Just a quick note to memorialize the passing of Centro’s 178 Fairmount Hills route, formerly known as the 4G. Since the time of Christ, it served the far-flung upper reaches of the southeast of the Town of Camillus, but fell victim to Centro service cuts effective Monday. I forgot this was going to […]

Sean Kirst interviews the enigmatic and exceedingly well-informed SyracuseB4, aka Theresa Rusho. Great stuff, check it out. One quote jumped out at me, however:
There is a tendency to view the destruction of James Street as inevitable civic change. Rusho breaks that idea on the rocks. She’s found clips from the 1950s that establish […]

I am sorry to report that one of my tater tots has died. I don’t know what caused the problem, but it doesn’t look like the dreaded late blight (especially since the one right next to it is doing fine). It all started after a heavy rain which flattened the plant. Some […]

Last spring, residents of the near western burbs of Onondaga County had a little problem with something they called “The Noise.” After many months of forum-based fretting, angry phone calls, e-mails, and media coverage, the annoying sound finally disappeared (for the most part). Syracuse Energy Corp. (Suez), the co-generation plant in Solvay, […]

This post requires some background reading. Go read some recent posts on Sean Kirst’s blog about downtown (here and here), and all the comments. Then, when you are done with those, go to Syracuse B-4 and read her latest, and all the comments there. (Make a cup of coffee or pot of […]

Now it finally comes out — suburbia’s terrible secret:
Forget hot tubs beckoning sybaritic adults, garages brimming with impressive cars and families frolicking on verdant lawns. From their clutter-strewn garages to their mostly lovely but abandoned yards, busy Southern California parents who own their homes rarely use residential outdoor spaces for the purposes for […]

The Post-Standard writes on the fate of the run-down Blodgett School on the West Side. My mom tells me that her aunt (who was only just a few years older than her) went to Blodgett School in the early ’50s or so, when it was even back then deemed a “scary old” school “full […]

The latest census enumerations show that the city of Syracuse’s population has fallen to a new low of 139,000. This, as Phil points out, leaves Syracuse dangerously close to “small city” status in New York. As a suburbanite, I think of “Syracuse” as the entire metro area, however. No doubt the metro […]

It’s amazing stuff, $4 gas is. People are just busting out all over. They’re on the sidewalks, walking. They’re on their bikes, riding. They’re at the bus stops, waiting. They’re playing in their front yards. I have seen this with my own eyes — the stories are […]

A Buffalo News story on a backlash against “walkable redevelopment” makes me wonder if we’re not all dancing around the real problem with getting Americans to stop driving so much: it’s not just the distances involved, it’s also the stuff.
The “walkable community” uses a dense, villagelike mix of homes and businesses to […]