Never Thought I'd Say This

but it's harder to write a short paper than a really long paper.

I am in the throes of writing my first paper since I furtively handed in my senior thesis on art theft and its risk management. Actually, I never had it officially by my theoretical thesis committee, but I received my diploma all the same. And it has a pretty little magna cum laude sticker on it too, so I'm pretty confident I officially graduated ;-)

I am actually trying to trim my ideas down to a concise thesis- not easy for a former/current closet art historian, whose discipline is composed of people who can babble on for pages about the curl of a finger or the hue of a dress. Literally. I've had to sit through those paper presentations. Painful at best.

At first I wanted to write about the history of suburbia- how it came to be and where it got out of hand- when it threw downtown under the bus and forced the inner city to subsidize their infrastructure. But it only has to be 10-15 pages. And that would take a bit longer.

Then I thought about smart growth and new urbanism and the criticism these movements have received, but that too could take a lot of time.

So, I have decided to do how to "solve" suburbia, which is one of my key interests in planning anyway

No, my solution is not to drop H-bombs on Naperville, Deer Run, and all those other oddly named pseudo-nature places where the closest thing to greenery is your shrubs you bought from Home Depot.

Instead I am concentrating on three areas that can be applied to any community- stopping cookie cutter development, less development that can only be accessed by cars, and the promotion of community building areas- cafes, bookstores, boutiques, etc., and citing real-life examples- pictures always helpful.

I've got til Tuesday- ouch + a presentation on an article that I have yet to read for Sustainable Cities. Guess what I'll be doing this weekend? :P