Journal & Essays
IssuesA room is not merely a container for activities; it is an extension of our internal landscape. To leave a space devoid of art, greenery, and the evidence of human craft is to ignore the fundamental biology of our own belonging.
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Visible change matters. But banners, awnings, and events become durable only when they lead to the deeper social, ecological, and economic systems that allow a place to endure.
Read EssayHow communities can make decisions that hold through the years between a bold vision and a finished project.
Read EssayWhy the most durable plans begin with local knowledge, shared walks, and conversations that make room for complexity.
Read EssayPlanning for housing, small business, gathering, and care in the same places — not in separate silos.
Read EssayHow ecological systems can guide the choices communities make about growth, infrastructure, and resilience.
Read EssayWhat happens after the ribbon cutting — and why maintenance, relationships, and local leadership are the real work.
Read EssayA closing reflection on planning as an act of care for the people, places, and possibilities already here.
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✦ Guest VoiceWe have spent decades celebrating the honeybee as a symbol of environmental virtue. But honeybees are not native to North America — and their overwhelming presence may be quietly crowding out the wild bees that our ecosystems actually depend on.
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Wilding — or rewilding — is a vibrant, hopeful, and scientifically-backed approach to land stewardship that is transforming the way we look at the Driftless Area. It's about stepping back and letting nature's own wisdom take the wheel.
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We treat the land around a warehouse or a data center as an afterthought — a compliance-driven patch of green held in a state of arrested development. What if we stopped fighting the wild and started inviting it back?
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A lawn maintained to a height of two inches is ecologically inert — an impervious surface in green clothing. When we mow everything by default, we are opting out of the life of our own soil. There is another way.
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In a karst system, the surface is merely a skin. What happens in a sinkhole on a high ridge affects the quality of the trout stream in the valley floor three days later. This is the physical reality of a watershed — and the foundation of how we should design.
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We have been conditioned to believe that resilience is a commodity — a generator, a seawall, a premium insurance policy. But resilience, it turns out, is not a product. It is a practice.
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When you strip away the velvet curtains and the plywood bracing, the fundamental questions of design remain stubbornly the same: What is this space really for? Who is it serving?
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The Driftless Region refused to be flattened by the glaciers. But even a landscape this resilient is fragile — and photography may be our most powerful tool for making sure people see what is worth protecting.
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Resilience is not a personality trait you either have or don't. It is a practice — and these six books, taken together, form one of the most honest reading lists I know for building it.
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✦ Guest VoiceStanding in tallgrass with wind moving through the stems, Gary Kurtz reflects on prairie restoration, Indigenous stewardship, and the quiet act of learning to listen — to the land, and to each other.
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✦ Guest VoiceWater is a perfect test of the balance between private gain and public cost. From frac sand mining in Winona County to the Gulf dead zone, the math of who pays — and who profits — is never abstract.
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Resilience is not a policy or a program. It begins inside each of us — and ripples outward into the communities and ecosystems we are part of.
Read EssayWhat if we treated every street as a living system — one that manages water, supports biodiversity, and builds community at the same time?
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We are living in a moment of extraordinary material abundance and extraordinary civic poverty. What do we actually need, and what have we been sold?
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The karst landscape of the Driftless region is one of the most ecologically distinct places in North America. It is also one of the most threatened.
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Across the Upper Midwest, small cities are asking hard questions about their futures. The answers have less to do with economics than we think.
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The research is unambiguous: time outdoors is not a luxury or a childhood pastime — it is a biological necessity.
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We have more tools, more data, more options, and more noise than any generation before us. What do we actually want?
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After decades of single-use zoning, American cities are rediscovering what Jane Jacobs knew in 1961: streets that mix housing, commerce, and civic uses are more resilient, more equitable, and more alive.
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Native plant landscaping has moved from fringe to mainstream — but the reasoning behind it matters. This is not about aesthetics. It is about restoring the ecological relationships that make landscapes function.
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Duplexes, triplexes, courtyard apartments, and small apartment buildings once formed the backbone of American neighborhoods. Their near-disappearance from new construction is not an accident — it is the result of policy choices that can be reversed.
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Rain gardens, bioswales, permeable pavement, and constructed wetlands are not just environmental amenities. They are infrastructure — cheaper, more resilient, and more beautiful than the gray alternatives.
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