[ This week Robert Munson returns to his look at North America's central train stations with a look at New York's infamous "beast" - Pennsylvania Station. He picks up after his look at the "beauty" that is Grand Central Terminal - Aaron. ] This post is part of a series by Robert Munson called North America’s Train Stations: What Makes Them Sustainable — or Not? Showing the grandeur of the original Penn Station (destroyed 1963), this main waiting room approximated the volume of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. Photo via Wikimedia … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2014
Portrait of a Change Agent
My friend and occasional Urbanophile contributor Rod Stevens has suggested that communities should create "Dewar's Profiles" of the people in their cities that represent the type of entrepreneur they'd like to attract more of. I think this is a good idea. It's about thinking of the characteristics of people who have achieved success, and chosen to build that success in a particular place. What attributes do those people have? Once you know that, you can go out and find more of them. Some of this is place specific but I want to apply this … [Read more...]
The Rise of the Executive Headquarters
My latest post is online over at New Geography and is called "The Rise of the Executive Headquarters" in which I take another look at the emerging trend of putting the top executives of majors corporations back in global cities (often downtowns). Here's an excerpt: Headquarters were once a defining characteristic of urban economic power, and indeed today cities that can still brag of the number of entries they boast on the Fortune 500 list of largest American firms. Yet as urban centers increasingly lost headquarters, boosters started to … [Read more...]
The Urbanophile Interview: Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley
I was able to sit down this month with new Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley to spend an hour on such topics as Cincinnati's incredible historic assets, its history of social conservatism, streetcars and bike lanes, the repopulation of the urban core, and more. If the audio player below doesn't display, click over to listen on Soundcloud. Mayor John Cranely. Image via City of Cincinnati. Here are some edited highlights of our discussion. For those who prefer reading to listening, a complete transcript is available. By far the most … [Read more...]
On the Riverfront
Thursday I took a look at my "Cincinnati conundrum," namely how it's possible for a city that has the greatest collection of civic assets of any city its size in America to underperform demographically and economically. In that piece I called out the sprawl angle. But today I want to take a different look at it by panning back the lens to see Cincinnati as simply one example of the river city. There are four major cities laid out on an east-west corridor along the Ohio River: Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, and St. Louis (which is not on … [Read more...]