My favorite artists and architects hail from the Netherlands, so it only made sense that I spend a couple days in the capital of the uber-progressive nation.

Unfortunately it was a bit of a disappointment. Coming out of Centraal Station we walked towards what seemed like a quaint and historic city center but was basically a mecca for tourists who…lets just say weren’t seeking culture.

Not really being into prostitutes or weed-I bought a 48-hour pass on the public transit system and journeyed around seeking a more authentic everyday-type Amsterdam.

I saw a central business district in the way distance and guided myself there-its the Amsterdam WTC. And it made me feel a bit better about the lack of 24/7 vitality that is so sought after and rare to find in the states.


Beautiful buildings, with plenty more coming soon but not a soul outside at lunch time and not a residential building in sight. The buildings themselves lacked much 1st-floor presence as a lot of the offices just have secluded cafeterias. Knowing the quality of local architects and the decent rate of growth in Amsterdam, I’m sure these issues will be addressed but it was a surprise nonetheless.

I came back to the city-center (saying ‘downtown’ feels wrong when you’re in Europe) and came across a mini-cultural district emerging as a response to the red-light district that has a surprisingly heavy presence on the immediate area around Centraal Station.

We went to the Stedelijk Museum of art that one would assume would satisfy my quest to see some Mondriaans or any Di Stijl in general but it was under a massive rebuilding-only some small contemporary exhibits and a huge Warhol (sigh…) exhibit were open to the public. But when the new Stedelijk is done it will definitely be a huge attraction.

Right next door was the brand-new public library which blew me away. Best. Library. Ever.

Extremely thoughtful interior design and superior accessibility to everything-print media, electronic media, and decent food (for Dutch standards).

Next to that was a children’s and/or science museum…not my cup of tea…but nice to look at.

Between the two extremes of the city center and the WTC there is an msterdam that is for its everyday citizens who hail from all over the world and live in quaint old neighborhoods the provide everything you need on a daily basis and a great tram system to take you there. The people are low key and friendly and the neighborhoods are welcoming and comfortable.

Amsterdam was an okay overall experience-a bit weird but it has all the great assets of any big European cities.

The Netherlands as a whole seems like a great country-great urbanism, thoughtful transportation planning from trains to bikes. I’ll come back someday to see The Hague and Rotterdam but I’m pretty sure the capital is permanently crossed off my list of places to visit.

And now for some travel time in Europe. Back in mid-January. Have a good New Year.

I read an article in November 2005 in the Buffalo News about how 2007 would be the year that signified where Buffalo was going. Forward? Or the same as it has always been?

And now that 2007 has come and gone there are mixed signals all around. Clearly this was not the make or break year that the article made it out to be-positive signs are starting to accumulate while many of the root problems still exist.

Look around the east side and hope is hard to find with a continuously deteriorating housing stock, high rate of poverty, church closings, and American Axle shutting down. The west side faces many of the same drug and crime problems that the East Side does-perhaps at a higher but more concentrated rate. The University District continues to fall as students no longer feel safe living around their own city campus and choose Amherst instead. Go downtown and still see the Aud and Donovan buildings sitting idly. Main Street remains windswept and new buildings struggle to obtain 1st floor retail. Politically, the two control boards still remain, Byron Brown has begun to be recognized as simply just the newest cycle of the Buffalo Political Machine, Joel Giambra never met any of his ambitious goals that got him elected and Elliott Spitzer is already labeled as a failure.

But we also see a Bashar Issa that not only is in the process of bringing the Statler back to its deserved-life but is proposing a 40-story skyscraper. The Canal Side project has cleared away all the red-tape (allegedly). The Federal Courthouse finally cleared all of its red-tape as well. A block of abandoned industrial buildings in the Cobblestone District will be completely brought back to life next summer as a mixed-use block. Construction is about to begin on an Embassy Suites and a 5-star Seneca Hotel. A new condo tower is being built on the waterfront. A new art museum is under construction across from the Albright-Knox. Wind turbines are up (and currently not running) in Lackawanna, the Buffalo Lakeside Commerce park is a great example of a successful brownfield remediation project, there are 4.5 Billion USD worth of construction projects in the city, the regions job growth has been its strongest in 7 years and UB has finally begun to establish a downtown campus.

Clearly the picture is not clear for Buffalo yet. Fifty years of constant decline can’t be erased anytime soon and the fundamental issues that hurt the region like taxes, mind-boggling sprawl, political favors, abject poverty and an Albany bureaucracy that can’t be broken-all remain.. But change is starting to occur despite all the obstacles ahead. The economic and social climate is fragile but people are finally fed-up and taking matters into their own hands. The mistakes of the past will probably never be solved but the mistakes of the future can be avoided, and as everyone realizes that-Buffalo can become healthy again and I would say 2007 helped lay the groundwork for that.

