Walkable Eastwood » cities

Biking near Syracuse… or Rochester

Lonnie — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:00:44 +0000

What’s wrong with this first picture? Google maps has a nifty function now by which you can easily see the locations of dedicated bike paths, such as canal or rail trails (dark green), bike lanes in streets (light green), and recommended streets for bike travel (dotted green). In searching out bike paths in the Central New York area, here’s the picture I got:

Okay, so we basically have Onondaga Lake Park and the Old Erie Canal trails, except not in the city itself. You can get from Fayetteville to Rome but you can’t get from Fayetteville to Camillus on a bike.

That’s not to say people haven’t been working on this. The Syracuse New Times published a great article loaded with information on all that’s being done in the area. But, to date, the results are sketchy at best. Compare the above map with the same view of Rochester:

Yikes! Well, at least we have The Dome, where we can go sit on our derrières and watch other people exercise.

I went looking for suggestions on what to do about this. My first stop was the SMTC Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan. Uh-oh. The website was last updated in 2005. Why is it still sitting there, and what’s going on with it?

Then I found the more current Onondaga Cycling Club’s Advocacy page. This has a handy list of links. The first link, to Bike CNY, is also much more up to date, with its most recent post dated December 2, 2010. It, too, has a great list of links. Plenty of reading material for a cold February day. When you think of it, there’s a lot to get done before it’s time to drag the bikes out of the basement. We need more green on our map!

A city united through performance art

Lonnie — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:26:58 +0000

The upcoming A-OK Weekend - that’s Acts Of Kindness – is a fabulous opportunity to get to know our city better. If all we do is read about what others in other neighborhoods are doing that weekend, it’s a start. But if we go visit other neighborhoods and get to know some other people, how much better! There are more and more fascinating things going on at the neighborhood level, and one of them I learned about recently.

A couple weeks ago, I was standing around at the Arts & Crafts Festival, dressed up like a flamenco singer, when I happened upon Dan Ward and a fellow who was introduced to me as Dennis Heaphy, of the Heaphy tinsmithing family here in Syracuse. Turns out, Dennis is three things interesting to me:

The resident tinsmith for the Statue of Liberty (read more)
A flamenco aficionado who had just been to the extremely narrow Ñ tapas bar in SoHo (so narrow, its name is only one letter long!) where he had been captivated by the same flamenco dancer, Rebeca Tomás, that we’d gotten to know the previous month.
The same fellow I’d been looking for to make replicas of the speaking tube whistle that neighbor Sig Snyder had given me when we discovered speaking tubes in our walls (they’re all over the city, by the way – you might have one, too, if you live on the second floor of a 2- or 3-family house!)

So a few days ago, Dennis stopped over to discuss the speaking tube. I think eventually he’ll help me put this whole thing together so it works again. But the really important thing I learned while standing out on the front porch is that he’s a singer and songwriter who loves theater and who has composed a song entitled No Matter Where You Put It© for the upcoming Tipp Hill Music Festival on Saturday, September 18.

So tell me folks, isn’t this city becoming cooler by the minute? Don’t forget, we also have the neighborhood-uniting Art In Motion Spectacular coming up on Saturday, Sept 11 at 2 pm in Armory Square.

I encourage anyone from Eastwood to visit other neighborhoods and especially their festivals. Not going to them is like never making it to Niagara Falls even though you live in Syracuse. Such a pity.

Ideas from other cities for next mayor

Lonnie — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:19:18 +0000

I posted the following over two years ago, but the ideas are good ones that the next mayor would do well to look at. They’re concerning how to deal with property owners who allow their business-district buildings to rot and bring down the values of all our properties.
———————–
James Street is our main business district. It has a number of really super businesses on it. What happens there affects all of us, as residents, as business owners, as property owners. Those who allow their vacant buildings or lots on James St. to remain in their present ugly condition are affecting your property values. It’s time the Common Council acted more decisively to get owners to fix up these properties or sell them to someone who will develop them within the James Street Overlay District Zoning Standards.

While searching the web for what other cities are doing about vacant buildings , I came across a website simply titled “AMCBO Member Call Summary.” (AMCBO is the Association of Major City/County Building Officials.) It appears to be a summary of a meeting that took place in 2005. It’s worth a thorough read. Below I’ve pasted the ideas I found most appealing:

Several major approaches (are) being used to address what is not only a building department issue but also one that impacts police, fire, historic preservation and social services of a city.

