neighborhoods Archives - Carrie Gartner

This IS my neighborhood

We have a big firework show in our downtown every Fourth of July and the traffic jam after the show, as one may imagine, is significant. While we tend to walk or bike because we live so close, most people have to drive. Last night we arrived home and realized that a lot of people were […]

The Problem with Pears

As I was walking the dog, I was reminded once again that Bradford Pears were planted for people in cars, not for people on foot. Once one of the most popular landscaping trees in America, most now bemoan the weak branch structure or the invasive nature of the Bradford. Any pedestrian though can tell you the […]

Inclusive Neighborhoods

I recently attend a neighborhood planning meeting for the West Central neighborhood, truly a busman’s holiday since it’s my own neighborhood. There was some great initial information about the demographics and character of the area, although nothing spoke to the inclusiveness and diversity of the neighborhood more than seeing “Quonset Hut” listed as one of the common architectural […]

The End of McMansions?

Time Magazine had an interesting piece on how the era of the McMansions, houses that top out at over 3,000 square feet, may be ending. It seems that “from 1950 to 2004, the average size of an American home jumped from from 983 square feet to 2,349 square feet.” Now this number is finally dropping. In […]

In My Backyard

Matthew Yglesias has another smart column in Slate (it’s refreshing to see someone bring free market theories to bear on progressive issues). In the past, he’s offered opinions on everything from using congestion pricing to promote public transit and eliminating building height restrictions to increase economic vitality. This time around, he’s tackling a subject near and dear to […]

Hooray! A New Bike Boulevard!

I’m a big fan of bike boulevards and I recently mourned the fact that moving into a new house meant that I spent less time traveling this way. In my old apartment, being on the bike boulevard six or eight times a week was not unusual. As I said at the time, location is: “…the crux […]

Keep Away From Our Fancy Houses

When the state began a rails-to-trails program to transform the KATY railroad line into a bike trail, the City of Columbia had the foresight to transform their own spur line as well. Now, the MKT Trail connects directly into the KATY Trail, bringing cyclists from all over Missouri right into Columbia. The MKT isn’t just […]

Bike Boulevards

I spent a lot of time last summer on our city’s bike boulevard. It’s a short, bike-friendly stretch of road designed to better connect our downtown with a college and a popular neighborhood to the east. I enjoyed winding my way past the community gardens and through campus into our arts district. And although they’ve faded […]

When public transportation is a little too public.

Josh Stephens of Next American City has another great example of the phenomenon in which a neighborhood protests against a project by throwing up myriad reasons why the project is simply unsuitable for their part of town. The residents of Beverly Hills are fighting to prevent the construction of a Metro line through their neighborhood. This new line would […]

Downtown Devotion

When I first moved to Columbia, there was no question in my mind where I wanted to live — downtown. I found a small apartment on Fifth Street and immediately felt at home here in our central city. A few years have passed, and now I’m back living downtown again, this time in the North […]

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