Indy Fantasy Land

Time to indulge in a Strange Maps-style posting. As a life-long map geek, this map from the Skyscraper City forum was quite exciting to me. The map does not mention which mode of transport this is, so that is left to the reader. I’m going with a subway, because I can’t imagine something of this …

The Pickens Plan

T. Boone Pickens has released a video and plan for our energy future. It certainly looks interesting. I have a few issues with this: 1. Natural Gas is still a non-renewable fossil fuel.2. Can the auto-makers, which seem slow to adjust to changes, update their fleets? However, I also think there are some good points …

Downtown Carmel

My wife and I took a bike ride up to Carmel on Sunday.  Carmel seems to ignite firestorms on Indy-related blogs.  I just think it’s a nice termination for a bike ride. This building may be a bit too much, but they’ve still put quite a bit of thought into it. This is a continuation …

Harmoni Midtown

The Indianapolis Business Journal has an article about a new project known as Harmoni. Possibly taking their cue from Project for Public Spaces, the group’s intent is to reclaim neighborhoods from speeding vehicles to make them more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. 3 of their first 4 proposals focus on North Meridian Street (the 4th is …

Randomly Miscellaneous

Haven’t had a link thread for a while. Fresh Market opens a few blocks from my house. I’m a lucky man. Despite the name, Fresh Market is not big on local produce, but I’d recommend getting that a few blocks down 54th Street. High(er) gas prices are getting people to rethink the exurban experiment. I …

A tour of the Monon trail

The Monon Trail has been, by most accounts, a success. There have been a few bouts of crime on the trail south of 38th Street; however, where it succeeds is in shining a light on an area that had been largely neglected. I wish to focus on some of the potential (some of which is …

Snapshot: Why we are so car dependent

Here’s a small example that I have cut from the 2006 Aerial photos of Indianapolis. It’s pretty self-explanatory, and it’s something that was mentioned in the landmark book Suburban Nation. Even houses that are geographically right next door to a commercial building are usually separated by a fence or wall.

HOME Project

I’ve recently had the privilege of a conversation with a person involved with a new program in the city to promote green building guidelines. The project is called HOME and it is designed to provide quality green housing(pdf) at affordable prices. The buildings are designed by Tyson Domer of Hundredyear consulting. As of now, there …

Great Indy Neighborhoods

There are some newer neighborhood plans up on the Great Indy Neighborhoods site. I encourage readers to check them out. I hope to post more information about this project (as well as some other relevant topics) in the near future. For now, see these plans (they take a few minutes to download).