…(S)ome cities register all structures that are vacant on a website (St. Paul, MN) with information on owner and value of the property as a way to potentially attract investors or developers who may be interested in acquiring the property for redevelopment.

Chattanooga, TN for example, tries to shame owners into making corrections by putting up 4’ X 8’ signs noting who owns the derelict building and will put ads in newspapers where the owner lives noting that they hold abandoned run down properties.

Milwaukee is considering a Board and Vacant Resolution. After 6 months, the city has authority to issue a directive to the owner giving him 30 days to make corrections and to take the boards off the abandoned structure.

In that city the owner can either get a rehab permit for their building or, if the building has been designated a historic structure, can get a mothball permit to seal and hold the building as is until it can be rehabilitated under historic preservation guidelines. If owners do not make the minimum repairs mandated by the city, then the city can set the property at fair market value.

Mr. Collins said that his city (Milwaukee) has experimented with SkunkShot (also being used in Los Angeles) as a chemical that is activated inside abandoned buildings and is so nauseous that squatters and others will not try to enter and inhabit the boarded up buildings. The website for this product is www.skunkshot.com.

Milwaukee has an ordinance – 25 illegal acts or 3 at a premises within a 30 day period and the building can be declared a chronic nuisance and go after a tax lien. 81% of the owners comply after the first such letter from the city. Get 100% compliance with the city’s tax bill.

Ron Smith from St. Louis noted that abandoned and vacant buildings are a problem in his city as well. He said the city has a new tool – legislation that establishes a nuisance ordinance regarding vacant and abandoned buildings.

The first part of the ordinance involves “behavioral nuisances.” This applies to buildings that house (legally or illegally) people whose behavior generates numerous police calls. The Mayor is having the City Council look at ways of getting the building into the hands of a different owner, one who will fix the building up.

Secondly, the city can issue a fine and after 6 months or more violations the property can be put under notice for sale by the city.

St. Louis follows a program similar to Milwaukee for nuisance buildings. City issues a cease and desist letter and then takes penalties to next level with the city attorney stepping in to get the property to someone else.

St. Louis has 15 designated historic districts in the city. Consideration is being given to put demolitions under the control of a special preservation board.

Chicago has the legal authority to pursue owners who live out of state.

Florencio Pena from San Antonio noted that because of the way his authority is set up his department is not directly involved. A dangerous buildings board handles abandoned and vacant buildings. The city runs an incentive program to get new owners for buildings whose owners can’t or won’t fix them up to code.

Chicago has an exterior facade ordinance and covers porches as well. The city has 178 inspectors for over 1,000,000 buildings.

The city goes after out-of-state owners and works closely with the Department of Housing and Landmarks to encourage housing conversions in once vacant properties. Attached housing is not a problem in Chicago.

The city has day-to-day fines that can get upwards of $300,000 to $500,000 to shift over the property to those who are willing to develop. Chicago has 9 inspectors in its vacant buildings and demolition program. The city has a very tenacious department of revenues that garnishes revenues.

Milwaukee: On vacant buildings in an historic district, our code allows the city to make safety repairs and put those costs on the owner’s taxes.

Have you done your homework?

Lonnie — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:40:09 +0000

The city of Seattle has Transportation and Pedestrian Safety Committees and a Pedestrian Master Plan. “The plan (a summary you can find here) sets goals and performance measures for making Seattle a more walkable city and reducing the number of car-pedestrian accidents. The plan was developed with help from a citizens’ advisory group.” (see this blog post)

So do a bit of reading about walkability, urban design, and design guidelines and join the discussion. Then let’s debate the merits of what you have read. What specifically is wrong with Seattle’s plan or what do you like about it?

Our aim is to prevent in Eastwood the kind of disaster that happened at Lodi and Butternut.

How about Washington, DC? Did you know that the whole city is booming? Why? In large part it’s due to its walkability. Here’s another article whose points might be debated: Walkability = livability = billions. Read that article – copyrighted by The Washington Post Writers Group – and find this assertion:

…(C)ities, competing, will likely keep heeding advice to lure creative young professionals; in fact, those that don’t offer true walkable urbanism, … are “probably destined” to lose out economically.

