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By Hannah Jarman-Miller

When you consider your favorite building, what does it look like? What drew you to notice it, and which pieces of its construction stick out in you when you go to describe it to someone else? When we think of the structures that surround us, we might consider it valuable that we have a coffee shop down the street or a grocery store around the corner. However, the aesthetics of our built environment are playing an essential role in guiding the emotional state of our daily life that is just as significant as the functional purposes that these buildings serve. So, why is it important for a building to be beautiful, and from what impetus does our aesthetic variety grow?  

By Hannah Jarman-Miller

The Zupan’s in my neighborhood closed recently. After nearly 20 years of occupying a mixed use private-public space in SE Portland, a design that spurred much of the development on the changing Belmont strip, the grocery store closed its doors, leaving the space vacant with an uncertain future. I felt unmoved, perceiving that I had many other options at my disposal. I couldn’t help but think of the Whole Foods less than a mile away. However, the comings and goings of grocery stores have ramifications much deeper than whether you can still have your pick of preferred produce provider.  A growing body of research suggests that the suburbanization of food retailers in North America in recent decades has contributed to the emergence of urban 'food deserts', or disadvantaged areas of cities with relatively poor access to healthy and affordable food[i].

by Hannah Jarman-Miller

This time of year is intertwined with a deep and sudden compulsion to be outside. As the first sunny days of spring begin to bloom, and the world becomes welcoming again, I often find myself drawn out to meandering walks through my neighborhood. As an apartment dweller, I don’t have an outside space to call my own. Instead, I turn to my city to provide me the lush backyard, shady patio, and front porch view that I so long for on this particular kind of spring day.

Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard

An admirable book called City Squares (Catie Marron, Ed.) was published last year. I was glad to see more attention being paid to this topic but, I must admit, a little disappointed by the book’s main thrust. Out of 18 writers who contributed chapters on “the spirit and significance of squares around the world” at least one third focused on the political demonstrations, sometimes violent, that took place in recent decades in Taksim Square, Tahrir Square, Tiananmen Square, Euromaidan Square, and elsewhere.