From the BatesLine Bookshelf, a very occasional feature on authors and books that have influenced me: Christopher Alexander was an architect, but he might more appropriately have been called a philosopher of the built environment. He spent his career trying to describe and name the qualities that make a place...
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...
"I shall show my contempt by going down to the polling booth, taking my form, crossing both their names out and writing 'GET KNOTTED' in." -- Tony Hancock, Hancock's Half Hour, "The Election Candidate" I share The Lad's sentiments about many of the races on the August 28, 2018, runoff...
This week's column in Urban Tulsa Weekly is about what we can learn about urban design from the commercial success of painter Thomas Kinkade: Thomas Kinkade seems to understand that places--houses and shops, landscapes and streetscapes--have the ability to touch the heart. In his choice of subjects and his depiction...
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...
To go back to an entry from last Tuesday, if Tulsa's Civic Center Plaza is a bad example of a public space -- in fact is one of many examples of failed plazas that can be found across the country, even in major pedestrian-friendly cities like Boston -- what makes...
This is the originally submitted version of a story that was published on September 27, 2006, in the September 28 - October 4, 2006, edition of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The story is not available in the Internet Archive but was previously online at http://archives.urbantulsa.com/article.asp?id=3657. Posted on BatesLine on March 23,...
Here's who filed for Tulsa city offices today, the final day of the filing period. Mayor: Northside neighborhood activist James Alexander Jr. (Democrat), James Oliver Desmond Jr. (Democrat), Benford L Faulk (Independent), County Commissioner Randi Miller (Republican), Paul C. Tay (Independent). Council: District 1: Roger Lowry (Democrat -- Lowry was...
Late getting 'round to this, but here's a link to my column in the current issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly, with some recommended reading on urban design. As I wrote in the column: Urban design and architecture are too important to be left to the professionals. You and I may...
The process of developing an Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan continues this week with three "workshops" -- tonight, Wednesday, and Thursday. Here are the details from the e-mail notice: The next series of public workshops has been set for Tuesday through Thursday, May 4 - 6th. The location of these...
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