All across this country, cities are waking up the facts that European cities have known for decades: when mass transit is subsidized like highways are, when cities are valued, when a diversity of businesses that are easy to get to on foot are encouraged to develop, then cities are economically healthier, its residents are physically healthier, and communities are more cohesive.

Do your homework. Read the above articles, and more. And come back and share what you’ve read. Let’s educate ourselves, others, and in the process have some healthy discussion about walkability and its impact.

The challenge is to bring an article from a reputable source that is stating that walkability is not good for the economic health of communities. See if you can find any studies that show that single-use, suburban-style buildings set back in a big parking lot are good for urban neighborhoods. Please link (cite) your sources so the rest of us can read what you’ve found. It’s important to back claims with sources – that way our discussions remain focused.

- Lonnie and Jessica

Other cities series: Isn’t this Syracuse?

Lonnie — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:28:55 +0000

Quoting in full an article published July 25, 2009, by the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, it seems Mr. Bennett was actually writing about Syracuse. All bolding is mine; wherever you see “Terre Haute”, just envision “Syracuse” and where you see “Hauteans” think of “Syracusans”:

MARK BENNETT: Walkable neighborhoods of the ’20s make sense again
By Mark Bennett
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — Tom Roznowski might’ve captured people’s attention as he strolled South Ninth Street in downtown Terre Haute.

Perhaps it was his striking linen suit, his fedora, or the sweeping gestures of his arms as he spoke. But, more than likely, the Bloomington writer raised folks’ curiosity because he was doing something rare for most Hauteans.

He was looking at the town’s big picture.

As Roznowski strode the sidewalk on an unusually cool July day, he marveled at the canopy of trees shading the neighborhood of old brick homes south of Ohio Street.

“You can just walk and walk and walk in these neighborhoods,” Roznowski said, “and just have a wonderful after-dinner walk.”

Unlike many Hoosier cities, Terre Haute still contains — at least physically — a significant number of its early-20th-century neighborhoods. In that pre-Depression era, those areas were little communities within a larger community. People lived within walking distance of their job place, their kids’ school, their church, grocery stores, eateries, corner taverns, tailors, hotels, barbershops and hair salons, banks, drug stores, shoe stores, theaters and funeral homes.

Most small businesses from the 1920s are gone, but some of the houses remain.

“There’s such an amazing historic housing stock in Terre Haute,” Roznowski said, “and from that arises walkable neighborhoods.”

The concept of “walkable neighborhoods” underpins Roznowski’s upcoming book, “An American Hometown: Terre Haute, Indiana, 1927.” The city, then, functioned as a network of self-sustaining neighborhoods. Less than two decades later, the popularity of the automobile allowed Americans to live farther and farther apart. We got used to driving longer distances to work, learn, dine, shop and recreate.

Now, in the 21st century, city planners around the country see wisdom in resurrecting or rebuilding those walkable neighborhoods. Some reasons for that revival are purely practical. Gasoline, as high as $4.19 just a year ago, is eating up a larger portion of U.S. incomes. Sustainable living, where local folks consume more locally produced goods and services, is making sense again. But also, having daily needs within a convenient walk restores a “sense of place” that small cities lost when Americans began relying on corporate chains and big-box retailers.

As Roznowski writes, “We are now witnessing the larger impact of scrapping mass transit systems, demolishing urban neighborhoods, paving green spaces and shifting from the reusable to the disposable.”

The renewed appreciation for walkable neighborhoods is not some dreamy, ’60s counterculture vision from Greenwich Village or Berkeley.

“People are paying attention to it across the country,” said Maria Choca-Urban of the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago. “It’s not just a coastal phenomenon.”

“Their need has been reasserted by the realities,” Roznowski said.

Terre Haute is “uniquely positioned” to see some of its aging, surviving neighborhoods regain those bygone local amenities, he added. That’s because most of the once-sustainable, walkable neighborhoods of decades ago have long since been leveled in many Hoosier cities. Those towns would have to start from scratch, with new buildings and infrastructure. Terre Haute, in many areas, would not.

But can Terre Haute capitalize on that edge?

“Maybe,” said Roznowski, who spent 15 years researching the city’s 1920s history. “It’s a close call.”

