Small Living

Indy is primarily made up of single-family homes with small backyards and run-of-the-mill apartment complexes (eew). Most people drive in to work from far-away towns and other counties. As ag land is increasingly more profitable when sold to subdivision developers than it is in production, the sprawl continues.

However, Indianapolis is experiencing an exciting surge of redevelopment and beautification projects. Even some gentrification.

Two companies I've looked at renting from (Van Rooy Properties and Reverie Estates) both have spent a lot of money renovating downtown properties into beautiful apartments. Think high ceilings, wood floors, quaint accent arches, and even old-style elevators that have wrought-iron gates. The work they've done - and the prices they're charging - have proved that it's not necessary to continue sprawling Indianapolis in order to create "something new," or create desirable spaces to live. Among other "soft revolutions" going on in Indianapolis (think art, bike lanes, CSAs, etc.), the renovation trend is really changing the city from the inside out.

As anyone who's visited us has experienced first-hand, my fiancee and I live in a small space. We share about 300 square feet with each other, a cat, and three bicycles. To choose to "live small" in the Midwest - even in Indiana's largest city, and the 12th largest in the nation - is an idea that still quite hasn't taken hold.

We have been tossing around the idea of moving. This 300-square-foot space gets small in the winter, as we're discovering. Increasingly, though, we're seeing some disadvantages in moving. The process is a pain, we'd be breaking our lease agreement, etc. At the moment, the pros, like price and location, are weighing out the cons. We'll be staying here for the forseeable future.

To envision 300 square feet, imagine you're about 5'5". Lay yourself down along one wall 3.5 times, and then lay yourself perpendicularly another 2.5 times.

Now we're trying to change our attitude about the small space, rather than change the space. It's quite trendy now to "live small;" maybe we can hop on the bandwagon. After all, camaraderie is nice.

Zombies!!

IF ZOMBIES ATTACKED RIGHT NOW WHAT WOULD YOU DO? This was one of my friends' favorite conversation topics starters in college. It's a great question!

That being said, let me preface this post with saying that I hate scary movies - especially zombie films. Seeing 28 Days Later scarred me. I hate zombies. Sometimes when I'm driving around empty fields I have a vision of zombie hordes coming over them towards me and my heart jumps. It's irrational, I know, but God, I hate zombie films. 

However, a few nights ago over a couple martinis, a friend explained to me that (good) zombie films are more than just "Scary Movies." Classic zombie films are actually a form of social commentary. (Apparently this is common knowledge, but I never got close enough to the subject to learn that.)

For example, a stereotypical scene in a zombie apocalypse situation is the human "survivors" taking refuge in a shopping mall, taking the useful things and watching the zombies stumble around the department stores and kiosks.

Or, the survivors are in a fortress of some sort while the zombies are either shambling outside or clamoring to get in. The fortress represents the "First World," the zombies any less-well-endowed people or marginalized group. Separate storylines, or perhaps even the main storyline, is concerned with the formation of a social power structure within the survivors.

Last night I watched three - three - episodes of The Walking Dead, a well-liked show on AMC. It's a lifetime achievement for me. Although the zombie threat and the accompanying violence was quite the scare-off, I ended up really enjoying watching the survivors' group dynamics. For example, members of two historically marginalized groups (blacks and women) were mistreated by undereducated, Southern white males and were swiftly avenged by two level-headed law enforcement officers (well, that's what they were pre-zombie takeover). Interesting...

That night, I slept poorly and dreamt of zombies, but with a lot less fear than I was used to. :-) I have more respect for the zombie genre and look forward to catching up on the classics.

P.S. Have you heard of the new trend of zombie camps?

Preserve the Land, or Build On It?

I maintain a blog for the organization I work for, the Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts. I try to make it as relevant as possible for as many people as possible. Here's a good one: 

Preserve the Land, or Build On It?

The Central Indiana Land Trust received a grant of 40 acres from the Eller family. The land is located in fast-growing Fishers, IN, just north of Indianapolis. According to an article in the Indy Star, Van Eller turned down offers to sell to residential developers. (Between 2000 and 2007, Fishers' growth was more than double that of Indianapolis. Undeveloped farmland is very valuable to developers in high-growth areas.) Eller didn't want to see the land that had been in his family since the 1830s fall into the hands of suburb developers. Instead, he gave the land to the Central Indiana Land Trust. The 40 acres will become a nature preserve.

"Such land donations have become more popular since the downturn in the economy as property values have dropped and landowners seek to take advantage of federal tax breaks.

