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a view from recently demolished 669 Genesee Street


Vacant Houses - Broken Promises

I'll be collecting my writings here and documenting what I consider to be the defining characteristic of 21st century urban life, the vacant house. Part metaphor, part devloping reflections on urban policy statements from the perspective of the "lived" urban landscape, I'm compelled to write and reflect about this amazing development in our city.
Update... 2/26/06 - I've had 150 hits over the past two days from this entry on Wikipedia about the ever increasingly larger "urban prairie"
Meanwhile consider checking out these links as you continue to develop your own sense of the vacant urban landscape and what can be done about the "thirdworldization" of Buffalo.
This is some of my most recent writing. Make sure to check the comments section.

This study by Richard J. Norton, Feral Cities, is a good read about urban decay. He places this phenomenon and his analysis in a larger security and geo-political context. Blogging about Norton's article is over here.

I'm collecting literary and pop-culture references to "vacancy." All ready have the one from T.S. Elliot's Rat's Alley in The Waste Land. E-Mail me and let me know what you find...thanks...
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Artspace ArchiveAnnals of NeglectBAVPAWhere is Perrysburg?Broken Promises...
Writing the CityWoodlawn Row HousesTour dé Neglect - 2006

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There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask
of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.
- Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) from The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961.

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