The key is whether rank-and-file Hauteans, as well as their civic leaders, see walkable, sustainable neighborhoods as a realistic goal. “There are amazing resources and advantages this city still has,” Roznowski said, “but being aware of them, and being convinced that they’re still relevant and not just vestiges of the past, that’s the important thing.”

Neighborhoods, particularly their living conditions, have been in the consciousness of many Terre Haute residents in recent years. The Terre Haute Neighborhood Partnership Inc. regularly convenes groups from Farrington’s Grove, Ryves, the 13th Street Corridor, Collett Park, Dobbs Glen and other locales. Mayor Duke Bennett has also conducted summits in various neighborhoods around the city, with residents airing concerns about streetlights, crime and sidewalks. The sprawl of the expanding campuses of Union Hospital and Indiana State University into and over older neighborhoods has made headlines during the last few years.

Even with all those efforts to raise awareness, and Terre Haute’s rich past of urban neighborhoods, their importance is not widely embraced.

“The concept of neighborhoods is something that has escaped a lot of us,” said Marie Pontius, an advocate for the Farrington’s Grove neighborhood.

A few Hautean areas have several elements and amenities of a sustainable, pedestrian-friendly neighborhood. The neighborhood just south of Poplar Street, near the Meadows Shopping Center and Baesler’s Market, is a good example, said Todd Nation, president of the City Council. Much of that neighborhood has sidewalks. In addition to Baesler’s and the shopping mall, there’s a funeral home nearby, a banking outlet, a couple of churches, Woodrow Wilson Middle School and Meadows Elementary, and hair salons.

Though some older neighborhoods are struggling to stave off decline and preserve their bastions of self-sufficiency, Nation senses a turning point in public attitudes.

“I know that people are thinking this way now,” he said, “and I see evidence of it in Terre Haute.”

The economic sense of walkable, sustainable neighborhoods must be clear to people. The cul-de-sac suburbs are still real, attractive options for many people. But a variety of neighborhoods will help lure businesses and talent to the community — both those wanting to live close to their jobs at ISU, the hospitals or the local schools and their daily living needs, and those wanting space and distance.

Efforts to reinvigorate the pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods need to continue.

“The more options that we have as neighborhoods, the more likely we are to have a neighborhood that meets [a prospective employer’s] niche for the employee they want,” said Jeremy Weir, executive director of the Vigo County Area Planning Department.

Don Bradbury walks that neighborhood south of the Meadows daily, delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service. He grew up within minutes of his local schools, then moved to the countryside to raise his family. Now, he’s living in a neighborhood along Brown Avenue.

“It’s strange, because there was a time when you had all these neighborhoods, and then everybody moved out to the country,” Bradbury said, in a brief stop between houses near Oak and 27th streets. “And now, they’re going back to it again.”

Other cities series: Seattle’s bag fee

Lonnie — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:12:14 +0000

When I discovered bits of plastic in the “compost” sold to me locally for my organic garden, I really got sore. But then, is there any compost anywhere that doesn’t have plastic in it? Even if you can’t see it, those plastic molecules don’t break down into something harmless; they just become smaller and smaller and gain even easier entry into your body, and the bodies of your children.

It’s time Syracuse put some teeth behind its talk about becoming the nation’s greenest city. This could hardly be difficult to enact: a bag fee. A similar fee in Ireland cut plastic bag usage by over 90%. When it’s universal, there’s no pain for individual companies. There’s more good news for businesses, but to get the details of how this benefits everyone, check out this page. And watch this video:

Other cities series: Buffalo’s Elmwood Village

Lonnie — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:02:49 +0000

Dave and I just got back from a visit to Buffalo, another much-maligned city in upstate New York that has, nevertheless, managed to move forward in its thinking about sustainable urban development. While the addition of one more national chain in Eastwood has caused much furor, Buffalo’s Elmwood Village is just a step or three ahead of us. They’ve lived through the installation of a Kentucky Fried Chicken and its demise. Now take a look at what’s replacing it – photo taken directly from this article in Buffalo Rising:

Looks pretty much like the kind of buildings that used to be built in cities where people walked. There are many reasons for this design choice, and a quick search on “walkable” in your favorite search engine will provide them. But a quick review:

Density (numbers of people living in the buildings above shops) creates walkability – the people want to walk to businesses nearby so businesses get built for them.
Transparency from the street and sidewalk to the interior and also back out creates safety for the same reason the elevators are made of glass in malls: you can see what’s going on outside and people outside can see what’s happening inside.
Natural surveillance from the upper floors where people live 24/7 keeps eyes on the street at just about all hours.
Parking is located in such a way as to make quick getaways difficult, resulting in lower crime rates.

