My Top Ten Favorite Cities

My travels are limited (the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Italy), but thus far, these are my favorite cities, and why:

1. Portland, OR (Pioneer Courthouse Square and pretty much everything else)

2. Denver, CO (16th Street Mall and LoDo)


3. Venice, Italy (No cars!!!! A total dream for me)


4. Seattle, WA (Love everything, except the perpetual drizzle)

5. Savannah, GA (Public squares everywhere, oh and a cool cemetery)

6. Charleston, SC (Great downtown--shoppes, restaurants, historic buildings, homes)

7. St. Augustine, FL (Narrow, winding streets)

8. Charlottesville, VA (UVA campus, history, architecture, site planning by Jefferson)

9. Richmond, VA (Hmm, okay, pretty much just Bill's BBQ)

10. St. Petersburg, FL (Some great architecture, brick roads, and pink streets--that's right, pink streets!)

The Parking Lot as Civic Space: The Collapse of the Public Realm

Admittedly I've been witness to a number of disturbing trends recently, including (but not limited to) beautiful people wearing trucker hats, sporting the porn stache, and wearing mom-jeans; and all irony free, beautiful people mean business. Who needs irony with cheekbones like that?

But in seriousness, I can handle the cosmetic crap. A far more grave, sinister, black, horrid threat exists (and if I can accurately be labeled as anything, it's an alarmist). Ask yourself these questions:

Where were you the last time you bought a box of girl scout cookies? Were solicited for spare change? Were approached by a Mormon missionary?

If you were me your answer to all three would be "a parking lot." What the hell happened to the street, the park, the square as civic space humans were welcome to inhabit? Oh dear, the end is near. Plug it in, pack it up. What would you do for a Klondike Bar? Stop using your car and start using intuition?

Some days this whole arrangement is just exhausting. Two weeks ago I was asked for spare change twice in one day, in different parking lots. The guy in the morning got the shaft--I only had 15 cents in cash; the guy in the evening did much better--I'd made change at the post office and had five bucks. He was carrying a toddler--whether for real or a prop doesn't matter.

What does matter is the disconnect between fellow citizens--our public forum consists of bitumen, line striping reflective chemicals, wheel stops and towing signs, motorized vehicles, shopping carts complete with dispatch and holding cells, the guy in the orange vest, cameras may be monitoring this property for your protection, landscaped mulch islands teaming with empty miller high life and big gulps, with pigeons and seagulls there to dine. Country meets city, ah, the good life. We're all so deserving.