Upkeep


Recovery must be vigilantly maintained.
Apathy is always waiting in the shadows to take hold again. It is critical that a community is vigilant in terms of maintaining its new standards and ensures decline is not allowed to talk hold again. This phase is recognition that a community has successfully achieved recovery and is working to protect that progress.


Assistance

Civic Wellness Assessment

It’s easy to lose sight of what you set out to do and sometimes a fresh set of eyes can help you see what is right in front of you. All too often communities become numb to conditions, organizations and efforts starting to slip. The Wellness Assessment is an honest look at the core of a community. Through this process, participants will have the opportunity to take a cold hard look at how their town looks, feels and functions from an outsider’s perspective and provide direction as to how those issues can be addressed.

GET IN TOUCH


December 8, 2022

Holiday Logic

We stumbled upon a Holiday parade Friday evening. I was back in Ohio visiting my mom over the weekend to give her a hand with some holiday decorating and household
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June 11, 2021

My Best Place

The best place I know, is fortunately, right in front of my house. I am writing this blog from that place, or should I say, from this place, considering it
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March 18, 2022

A Vision, Not a Process

Every Tuesday morning, I hop on a Zoom call with my friend and colleague, Chet Clem. Chet runs a real estate development firm in New Hampshire. Along with majestic beards,
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July 29, 2021

Florida Man Teaches Me A Lesson

Jarring. Unsettling. Depressing. As we pulled out of the Tampa airport rental garage and onto the baking, chaotic, 8 lane Sprawlandia thoroughfare, those were the feelings churning in my stomach.
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April 7, 2022

Beer Helps

“Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy”. Founding Father, writer, inventor, scientist, diplomat, printer, and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, fully understood that water, hops and
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January 19, 2023

Welcome Back

To have good neighbors, you have to be a good neighbor. And who doesn’t want good neighbors? Maybe Philadelphia Eagles fans, but every else does. So, whatever happened to the
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April 28, 2022

The Product Not The Process

I don’t know if this phenomena occurs in other arenas, because I have never really worked in other arenas. I’m, what you would call, a one arena sorta guy. And
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May 25, 2022

Civic Self-Esteem

“Why would you move here?” “Why would you want to start a business here?” “Why would you renovate a building here?”  All questions I have heard people ask of their
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June 2, 2022

The Price of Neglect

Doing nothing would seemingly be cheap. It should certainly be easy. It should be a total breeze, like a Corona commercial, hanging seaside with Snoop getting high all day, sipping
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March 23, 2023

Treat the Town Part 3 – Mental Health

Ann Sussman’s brain works really, really well and I am quite envious. On a call we had last fall she told me about her research in a field she calls
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March 29, 2023

Treat the Town Part 4 – Fiscal Health

Suburban sprawl isn’t satisfied with wrecking your mental, physical and social health, but likes to kick you in the wallet as well. Repeatedly. Our fascination with suburbia has been a
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June 23, 2022

Defiance

I grew up attending swim meets in Defiance. I took my drivers license test in Defiance. I even got my ass kicked on an annual basis by the Defiance High
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June 29, 2022

Embracing Urbanism

Last week, while in Sterling Illinois, the City Manager asked for my first impressions of their town. I spoke candidly and bluntly (shocking, right?). Told him that Sterling had done
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October 17, 2019

The Case for Standards

At some point, we have to draw a line. We have to make a choice. We have to decide that something is unacceptable, lest everything become acceptable and we acclimate
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July 28, 2022

Take Back the Streets

Last week, my sister and I were sipping a glass of wine with my some family when her 14-year-old son and my 14-year-old son walked up to us on the
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October 8, 2021

What We Are Fighting For

There is no place for sprawl in our cities, simply no need, no advantage. Spreading out and building sprawl so national chains could haul away all the money was a
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June 18, 2019

Setting the Standards

As is becoming a welcome routine, I joined my neighbor for beers on his front porch last Friday, for what he calls “porch pirating.” We cover a range of topics
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October 14, 2021

Hating the New Neighbors

Cities are weird and they make weird decisions. There is some sort of common sense amnesia that takes hold when a group of three or more city leaders come together
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June 4, 2019

Own Your Issues

Sometimes I really struggle to figure out how people come to their conclusions. Some of the widely accepted solutions to combat community decline are fascinating. Often they have little to
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October 21, 2021

Candyland

I want to live in Candyland, and with next Sunday being trick-or-treat… I am about to find out if I do. There must a science behind this, someone out there
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May 14, 2019

It’s Not the Red Tape, Stupid

Another town and another enlightening conversation with an elected official. Over a cup of coffee, this particular mayor was filling me in on his city's strategy to rebuild their economy.
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June 1, 2023

