"Let's not build a stadium."

Where does the proposed River View development fit into a vision like this one?

In a way, thinking small is the next logical step in America’s urban renaissance. 

As we seek to situate the comparative "bigness" of River View within the burgeoning small + indie New Albanian context, it's worth recalling a post earlier this week, in which I opened with this thought: Mike Kopp's updates on Twitter are much appreciated."

Indeed, they are, and I was not being snarky or ironic in stating such. But with respect to River View, consider that Mike's three most recent announcements about prospective business openings all describe the adaptive reuse of pre-existing, older buildings not at all associated with River View, for whom he's been doing a fair amount of retail chain fishing in places like Las Vegas.

Remember that condominiums, once River View's sole conceptual selling point (downtown residency being the object, right?), have long since been taken off the project's front burner and placed somewhere out in the yard, near the compost heap, and about as far away from the stove as humanly possible. Now there must be retail and professional occupancy in order to reach the transitional stage of rental apartments -- all of it occurring well before condos are even contemplated.

None of it seems to have mattered to the city's bedazzled politicos, who stare entranced at the glimmering artist's renditions of River View like a 12-year-old in 1972 unearthing his Penthouse from under the mattress.

The point here is this: Given the paucity of PR emanating from the realtor (not a common phenomenon), either the River View retail fishing's been pretty bad, or the catch too embarrassingly undersized to display publicly. Isn't it about time for someone to be standing on the dock, photographed with the big one?

Just curious, that's all.

Stop thinking big

Forget stadiums: Let's build a pop-up park. Smart cities know the future is cooler, cheaper -- and smaller

BY WILL DOIG
Last week, a press release from Chicago’s Office of the Mayor proclaimed something that would have sounded like a Yes Men prank just a few years ago: Rahm Emanuel, it said, has a plan to get rid of the city’s “excess asphalt.”

It wasn’t a proposal for a big new park or recreational facility, but a plan to take little bits of public space here and there — streets, parking spots, alleyways — and turn them into places for people. It was the latest example of a municipal government taking an active role in tactical urbanism, that low-cost, low-commitment, incremental approach to city building — the “let’s not build a stadium” strategy.