Author Archives: Christopher Winters

The skyscraper apartment buildings (and some other distinctive features) of Panama City

I spent a few days in Panama City at the end of January. I had been there only once before, in 2012, before the Metro opened. It’s a surprisingly distinctive place. Panama City’s most astonishing feature is surely its skyline, … Continue reading

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The difficulties of carfree life in Bangkok

I’d been in Bangkok half a dozen times since the 1990s and had come to know the city moderately well. Although it’s a large, pleasantly complicated place, with a rich traditional culture and a distinctive approach to modernization, Bangkok had … Continue reading

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Spatial inequality in central Havana

I spent three days in Havana in mid-December. This blog would not exist if I didn’t believe that intense observation for a short period can lead to real insights about places. I wouldn’t, however, claim that three days in a city of … Continue reading

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Change in population by “race” and Hispanic status, Chicago area, 2010-2012/2016

The Census Bureau released the 2012/2016 American Community Survey (ACS) tract-level data last month. I’ve used these data to map tract-level ethnic changes between 2010 and 2012/2016 for the Chicago area. These maps are comparable to the 2000-2010, 1990-2000, and … Continue reading

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Glimmers of non-autocentric urbanism in Austin

Austin, with a population of just under a million, is now the 11th largest city in the United States.1 Both the city of Austin and its urban area grew by more than 16% between 2010 and 2016. No other U.S. … Continue reading

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Some notes on Hong Kong’s newish waterfront “promenades” and on its other pedestrian facilities

Hong Kong is perhaps best known in the world of urban studies for its extraordinarily high transit share. Public transit accounts for a larger percentage of journeys in Hong Kong than in any other city in the world.1 Something like 77.6% of … Continue reading

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Why the BeltLine is so important to Atlantans

The still far-from-complete Atlanta BeltLine is one of the most discussed pieces of non-automotive infrastructure in the country. Two books have been written about its creation.1 A huge number of newspaper stories have also been devoted to it. Furthermore, dozens … Continue reading

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Was Chicago still building “too much” in 2016?

A year ago, I put up a post in which I pointed out that, given Chicago’s population losses, there seemed to be an enormous amount of building in the Chicago urban area, or at least an enormous amount of building-permit filing. No other American … Continue reading

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Harbin and Vladivostok

I was in Harbin and Vladivostok last week. These two cities may be in different countries, but they are only 500 km apart and have a common late-19th-century origin as Russian railroad towns. Harbin was the administrative center of the … Continue reading

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The Promenade Fleuve-Montagne in Montréal

When I was in Montréal a week ago, I made a point of visiting the new Promenade Fleuve-Montagne. The Promenade is a 3.8 km walkway between the old port on the Saint Lawrence (the “fleuve”) and the base of Mount … Continue reading

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