The beginning of an experiment

As my sanity continues to dwindle from prolonged unemployment I feel the need to have a project.  With the warming weather, I decided my project should be to bike throughout the Philadelphia region and blog about it.  While I do not fancy myself as a writer, my goal is to comment on what I find to be interesting in the various urban neighborhoods. As well as the trials and tribulations of cycling through the less-than-ideal conditions found in some of the more auto-centric and/or neglected areas in the region. 

My project combines two of the things I love: a lifelong fascination of urban planning and my quasi-novel passion for cycling.

Ever since I was kid I fantasized about cities.  My parents can attest to this.  I sketched fictional cities in notebooks, quizzed my family on which was bigger: Indianapolis or Miami, and forced as many trips downtown as I could.  As I grew up I decided to study city planning and am currently attempting to embark in a career as such. 

As for my novel passion for cycling, last year I’ve logged nearly 2,000 miles, so I’m not exactly a beginner.  Albeit that many of those miles came from a daily commute or running errands, I biked through a large portion of the City of Philadelphia. Through this experience I visited sites in the city that are far from the vibrant Center City neighborhoods that I am familiar with. There are large swathes of decrepit waterfront, blocks of aging (and missing) rowhouses, ginormous abandoned civic buildings.  However, interspersed throughout are vibrant commercial corridors, new and exciting developments and a bevy of architectural and urban patterns.

Re-biking through the city’s neighborhoods and the region, will hopefully reinvigorate my interest in urban places, give me a new appreciation for the place that I currently call home, and probably scare the hell out of my mom. 

I thought about making a deadline, designing a map, creating a checklist of neighborhoods I’ve been through.  Something to show my progress and keep me motivated. However, atypical of my personality, I’m leaving this blog simple and unplanned.  Don’t be surprised if I change my mind.