In Indiana over the past five years, there has been an increase of 64 percent in the acreage set aside for preservation, according to the first census of land trusts conducted on a national level by the Land Trust Alliance, which released its findings last month." (Indy Star).

In an area like Fishers, which has experienced explosive growth and development (click here for a satellite view of the suburbs), preserving land is an important part of planning for a sustainable future. Fishers typifies many aspects of urban sprawl, defined thus by Wikipedia:

Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses (e.g. stores and residential), and various design features that encourage car dependency. [1] ... The term urban sprawl generally has negative connotations due to the health, environmental and cultural issues associated with the phrase.

While building suburbs and roads as fast as possible may be immediately profitable, preserving areas of undeveloped land are important to the overall health of our communities and of our environment.

What do you think?

National Geographic Photo Contest

National Geographic is holding its Photo Contest now. This is so exciting! It is so inspiring to view these photos. Strangely, viewing them makes me feel more less "alone" in the world.

Here's a collection by the Atlantic. There are large, high-resolution photos there. You can also click on any of the photos below to open them up into a little hover screen where they'll be larger and prettier. :-)

Here are some of my favorites:

An unexpected side-effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiders webs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before, but they also reported that there were less mosquitos than they would have expected, given the amount of standing water that was left. Not being bitten by mosquitoes was one small blessing for people that had lost everything in the floods. (© Russell Watkins)

In the holy Hindu city of Varanasi, groups of women gather in the mornings at Dasaswamedh Ghat, alongside the Ganges, to talk, sing, pray, and make offerings. This group was shot from above on the balcony of a small temple. (c) Louis Montrose. Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

Climbing the Harding Ice-field trail in the rain has its rewards. I stopped to admire glacier, only to find an adult black bear eating in front of a glowing blue glacier. (© Colin McCrindle) 

We arrived at this beach just before sunset and I saw these huge waves crashing on the rocks in the distance. Not sure if this fisherman knew what was happening behind him but I caught this monster. (c) Stephen Taylor. Haena beach, Kauai.

Every year around the month of October, Dubai experiences heavy fog due to the still-high humidity and the falling temperatures. With all the new high-rise buildings (including the tallest in the world, Burj Khalifa), this provides a great photographic opportunity.

"Is Homeownership All It's Cracked Up to Be?" The Changing Face of Housing in the US

According to Trulia, a real estate website, buying is still cheaper than renting in 74% of the 50 largest US cities. It's truly a buyers' market - think of the foreclosed Vegas condos you could buy for a fraction of what their original owners paid! The Chicago Tribune reports that in Detroit, you can buy a whole house for $7,500 (notable, albeit on the extreme end of affordability). If enough people get together to commit to buy a block or two of houses, sections of Detroit could become veritable neighborhoods, if not just communes. Sounds like a great business plan...

Homeownership has been part of the American Dream for quite some time. Homeownership is seen as an investment, a money-maker, and a means of establishing your personal and financial stability. The idea of owning a home is so inspiring that a slew of well-funded, long-standing nonprofits - i.e. Habitat for Humanity and Rebuilding Together - are founded upon the idea of providing a home to those who couldn't otherwise afford them. The idea is so inspiring that it also led policy-makers to permit banks to make home loans to people who can't repay them, led houses to be overvalued so that buyers would believe their "home investment" was gaining in real value - or paying more to begin with - and other things that led to the crises over the past few years.

In June 2010, Sheila Bair, president of the FDIC, broached the idea that maybe - just maybe - homeownership is not for everyone. Not everyone can afford one, not everyone is ready for the responsibility of owning a house, etc. (College isn't for everyone either, despite common belief.)

Additionally, homeownership seems to represent the opposite of what the experts say is necessary in this new world economy. Instead of loyalty and steadfastness, the market is looking for flexibility in jobs and locations. Owning a home ties you to an area's shifting economy; those who bought houses in Las Vegas in 1995 are affected of that city's dramatic downturn, and since their mortgages are under water, most can't afford to leave to find a new job. Tight spot.

The US economy has been changing rapidly, and what worked for prior generations' realities might not work out for this one. Healthcare, education, employment, transportation, and housing are all experiencing drastic changes and new philosophies are cropping up all over the place. What's been your experience? What's your outlook?

Read "The Anxiety of the Forever Renter" (via the Atlantic Cities) for a great reflection on the writer's personal struggle to decide between renting and buying.

For now, I'm renting, and expect to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. I like the flexibility, I like indulging my restlessness, and I like being able to walk away from a bad situation or towards a better one. The benefits are outweighing the disadvantages at the moment.