Sure, its no Bass Pro or Casino but Holland has a pretty interesting project being proposed…like building a new freaking island.

With tight living space and a decent chance of losing even more land to rising sea levels, progressive Holland comes up with a progressive idea that could very well be replicated in other western places that will be affected by rising sea levels like Manhattan.

Brings up some critical issues-what is more important…your fertile eco-system or the potential to lose already sparse land to the North Sea? You think Buffalo plans get sued to death, this one should take a while to be solved and/or constructed and if it works we could very well start seeing a lot more of these popping up.

Show this picture to most people in America and they’ll say its some housing project in NYC. But no…its the dominating structures of Buffalo’s Inner Harbor- the Marine Drive Apartments.

You walk by it, especially on a cold, grey day and you really feel like its a cliche “project” in the Bronx.

If the waterfront ever evolves into something special, it will be curious to see what becomes of this place. Does it get torn down? Does it get sold to the private sector? Amazing valuable land going to low-income housing…and right up against another 1950’s “Great Idea in Planning”-the Skyway.

To say nothing ever got done in the world of urban planning in Buffalo is not true, to say nothing good happened is another thing however.

I was watching the Redskins game tonight since I’m not like the rest of the world and actually have NFL Network.

Anyways, Jason Campbell went down and I was expecting to see Mark Brunell come in and then the camera zooms in on who else but…

TODD COLLINS?!

1st of all…I can’t believe he’s held an NFL job since 1999 and 2nd- Mark Brunell must have fallen from grace beyond comprehension.

And then he OWNED. Reminded me of when I was 8 and thought that Jim Kelly needed to step aside because he was in the way of Todd Collins’ greatness after some solid performances.

15 for 20. Over 200 yards passing. Thank God he didn’t have the chance to pull that on us last week.

I like to check the weather on AccuWeather.com so that I can see the psychotic ramblings of Jim Kosek.

Kicking, screaming, all sorts of other actions…he makes the weather fun…and slightly disturbing.

Check accuweather.com throughout the week to see if he’s doing the forecast for the day in Buffalo-its well worth your time

Wal Mart gets a deservedly bad rap for a lot of things they do but it looks like they’ll be taking part in a development that is great for an inner-ring Amherst that is starting to look like downtown Buffalo’s retail scene.

The huge complex on Sheridan and Bailey that used to house DSW and Hills amongst some other stores when I was a kid has been emptied out and has become quite the eyesore.

In the Buffalo News article there were complaints about traffic which I really appreciate. You live behind a large retail plaza…would you perfer living behind an abandoned one?

This has been an idea for a while so hopefully this actually goes through. Maybe it can serve as a shot of life back into a slowly rotting part of Amherst

Every once in a while I check up on the construction going on in and around the new Washington Nationals Ballpark. DC is practically making a new city out of this development and its really something to watch evolve from what was one of the um…less glamorous areas of DC.

It got me thinking about the planning process for HSBC Arena. I was 7 and all I remember was the ceremonial groundbreaking.

Did planners agressively pursue developing the surrounding parcels for housing and retail and a better LLRT station? like they are now with Canal Side?

Obviously the markets we’re dealing with are different but I would think that if while planning for the HSBC Arena, focusing on getting surrounding parcels developed to accomodate a hotel, an apartment building, some office space…nothing too crazy…they would have been able to make the Arena area more of an experience than a park-and-go.

It seemed like projects unaffilliated with each other would pop-up from time-to-time. An intermodal station here. A new skyscraper there. Both never actually happeneing. Eleven years since opening things look pretty much the same in a scattered and slow process of developement. A canal slip here, a pub and office building therre. Its good. Its a start. But This shouldn’t have taken 11 years. No excuses.

Interesting article in the Washington Post today about how churches in DC are surviving. DC faced extreme suburbanization like any other American city but thankfully in the last 10 years it has experienced a genuine renaissance unlike the one we hear about up here.

Unfortunately this plan doesn’t work for Buffalo. Most city churches are in low-density, low-value neighborhoods. Big NYC Real Estate firms aren’t going to come in to save the day by buying adjoining parcels of land.

But shopping is the modern day cure-all for cultural institutions. What transportation center or Museum doesn’t have a place to shop and a place to eat anymore? A church on the east side has a Subway-its saved them. A church in Williamsville has a Tim Hortons.

Private sector investment usually works in these cases, but where is society going when we have to rely on retail and developers to save religious and cultural institutions?