Last night was warm, a little rainy — even balmy — in Savannah. It was one of those nights when the gray skies and myriad reflections from the rain lend the city an emotional complexity that’s not always so prominent.…
“Before I Die . . .”
Month: April 2012
The hypocrisy of Georgia drug testing requirement for “welfare”
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal yesterday signed a bill to require “welfare” recipients to pass drug tests before receiving benefits. I put “welfare” in quotes because few people seem to know what that even is. We’re talking about the federal program…
Georgia Board of Regents releases tuition and fee level for 2012-2013
From the Board of Regents: This fall, most students at Georgia’s 35 public colleges and universities will see the smallest tuition increase in a decade – 2.5 percent. The action taken by the Board of Regents on tuition today is…
Housing: a choppy, inconsistent recovery
In my City Talk column today, I summarize some of the latest home sales data for the Savannah area. Single-family home sales were essentially flat compared to a year ago, but inventories are shrinking because of a decreased pace of…
Truth & Salvage Co. – Live Wire Music Hall – 05/26/12
“Pure Mountain Angel”:
Good urban design = More human connections
I’ve been writing and reading a lot lately about urban design issues — especially streets.
Thanks to a Twitter post, I found Is Bad Urban Design Making Us Lonely? at The Atlantic Cities, which included a link to a lengthy and well-researched study of urban design and social connections in Australia: “Social Cities” by Jane-Frances Kelly for the Grattan Institute.
Why Romney trails Obama in new CNN poll
Romney wins among whites, in the South, in rural areas, and among those over 65, but trails — in some cases really badly — for other demographic groups and geographies.
Tupac Shakur hologram performs at Coachella (video embedded)
Who next? Michael Jackson? Tupac Shakur has been dead for 15 years — shot to death at age 26 — but he still made a stir at the Coachella Music Festival yesterday. The hologram of Tupac joined Dr. Dre and…
Tom Vanderbilt on NPR this morning: Americans should be walking more
I’ve already posted links, comments, and excerpts for Tom Vanderbilt’s 4-part series at Slate about the state of walking and pedestrianism in America. This morning he talked to NPR’s Morning Edition about these issues — and made a compelling case…
Gas prices may have peaked — at least for now
Here’s the latest from GasBuddy.com.
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| Savannah Historical Gas Price Charts Provided by GasBuddy.com |
Open the post for more.
Calculated Risk compares job losses of recession to Great Depression
We don’t have good data from the Great Depression, but the U.S. probably lost more than 15% of its civilian jobs from 1929 to about 1932. The jobs recovery was pretty quick from there, but then jobs were lost again…
Why housing will continue to be a drag on the recovery
New construction is typically a driver of economic recoveries, but the combination of tighter credit because of the financial crisis and the massive overhang of existing homes — we built too many plus saw many others become distressed — could not be countered by any conventional, or politically acceptable, policy moves.
Henri’s ennui continues
“The white idiot writhes on his chair begging for cheeseburgers.” That’s just great.
Open the post to see part one from a few years ago.
Tom Vanderbilt in “Slate”: “How America can start walking again”
I’ve already posted a few Savannah-centric comments about as well as links to Traffic author Tom Vanderbilt’s 4-part series in Slate about walking in America. My posts are here, here, and here. Why do Americans walk less than most other…