There’s a lot more to it than that, but let’s take a look at one more fascinating aspect of a densely populated urban community: real estate value. Buried in the comments of the above article is something we might want to pay attention to:

If you want to buy anything within .5 mile east or west of Elmwood you will pay through the nose.

Elmwood does not have a lot of the kind of gorgeous buildings we see in Skaneateles, Geneva or Canandaigua. It’s quite similar to Eastwood’s James Street business district, and I’d be willing to bet that it wasn’t all that long ago that it looked much the same, struggling to shift from the downward spiral to becoming the interesting and walkable destination district that makes it the most desirable neighborhood in Buffalo.

Now look at the home values. Two-family homes near this project, similar to the many we have within blocks of James, are going for $160,000 to $206,000 (according to zillow.com). By national standards that’s still wildly inexpensive. But it’s about 25-50% greater than what we have in Eastwood.

How does this kind of good development happen? In part, help from enlightened government. From yesterdays’ Buffalo Business First site (bolding mine):

Plans to demolish a vacant Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet along Elmwood Avenue and replace it with a mixed-use building have cleared another hurdle.

The Erie County Industrial Development Agency’s directors, Monday, unanimously approved an inducement package that will help the development trio of Orchard Park’s Krog Corp., Buffalo architect Karl Frizlen and lawyer Michael Ferdman construct a three story, nearly 20,000-square-foot building at 448 Elmwood Ave.

… The building will house a Coffee Culture outlet on its first floor and upscale apartments on the its second and third floors.

So how do we entice a developer like Krog Corp to build correctly on James and Midler?

All mayoral and Common Council candidates may now weigh in. :-)

Other cities series: historic fabric

Lonnie — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:59:24 +0000

I read with dismay that Tino Marcoccia, owner of the empty spot that used to be the Sport Center on James and Midler, has a slot in Monday’s Planning Commission meeting. He wants to demolish two houses in order to expand parking for a restaurant in the urban enclave called Little Italy.

Those of you who have been reading this blog can already see the problems with the proposal. They center on the bolded words in the first paragraph. What do you think they are?

Philadelphia, so very historic, nevertheless has the same difficulties we have with inappropriate development. But they have a new Director of Sustainability, Dr. Mark Allen Hughes. He has some interesting things to say, not about saving historic landmarks, but rather about preserving the historic fabric of the city. I quote the following from the jargon etc blog (bolding mine):

…Part of the instrumental value that I’ve been emphasizing in the last year has actually not been about iconic properties, but instead been about the historic fabric as a whole. We don’t have walkable streets in Philadelphia because five or ten years ago some snappy urban planner realized, “Wow, amenity value walkable streets are really hip, isn’t that great, let’s have them!” No- we have walkable streets, because our streets were built at a time when everybody walked. And so it’s an inherited asset that actually for one hundred years was declining in value, and was a pain in the neck. Our walkable streets not very long ago were nothing but the bane of the existence of people who just wanted to drive as fast as they could. So our evaluation of these things is always changing.

The surest foundation for making a preservation argument is that in addition to exemplary artistic or historic merit- let’s face it, there are just a few places like Independence Hall, and Mother Bethel Church – there is ninety percent of the urban fabric, especially in an old city like this, that is left vulnerable. My row house, for example, 1867, is not of particular artistic or historic merit. But, especially in an era of rising energy prices and an era of radical transportation change where density and access suddenly have a lot more value than they did, my 1867 row house suddenly has a huge amount of instrumental value because it’s part of a fabric of places that are not necessarily made useful only through private automobiles but through all of those other pieces of the puzzle.

That’s a preservation argument, but it has real legs, because it says that all of these things accumulate, and then you can add the one percent, the five percent, the ten percent of stuff that is about the power of specific buildings or places to capture and hold our imagination. When you combine that with all that fabric, then you’re looking at inherent value, instrumental value, and you have something that is unassailable. Now the question becomes how does a new development really improve and add value to that existing fabric. That’s the way that I think you want to make a preservation argument.

