In 2005, my sister Heather was basically living inside her own real-life version of Friends. She and my brother-in-law were renting a two-bedroom apartment in a complex in Tustin, California, where no fewer than eight of their best friends and relatives had also taken up residence. A band of super-social newlyweds, they were hanging out all the time. Squeezing into … Read More
How much do you love your city?
Tell your friends in Iowa that you’re moving to Austin, Texas, and they squee with a weird combo of joy and jealousy. They maybe get misty-eyed, or tell you how lucky you are. “Austin is a great city,” they say solemnly. “You’ll love it.” Hear this enough times and eventually you become a believer. Moving to Austin makes us the … Read More
The Power of Small in Charleston
The highway overpass that funnels vacationers like me toward the high-end shops and million-dollar mansions of downtown Charleston, South Carolina, soars a hundred feet above a very different kind of neighborhood, a part of the city known as the Upper Peninsula. The homes here are small, interspersed among warehouses and union halls, and lived in primarily by low-income, African-American Charlestonians. … Read More
This may be the first time a video for an app made me tear up.
Vamonde – 'Every Story Has a Place' from Philip Giancola on Vimeo. Vamonde is a new iOS app inspired by the age-old question, “What happened here?” This is a way to make the walls talk. Download guided tours through the history of a 100-year-old theater, or the architecture of a particular neighorhood, or the food of an entire city, mostly … Read More