My parking garage in Ballston is the "warehouse" level in a video game
But for something that sprang up out of nondescript sprawl in the 1980s (and much of it more recent) this is pretty convincing quickly built urban environment
However, because of its origin as a modern density corridor and not an actual urban neighborhood, the old highway through here is pretty much fully intact. Wide, fast, loud. Trucks. Heavily pedestrianized but still intimidating in many spots.
Driving home (mostly west on U.S. 29) is interesting. Here's Wilson Boulevard, on the way out of Arlington's dense area. Lot by lot, the area is changing. This immediate area isn't quite there yet.
A kind-of street area along 29. Interesting how the new developments have a more urbanist design, but are still just little pieces along a highway landscape.
And here is the Garden City Shopping Center, an early (50s) strip mall along U.S. 29. Very interesting building. Looks like an urban block. Packed parking lot and full of mostly immigrant-owned businesses.
The first "Marina" Safeway I've seen that's still a Safeway! Beautiful, well preserved piece of 1960s commercial architecture. A little off 29 in McLean
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I was just writing about how some people appeal to the magic of the dancing flame to defend gas stoves, or to high-minded ideals about risk and human flourishing to defend doing nothing about COVID. This is a great entry in that genre.
There must be a name for this type of argument - appealing to something very abstract and seemingly unobjectionable to make a very specific and often self-interested point.
It reminds me of a quote by the late Justice Anthony Kennedy: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
"I suspect that some older homeowners and long commuters don’t quite relish being reminded that a good deal of the trouble and hardship they put up with for most of their lives was actually optional." thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/apartments-o…
"To say renters or apartment dwellers lack virtues or values is like saying hotdogs are more virtuous than hamburgers. It just isn’t in the moral sphere."
Long thoughts on the errors of turning housing preferences into culture war. One of the first deep, long pieces I wrote at my newsletter. thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/apartments-o…
I tracked down the exact supermarket that Queen Elizabeth II visited in 1957, in Prince George's County, Maryland. I used it to tell a history of supermarket evolution over at @ggwash. Here, I wrote about how I track down things like this thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/the-queens-g…
This one wasn't hard, but it did take a bit of research. You really have to *do history* to figure out stories even about things that happened fairly recently. I think, based on my research, that this is the only piece on the internet that assembles all of this in one place.
This was a similar, though much simpler, process to what I did for this article about a non-standard Pizza Hut, which ended up being one of my most-read pieces! It was a lot of fun, and it was a story that had simply never been told in one place. thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/didnt-used-t…
As a driver, I like right on red. But I also don't. Once you make an exception to "red means stop and wait," every time you actually do have to stop and wait feels like an unbearable imposition. Stable, simple rules are good. thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/wrong-on-red
A few things inspired this piece. One, Washington, D.C. just banned right on red at most intersections, so it's been in the news. Two, a discussion I recently had. And three, a memory of a driving mistake I made a few years ago (and have made more than once.)
That mistake was turning *left* at a red light, after coming to a full stop. The road was empty, it was at night, it was safe. But after I did it, I realized what happened: My brain wanted to interpret “right on red” as “you can turn at a red light when it’s clear.”