is to go east out of Cherokee Park, across Edgewood Road to the intersection of Westwood Drive and F Avenue NW. According to the Linn County Trails Association, work continues in the City of Cedar Rapids…
Hickok Hall at Coe College, where your humble and mostly retired blogger wrote this post I've been out of full-time teaching for two years now, which has left me with more time to read and write. This is a good thing! I write a lot--journals, songs , letters, blog posts. I seem to need to write, and I am grateful to you for reading and responding. Blogging on Holy Mountain is what passes for work…
We've always viewed our nation as a place with unlimited land and natural resources.-- PETE SAUNDERS Ten years ago, I was gearing up to teach the next generation of first-year Coe College students about urbanism . Maybe that's why Holy Mountain was full of urbanist basics like cities blowing their stash on big amenities, gentrification, and suburban sprawl. My post on suburbia was full of…
Eric Klinenberg at CNU34 Twenty-first century social infrastructures are already reviving civic life in nations across the planet: public plazas in low-lying cities that double as massive water storage systems during extreme weather events; massive levees and berms that masquerade as bike paths and parks. Americans should have all these things. (Klinenberg 2018: 293) Eric Klinenberg, Palaces for…
Source: bakeracademic.com Eric O. Jacobsen, The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment (Baker Academic, 2012), 297 pp. If Jesus's "dwelling among us" means that he lives as we typically do, he would most likely be living in a subdivision at least a few miles from where he might interact with people in a quasi public setting--like a shopping mall or a grocery store. In…
The lives we should all be living: "Texas Two-Step," a movie on the Hallmark Channel, offers romance and country music in a small town third place (swiped from hallmarkchannel.com) (6/16/2026) In my last post , I noted the reputation of the 1990s TV series Friends has as a contributor to the "back to the city" trend earlier in this century, and wondered not only whether that trend has ebbed, but…
The hit 90s TV series Friends was a harbinger of the "back to the city" years: Where are today's "friends" living? (6/13/2026) Ten years ago this month, I looked back on what had been the best ten years for American central cities in a long, long time. By 2015, the "back to the city" movement that had been growing for decades had burst into full flower. From 2005-2015, the U.S. population grew by…
The Landing: Apartments with first floor retail, Iowa River Landing Ten years ago, Ben Kaplan criticized Coralville's Iowa River Landing development as having the design of an urban area but without the connection to or from other places that is essential to urbanism: Iowa River Landing is not well connected to anything outside of Iowa River Landing. While, from certain angles, the place looks…
Melissa Bruntlett and Chris Bruntlett, Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality (Island Press, 2018), xiii + 223pp. (6/2/2026) When the husband-and-wife team of Melissa and Chris Bruntlett toured bicycling facilities in the Netherlands in 2016 on assignment for Daily Hive, that country had a long-standing reputation for cycle commuting, such that North American cities…
Dale Todd speaks at Cedar Rapids Public Library, May 2016 "Waterfronts are the rock stars of city infrastructure."-- MATTHEW LISTER, MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR GEHL AMERICAS, AT CNU34 (5/23/2026) When Dale Todd spoke at a special edition of 1 Million Cups Cedar Rapids at the Cedar Rapids Public Library ten years ago, on behalf of the package of projects known as Destination Cedar Rapids, he was between…
Hi from the town with the big friendly ball! Which smiles as it watches, and floats above all Wednesday, May 13, 2026 I don't know what it must have felt like for a medieval peasant to visit Rome, but I am in a similar position at the 34th annual Congress for the New Urbanism. Wal-Mart , the enormous conglomerate where many Americans shop, is headquartered here, the longtime home of founder Sam…
I biked to work! (5/11/2026) It was 41F (5C) degrees this morning, for a chilly start to Bike to Work Week in Cedar Rapids. The forecast high was 68, and the wind was light, so though it was not as warm as last year, it was a good day for biking. Because I'll be leaving shortly for Arkansas to attend the Congress for the New Urbanism --watch this space for exhaustive updates!--this was my one…
