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Urban Tulsa Weekly archive additions

If you went looking for BatesLine recently and found nothing, it's because the server was offline from late Tuesday, July 13, 2021, until sometime Wednesday evening, July 14, 2021. According to BatesLine's hosting provider, the downtime was "due to a MAC address conflict after a chassis swap. However, they were...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 20, 2021 6:06 PM

The Savannah Plan and the history of urban form

Lecture 24 from Doug Allen's History of Urban Form course describes Savannah's unique plan of wards, squares, blocks, and lots, originally developed for a small British outpost not far from Spanish territory, but replicated to enlarge the historic city. Allen shows how the dimensions and arrangement of streets and lots...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 13, 2018 11:54 PM

Zoning should keep walkable neighborhoods walkable

Tulsan Sarah Kobos has another insightful essay up at the Strong Towns website, illustrated with her own photos of lousy urban design right here in our hometown. While she's willing to forgive the urban design errors of the post-World War II decades, she politely asks cities to stop making them...

Posted by Michael Bates on August 21, 2017 10:44 PM

Downtown and design guidelines: A review

A friend asked me recently where I stood on the issue of design guidelines in zoning, particularly as it affects property rights and a proposed overlay district for downtown Tulsa. I referred him to a sampling relevant articles from the BatesLine archive, in which I discuss zoning generally and...

Posted by Michael Bates on June 6, 2017 12:25 AM

Urban lessons from the Painter of Light

An edited version of this column was published in the November 26, 2008, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available online at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here's my blog entry linking to the article. Posted July 13, 2021. Urban lessons from the Painter of Light My...

Posted by Michael Bates on November 26, 2008 5:43 PM

Pixar fosters innovation through malcontents, chance encounters

Although bits and bytes are its bread and butter, no major studio better embodies humanity in film than Pixar. A recent interview with Pixar director Brad Bird presents ten ways that Pixar promotes innovation. (Hat tip to Joe Carter's Evangelical Outpost.) I found two points especially interesting. This one ought...

Posted by Michael Bates on May 12, 2008 9:40 PM

Neighborhood conservation districts: A proposal on the table

An edited version of this column appeared in the March 5, 2008, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive. Posted on August 4, 2018. Neighborhood conservation districts: A proposal on the table By Michael D. Bates "CALL YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE AND TELL...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 5, 2008 3:36 PM

Form over function

Reflecting on the decline of the standalone video rental storefront, Steve Patterson directs our attention to the importance of building form over any given use: It is interesting to see all these changes in the video market, something that didn't exist 30 years ago. Many storefronts, often built for these...

Posted by Michael Bates on November 7, 2007 6:25 PM

Cheery Street

An edited version of this column was published in the December 27, 2006, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Here's my blog entry linking to the column. Posted July 13, 2021. See the end of this entry for a postscript....

Posted by Michael Bates on December 27, 2006 5:57 PM

The three rules of city comfort

What makes a city a desirable place to live? Author David Sucher has written a book called City Comforts which tries to isolate the keys to answering the above question effectively. Here's the home page for the book: Our purpose is to help make our urban civilization more...well...civilized. By and...

Posted by Michael Bates on October 5, 2004 7:44 AM