Milan

Milan

I visited Milan in early 2002 to see the city’s many historic layers and its ongoing transformation. With help from friend and interpreter Chiara Pelizzoni, we conducted interviews with planners, developers, and academics to learn about the city’s place in...
Fazenda Fortaleza

Fazenda Fortaleza

I visited the estate several times while working in Sâo Paulo during autumn ’04 (spring in Brazil). It’s a big, old coffee estate that Marcos Croce was striving to return to old organic ways of cultivating coffee. And even to improve the forest and the...
Growing Change

Growing Change

A profile of a farmer that appeared in Illinois Issues, April 2003. Growing Change portrays a farmer who’s struggle with nature to conserve his soil is much easier than his struggle with commodity markets.
At the City’s Edges

At the City’s Edges

A guest essay appearing in Illinois Issues, October 2000, in which I call for a regional dialogue on farmland, to consider farmland as land, which in those days of booming development was unlikely. I argue for farmland at the city’s edges.
Stretching the Boundaries

Stretching the Boundaries

An article published in Planning Magazine, January 2002, corresponding with the annual planning conference, which was in Chicago that year. I summarize efforts of the many (too many) groups with their hand in the regional planning arena, in Stretching the...