On Quality

I have been thinking a great deal about the concept of quality since I joined John Marsh on his Redemptifcation podcast last week. We were discussing some recent travels and
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August 4, 2022

Hidden Gems

Whimsy. Delight. Maybe it’s called charm. There is a facet to great places that I find it hard to put my  finger on, but it’s one of those things that
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April 9, 2019

Pick Up Your Place

We don't often give credit to how much appearances affect us and shape our opinions. We judge nearly everything based on looks. We see the way people dress and groom
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April 2, 2019

Tourists Won’t Save Your Town

Tourism has long been touted as an economic panacea. A sound tourism strategy, in theory, will bring people far and wide to your community to leave you all of their
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March 11, 2019

This Pub Matters

Prior to moving to my neighborhood in 2016, I started doing some research on local bars. I wanted to figure out which bar would be my local when I got
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October 28, 2021

This Is Urban

When you hear the term urban, do you grow terrified? Do you think of Gotham City? Do you picture yourself in a Charles Bronson movie? Is the urban in your
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November 4, 2021

Les Toilettes

It’s been a little over a month since my wife and I returned from a trip to France and I’ve come to realize the experience has altered me. I suppose
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March 4, 2021

Pulled Apart

“This Rural Liberal Sets Out to Talk to His Pro-Trump Neighbors” was the title of the article my mother passed along. In the piece, the author attempted to connect with
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November 18, 2021

Shaping Places

I can’t concentrate when things around me are a mess. I can’t even settle in to watch sports ball until I've straightened up the den first. I find it difficult
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November 29, 2021

UnThankful

I understand it’s good to be thankful. I am well aware of how practicing gratitude can make our lives fuller and boost our happiness. These are reasonable things. I like
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September 1, 2022

The Cars are Winning

Four times. My wife and I rode in Pedal PGH this weekend with some close friends and on four separate occasions we had an incident with a driver. Four people,
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March 16, 2021

There is a Hole in My Neighborhood

There is a hole in my neighborhood.  Where once there was something, now there is something missing.  The place we used to go is still there, but we no longer
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December 9, 2021

Risky Business

Well, it’s happened- I got my first request, and I feel like a real-life cover band now. A kind young woman from Alabama called me last week and asked if
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September 29, 2022

Build A Better Block

It didn’t take much. I completed an online application in August- I filled in my name, my address, the date requested and the block I wanted to close down. A
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April 8, 2021

Let’s Get Civic

Erica picks up litter as she walks her dog around the neighborhood. She lives in a duplex a couple of blocks off of Main Street and she always keeps her
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January 6, 2022

The Road to Apathy

Apathy is not something, but the lack of something. It is not a negative concern, but no concern at all. Apathy isn’t an emotion, but the absence of one. An
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April 15, 2021

It’s Okay to Hate Cars

“Why can’t we have this at home?” Amber asked me as we criss-crossed Royal Street in the French Quarter. Royal isn’t closed to cars, but traffic is slow enough and
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October 20, 2022

Deferred Affection

Place has a power over us that we are rarely recognize. Our surroundings never stop adjusting our behavior and shaping our actions. We quiet down when we inhabit certain spaces,
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January 12, 2022

Pretty Matters

Does beauty truly lie in the eye of the beholder? Can’t we all agree what sort of photo should go on a postcard? Aren’t Ryan Gosling and my mother universally
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October 26, 2022

Room For Community

What does it take to bring a family closer together? The amount of time a family spends together is the central factor. I can speak from experience, the more meals
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January 26, 2022

Lessons From a Minivan

Let’s say you have a bike you love. You had your eye on it for a long time before you finally made the purchase. You researched all the other bikes
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April 30, 2021

Hometown Here or Main Street Martyr

When you hang your apathy fighting cape in the closet at the end of the night, do you feel like you are in this battle all alone? Do you fee
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November 3, 2022

Parking Ruins Everything

I’ve gotten away from posting about parking. I thought I beat that dead horse back to life and back to death again. I thought the people that follow me had
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May 5, 2020

A Crisis of Class (The Curse of Softpants)

I love looking at historic photos and seeing how our places have changed over time. Something that always stands out, is how nice everyone dressed in the past. No matter
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February 3, 2022

Help Not Wanted

My self-esteem can handle quite a lot, but getting ghosted by my township might be more than I can take.  What’s wrong with me? Am I not good enough? Am
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November 16, 2022

Density is not the Devil

You want to get people fired up? Feel like picking a fight? Want to enrage an entire community? Mention the word density or god forbid, urbanism. Out come the pitchforks.
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May 20, 2021

The Urge to Serve

This week, my feeds were filled with both good news and bad, stemming from Tuesday’s elections. I was ecstatic to see some colleagues, friends and supporters, win hard fought victories.
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