Vox November 2018 Staring down a seemingly endless aisle of products, including an entire grocery store-within-a-store, it seems like the shopping never ends at Walmart’s Santa Clarita Supercenter, 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. Inside, through an entryway wedged between freezer cases full of seafood, past employee locker rooms, behind a door with a […]
Vox January 2020 When YouTube stars and fashion influencers Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson announced a limited-edition makeup collaboration in fall 2019, the potential for the sale to set records wasn’t hyperbole. Helmed by internet personalities with a combined 40 million-plus subscribers on the video platform and roughly 50 million more followers on other social […]
Curbed January 2018 In 1969, William H. “Holly” Whyte decided to analyze, and eventually decode, New York City’s rambunctious street life. A famed author, Whyte, along with a handful of collaborators, was recruited by the city’s planning commission to set up cameras and surreptitiously track human activity. Whyte and his team spent countless afternoons filming […]
Curbed February 2018 Ask Harvey Hernandez about his upcoming real estate project in Kissimmee, Florida, and he’ll respond with the easy charm and outsized boasts endemic to his industry. The 324-unit complex near central Florida’s Disney World, the first of a string of tourism-related developments springing up across the U.S. under the Niido brand name, […]
Curbed December 2017 It’s fair to say Andrew Young understands the South, and the city of Atlanta, better than most. A longtime politician, pastor, activist, author, and ambassador, Young successfully ran for mayor at the behest of Coretta Scott King in 1981, earning the right to boast that he led a city that had once […]
Curbed January 2018 For cities starved of new housing, staring down an affordability crisis, and desperate for density, the opportunity to inexpensively add housing units seems to good to be true. But that’s the promise made by proponents of accessory dwelling units, or ADUs: small structures, typically totaling under 1,000 square feet, built on the property of […]
Curbed January 2018 In the run-up to the Super Bowl, Minneapolis’s new billion-dollar stadium, a glass-fronted warship docked in a developing part of downtown, will be the subject of broadcast profiles and b-roll. But move the cameras a few blocks in any direction, and viewers would see why boosters believe the stadium’s benefits go well beyond […]
Curbed February 2018 Are economic development megadeals worth the price—and the risk? With cities trying to outbid each other for Amazon’s new headquarters, it’s worth examining potential cautionary tales. Analysts say the recent Foxconn deal in Wisconsin, a blockbuster, multibillion-dollar investment in bringing more manufacturing to the state, is indicative of the sad state of big-ticket economic […]
Curbed February 2018 The South Merrill Community Garden on Chicago’s South Side fills a literal hole in its community. Slipped between between two brick apartment buildings, the small plot was established in the 1980s by neighborhood residents in the predominantly black part of town, who created a small flower garden using bricks from a demolished […]
Curbed March 2018 In the midst of the #MeToo movement, consider the following scenario: sexual harassment accusations against a powerful man, reinforced by an investigation and internal deliberation at his place of employment, leading to a widespread petition from his colleagues demanding action. But instead of resignation or prompt disciplinary action, the accused remains employed, […]