The Price of Place: Oeconomia over Chrematistike
The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.--Edmund Burke, Reflections...
Rethinking the Good City: Vallejo’s Bold Vision
What Americans Want in Cities
What makes a good city? I’ve been thinking a lot about this. What makes for a city people are happy...
Robo-umps and Us
As is so often the case when new technology promises to correct the errors of human fallibility, robo-umps could be bad for everyone involved.
Bringing Wendell Berry (and Business) to Sterling
A week ago I was able to organize a small group of friends to attend a fine, relatively intimate event at Sterling College, a...
Solar’s Dirty Secret
In 2017 I moved back home to Livingston County after serving seven years in the United States Marine Corps. A father, a veteran, and...
Toward a Somewhere Suburb
In his 2017 book The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, British commentator David Goodhart seeks to understand the recent...
The Power of Place
Review of “The Power of Place: KU Alumni Artists” at the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, KS. The exhibit runs through June 30,...
Modest Proposal: Tobacco is Like Love
Among the legion of unjustly forgotten historical figures there’s an eccentric soldier and failed composer named Captain Tobias Hume. Unless you play the viola da...
Rock the Block
It is a cloudless July day in Connecticut—the kind of day that keeps people rooted in this place despite its long winters and high...
No Chairlift, No Spandex, No Problem: The Rustic Virtues of X-C...
During the fall color tour, we often drive to a ski resort near my home in southwest Michigan. It’s about the only time my...