Some of us have to live with the consequences of another legislative session (5/7/2026) Iowa's public approval of President Donald Trump has dipped to 42 percent in 2026, according to the World Population Review ; that puts us only slightly above the national average, and in the middle of the pack of states. That's pretty remarkable, given that our politics have flowed bright red since the 2014…
Free on-street parking (free with two-hour limit), New Bohemia, October 2025 (4/29/2026) The City of Cedar Rapids is taking a realistic approach to parking issues in the "Core Four" neighborhoods (Downtown, Czech Village, New Bohemia, and Kingston). Business owners and customers have complained about the difficulty in finding parking; parking finances are not self-sustaining but have required…
As a child, I loved to color maps, or copy the ones in the phone book with tracing paper I (4/22/2026) My urbanist journey began when I taught a first-year course on place at Coe College in 2008. Or maybe it was earlier? I have loved maps since I was tiny (see above). But it was teaching a course at Coe on the Sense of Place that led me to a semester-long study on sabbatical in spring semester…
Litter is a plague on our cities (4/1/2026) Ten years ago this month, I wrote about a fellow who used the grassy median on our street as his dog's toilet. "Neither the man nor his dog cleans up afterwards," I noted. It served as a homely example of Garret Hardin's belief that people had incentives to over-use common property, such as a village green for grazing sheep, or a grassy median on Blake…
Bloch, Sam. Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource. Penguin Random House, 2025, xviii + 309 pp. (3/30/2026) Decades ago, when I was still in my insouciant youth, I went on a canoe trip somewhere in the Midwest. When we came to the end of the trip, I reached up to scratch my head, and it (my head) was hot to the touch from being in the sun so long. If my dermatologist is reading this,…
Follow the signs to the 2026 Maple Syrup Festival! (3/30/2026) More than 3,000 people made their way just outside of town to the Indian Creek Nature Center last weekend for the annual Maple Syrup Festival. Saturday featured a chilly wind which might have put a few people off, but by Sunday we were back to an unusual run of warm days this late winter/early spring. Long winter or mild one, it's a…
Was dead-ending 2nd Avenue a mistake, given the property tax volcano that is PCI? (Truth in blogging disclosure: Your author is a frequent visitor to the Physicians Clinic of Iowa medical mall, including Forefront Dermatology, PCI Labs, and PCI Urology. He is grateful for the care he receives. He pays $29,637 per acre in property taxes on his house.) (3/16/2026) A few days ago, I was in a…
Celebrating at the Nassif YMCA, March 2016 (3/02/2026) When Cedar Rapids was named a Blue Zones community ten years ago, it was only the 15th town to be so certified. Less than two years later, however, the city's contract with the Blue Zones Project ended , and we switched to being a Healthy Hometown Powered by Wellmark. Today, the Healthy Hometown program no longer seems to exist: the link on…
Record one-day snowfall hits Providence (Swiped from WPRI 12 website ) (2/24/2026) As the Northeastern U.S. staggers under record-breaking snowfall (above, CNU33 host city Providence), I come, laptop in hand, to report on my weekend. This is not the post I was going to write. Jane and I traveled to Dubuque and Galena to celebrate her birthday. These are two river towns northeast of Cedar Rapids…
Micro-area map (2/12/2026) Can a historic neighborhood business district near downtown be reincarnated in the 21st century? The City of Cedar Rapids is preparing a Corridor Redevelopment Plan for First Avenue East between 12th and 16th Streets, roughly the same area as covered in the First Avenue East Micro-Area Action Plan adopted in 2025 ( Nieland 2025 ). That plan, while not bold, took notice…
boarding the #7 to the southwest side, September 2025 (2/6/2026) My friend Randy turns 65 today, which makes him eligible for a senior pass entitling him to a lifetime of free rides on Cedar Rapids transit. He is an experienced bus rider, but not so much in his only-recently-adopted home of Cedar Rapids, so I wish him well on the adventures ahead of him. Sample transit pass. Any resemblance to…