For Chambana and other Illinois people:

My brother wanted a London pub crawl. The result? My new Substack post: "Britain Lost 14,000 Third Places. They were Called Pubs. Is Your Local Next?" How private equity reshaped the local, which pubs are most at risk and most importantly what to do about it. open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Ok, these are the best valentines I’ve seen so far. Sorry, Amtrak and CTA.

Encouraging our Chicago allies who survived Operation Midway Blitz to please post here about that post-”drawdown.” IIRC heat died down but ICE is back doing same shady shit only shadier. Celebrate the win (when it actually happens, not just a liar‘s words) but know this is a strategic retreat.

Five classes you took at university: *A CS course on AI (in 1996) (distributional requirement) *Collecting (gen ed; kind of an intro to museum studies) *Swimming (required, but I still can't swim) *The Four Quartets + The Waste Land (for fun) *Atmospheric Chemistry (for fun)

Looking at the top 20 (smartasset.com/data-studies...), I see three types of places: 1) big, wealthy outer suburbs 2) big, wealthy suburbs adjacent to a central city 3) medium-sized central cities. No low-cost digital nomad centers, interestingly. Great Trib article on the local economic impacts.

The new Harriet Powers USPS postage stamps are so moving. Featuring details from formerly enslaved Powers’s “Pictorial Quilt” of 1898, I’m so glad these stamps will bring her work & life story to more people, especially when so much Black history is being erased from the public realm right now 💌

yessssss..... #chambana

oh my god dude www.reddit.com/r/Tacoma/s/O...

This is a minor point perhaps, but it adds to the heartbreak. The Univ of Minnesota is where I became a geographer and where I first became interested in migration studies. You'd be surprised how many people involved in justice work are human geographers. Que la tierra te sea leve, compañero 🔥

Live right now, Illinoisans!

Just a heads up, tomorrow is Large Boulder the size of a Small Boulder, hope you've done your shopping and holiday meal prep.

A Winkle in Time, and The Hero and the Crown.

Hey Folks, please help spread the word. We are hosting GENIUS again and we want your undergrads! This is a great opportunity for all involved www.geog.psu.edu/geniusworkshop

CfP for @rgsibg.bsky.social annual conference just dropped! Organised by @geogdurham.bsky.social 's Leah Edwards and myself: The Family as Site of Environmental Politics. Please share widely! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

crazy that the website that I randomly decided to put together at 10AM yesterday has had over 25k unique visitors in 24 hours. please keep sharing with your networks.

Good morning from Crossroads transportation equity conference -- I'll try to share some notes. You can also still join remotely! sites.google.com/view/crossro...

a person's lighthearted social media post does not mean they don't feel the horror of the news very deeply, it's very possible just a way for them to cope. We are not hardwired to live and breathe devastation 24/7.

RT if you've never had a tab of ChatGPT open 'just to do quick research'

Looking for nature valentines cards? Last year's comic is now available as cards! They start shipping Jan 12. topatoco.com/collections/...

Just placed my order!

Semesterly reminder to everyone - Canvas in many cases defaults to showing students the course's grade distribution and student's place on it. If you *don't* want your students to be aware of where they "rank" at all times, take a second to double check it's turned off. #TeachLearnSky #EduSky

Inspired by @rlsdvm.bsky.social, aiming for 100 articles this year. Dang et al, Rhythmanalysis of Pedestrian Streets in Hanoi. I haven't read a lot of rhythmanalysis, but it's a good example of implementation, esp. in an authoritarian/capitalist context. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... (1/100)

if you flush your toilet on NYE at exactly 11:59:51, the final remnants of the year will exit the bowl at the stroke of midnight.

Only 5 left! phaneritic.etsy.com

I'll take it.

Excited to announce my new article (w/undergrad co-authors) updating my old article on the geography of logistics within U.S. metro areas. In the 90s, it was all about de-centralization; now there's re-centralization everywhere as a national system develops. OA: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#OnThisDay Dec 17, 1915: Four entrepreneurs driving miners around the Minnesota Iron Range join forces to form Mesaba Transportation Co, becoming Greyhound Bus Lines in 1930. By 1935 it carried 652 million passengers annually, surpassing the railroads as the nation's largest passenger provider.

Ken Paxton has launched a snitch line to gather reports of supposed violations of Texas' transphobic bathroom policing law. Please do not abuse this snitch line. Please do not fill it with faff and nonsense. Please do not attach huge, unwieldy and irrelevant documentation to any reports.

Whenever I tell the story of my career trajectory, I always emphasize this. I was very lucky at some key moments, and I also worked very hard at some key moments. I would add that the underpaid jobs are also to teach courses that *departments* need in this era of metric-driven budgeting.

Fascinating analysis of algorithmic geographies of restaurants (and how to resist them):

#snowmobilities fascinate me not just in terms of mobility in the snow, but the mobility of snow itself.

CfP special issue on "Decolonising Research in Transport Geography", in JTG. Please help us spread the word! Deadline 30 Sep 2026 More info www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu... Guest editors: Qiyang Liu, Peking Zihao An, U. Leeds Rafael H. M. Pereira, Ipea Zahara Batool, Leeds Tim Schwanen, Oxford

*stares at West Urbana*

Ready for the last class of the semester in my transportation geography course thanks to @trimet.org!

As a quilter, I am excited about the only color of the year that really matters.

REDLANDS: 201 BROOKSIDE AVE, REDLANDS CA 92373-9997

This is what happens when you get injured and are no longer able to run, and then use Spotify mostly as a way to fall asleep. I do appreciate the album ranking, though, for us olds who still listen to music that way.

Love me a Chicago Tribune article that cites Nature's Metropolis.

Introduce yourself with five cars you've owned. 1) Honda Civic Hybrid (That's it. That's the list.)

today is the feast of St Catharine of Alexandria, patron of female scholars, so enjoy this painting of her shutting down a senior prof who treated her paper's question time as an opportunity to hold an impromptu paper of his own

do you have any idea how much you have to piss somebody off to make them change their gauge

Recently did around 30 requests to ppl who'd published very similar papers to the one I needed reviews for. 3 declines, 25 no response. Please at least decline guys it slows stuff down so much otherwise.

8TH RC21-IJURR FOUNDATION-IJURR DOCTORAL SCHOOL IN COMPARATIVE URBAN STUDIES. VIENNA (AUSTRIA), 9-22 JULY 2026. Apply by 2 January 2026 at midnight GMT. See the instructions here: www.rc21.org/en/8th-rc21-... #urban #sociology