Are we there yet in Philadelphia? No. Do we still probably have an instinct that new is always better and development is always good and there’s nothing better than cranes on the skyline? Sure. There’s still some of that, but I think that the trajectory is in the right direction, because I think that people start to realize now – especially as we begin to reclaim public space- that “Wow, this is really great- who needs to go to San Francisco, or Boston, or even Vancouver – this is really something!” They are slowly getting that, and that’s a preservation argument.

We can learn from other cities, but who needs to go live in them? We have it all right here (see some of it under “reasons to be cheerful“) for as long as we know how to keep it. Let’s not lose another one of these:

or these:

Other cities series: off-street parking requirements

Lonnie — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:48:26 +0000

One of our readers alerted me to a great little tool, google alerts. With a search for “walkable ” set up to send me alerts, I’m finding a lot of other cities are seeking to the same things we’re trying to do here. Armed with examples coming in from all over the country, I’ll be posting some interesting finds from time to time in an “Other cities series“. While no city is exactly like Syracuse, I’m betting we can learn a thing or two anyway.

Here’s an interesting question posed by The Tacoma Sun to City Council candidate Keven Rojecki, with his answer. I’m going to bold the terminology we should be thinking about as we strive to make our neighborhood more walkable:

Building Walkable Neighborhood Centers and Downtown

Cities such as Portland, Seattle, Bellingham, San Francisco have removed their off-street parking requirements to allow parking to be built based on market demand. This also has the benefit of reducing sprawl, reducing pollution and allowing the construction of walkable neighborhoods.

Do you support removing the off-street parking requirement in downtown Tacoma and in Tacoma’s mixed use centers?

Answer:

Yes, with provisions that periodically evaluate the reduction in off-street parking requirements. By reducing the off-street parking requirements the city would effectively establish a plan that promotes higher density and pedestrian friendly mixed-use centers. The reduced requirements would encourage alternate transportation choices such as bicycles, streetcars, buses, and light rail, all which I strongly support. If these requirements are approved, the city must move toward a multi-modal transportation system and provide capital investment in high capacity alternatives while prioritizing transportation corridors in areas near mixed-use centers. It is essential that Pierce Transit, Sound Transit and the City of Tacoma work together to find solutions that make the reduction in off-street parking sustainable for the future and meet the intended goals of reducing sprawl and developing neighborhoods we can walk in.

Reasons to be cheerful

Lonnie — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:13:28 +0000

When you stack Syracuse up against other cities, you actually end up with a lot of reasons to be cheerful about living here. Yeah, we get into our scraps about what’s the best way to improve it. But at least people really care! Listening to people who have lived elsewhere is often enlightening:

A newly-minted urban planner, passing through Syracuse on her way from Ohio to Germany, expounded on the many delights she was seeing in Syracuse: “People in Syracuse don’t realize what they have! Unlike out in Ohio, you have parks, lots of them, built on the top of every drumlin in the city. There are beautiful buildings still, and public art popping up everywhere.”

A woman at the arts and crafts festival yesterday (in and of itself a great reason to be cheerful) sold us a purse made of leather from Gloversville, NY, embossed with a machine that’s survived the economic downturn in that city. It’s gorgeous. She took the time to explain to us the difference between “top grain” leather and the leather that is actually inferior marked “genuine leather.” And she commented that, while they go to over 100 arts and crafts festivals per year, Syracuse has the cleanest downtown of all. Until you spend some time in other downtowns, it’s easy to take that for granted.

A couple from Burlinton, Vermont, a beautiful, walkable city in its own right, moved in next door. I pointed out the old vertical clothesline hiding way in the back – the kind that holds two pulleys, one for the upper flat and one for the lower one. Wouldn’t you know, within days our neighbor had strung up a line from her pulley to a new one on the house and some very tiny baby clothes were hung out in neat array. Unlike in Greenwich, CT, where they have banned the use of clotheslines at a public housing development (dryers there cost these elderly folks 90 cents/load!), Syracuse continues its proud tradition of outdoor drying. Look in the back yards of Eastwood and you’ll find a very old clothesline in a good percentage of them. Nothing like the savings and the disinfecting power of sunlight and air that you get with line drying – not to mention the possibilities of actually talking with your neighbor!

What reasons does living here give you to be cheerful?