"House of Cards:" The Changing Face of Housing in the US, Part 1

Part 1: Foreclosed Homes

This NYT article explores a unique manifestation of how houses left over from the "foreclosure crisis" are being used. In Merced, CA, the University of CA has run out of student housing (a common occurrence at my alma mater, another large state school) and has reached an agreement with the abandoned house owners (banks, generally) to allow students to live there, paying rent instead of a mortgage. Although they're in subdivisions, the homes are luxurious, and the university sends busses to cart them back and forth from campus.

While I can't help but feel some envy for these students (I've lived in my fair share of funky, run-down college-town rentals), I'm also delighted at the unique symbiotic partnership that's come out of such a bad situation. Best of all, it seems perfectly legal and, for a time, sustainable.

In Florida, housing scams are nothing new (read The Orchid Thief for a thrilling tale of lies, deceit, and inhuman beauty). They're a time-honored tradition in that state. Unsurprisingly, the foreclosure crisis hit Florida hard and left many empty homes and subdivisions, and a wealth of bankers and individuals with expensive, unused real estate on their hands. Also, there are a lot of homeless people in Florida (it's warm most of the year). Could a symbiotic relationship be created to solve both of these groups' problems?

Take Back the Land, an organization based in Miami, FL decided to move these homeless people into unoccupied homes, guerilla-style. Actually, sometimes the banks even cooperated. Tenants worked out deals with neighbors to get turned utilities turned on, they mowed the grass so the owner wouldn't get a fine, and were generally decent neighbors. Take Back the Land is pushing for a variety of policies that would provide restitution to victims of mortgage fraud, socially beneficial re-use of abandoned homes, and a variety of other well-intentioned measures. You can read about their ideas in a news article here, and on their website here. To lend them some credibility, American Public Media covered them here. 

Other parts in this blogseries will include unique ways people are living post-housing crisis, the outlook for people my age, and popular new fads.

You Know How Bad it is For a Person to Run a Marathon?

I sincerely hope it won't be
a snowy first week of December

"It's not bad, but it's sort of ordinary and doesn't amount to much," The Lovin' Spoonful sang a couple decades ago. I've been feeling that way about the little turn my life has taken, the turn that landed me here in Indianapolis. In an attempt to counter that feeling I took up marathon training. The race is in three weeks, down in Morgan-Monroe Forest. I'm not quite sure if the training has lent much excitement to my life, but at least it's given me something to talk about and look forward to.

Here is a really cool video about Johnny CornDawg, a folk musician who's undertaking a marathon too; I identify with his sentiments right now. The video opens with a clip of him talking to himself:

Johnny CornDawg

"I hate this. There's so much build-up. I love running, I wish I could just go running and have fun, but marathons aren't fun, this is a nightmare. This is a bad idea. Such a bad idea. You know how bad it is for a person to run a marathon? It's twenty-six miles! What am I thinking? It's so stupid."


All cynicism aside, I did think it was a good idea at some point, and I guess maybe it is. We'll see how I'm feeling after the race is over.


Running seems to be a primarily US phenomenon that started in the 1970s. Forty years ago, almost no one had heard of a marathon. Then a United Statesian won the Olympic marathon. With the victory, the sport got a lot more attention; over the next two decades it's estimated 25 million US'ians took up running. Title IX (mandating women's access to athletic teams) took effect in 1972, and running was one of the areas women first excelled in.

However, when I was living in Chile, "running" was a mystery to most people, or an activity for the social and economic elite. I lived in the capital and saw a few runners here and there - there was even a running club I ran with occasionally -  but when I travelled outside of the capital I never saw another running soul - unless it was another gringo/a.

Are we in another running boom? It's hard to find a race that's not sold out; prices have doubled in the past 6 years it seems; I see more "technical" gear and shoes than ever before, and overall everything's just more crowded than I remember. And triathlons! It's crazy! Amateur, weekend warriors whose gear & bike costs amount to what I pay for half a year's rent, or more. What's going on here?

The influential spoken-word artist Gil Scott-Heron says this about running:

Because I always feel like running
Not away, because there is no such place
Because, if there was I would have found it by now
Because it's easier to run,
Easier than staying and finding out you're the only one...who didn't run
Because running will be the way your life and mine will be described
As in "the long run"
Or as in having given someone a "run for his money"
Or as in "running out of time"
Because running makes me look like everyone else, though I hope there will never be cause for that

I've been running for about six years now and I see no reason to stop (although I'll probably take a week or so off after the marathon).