About

My name is Alex Block, I am an urban planner living in Washington, DC.

I have more than 11 years of professional experience working on a wide variety of projects, from transportation and transit planning, downtown development, and improving parks and public spaces.

I’m particularly interested in understanding how all of the pieces fit together in a complex environment, like a city.

This is my personal website; it’s mostly a blog about cities, urbanism, transportation, architecture, and whatever else happens to cross my mind.  As always, the blog is a work in progress.

Contact:

Please feel free to reach out. I’d love to hear from you. You can find me online:

alex.r.block (at) gmail.com
LinkedIn
Twitter

Disclaimer:

The opinions  and views expressed on this blog are those of the author (Alex Block) and the author alone.  They do not necessarily represent the views of my employers (past and present) or clients (past and present).

Background:

I started this blog after reading and commenting on several other blogs in the Washington, DC area – notably Greater Greater Washington, BeyondDC, Richard Layman’s RPUS, as well as many others.   I felt like I could use a more controlled way to write about my thoughts.   My goals are to continue writing, particularly on a wide variety of subjects that I don’t always address within the regular duties of my day job. I also hope to use this as a means of honing my own thoughts on various issues.

My intention is that the blog will cover professional topics of urbanism and planning.  However, like the characteristics of the cities I love, I hope to interject my own personality into the writing.

Blogging, as a format, has some limitations in terms of attention span and post length. This is a problem that cuts across the deeply intertwined issues of urban systems.  I don’t think it’s possible (or advisable) to try and tackle large subjects in one post, thus I will endeavor to string together multiple posts on various subjects with the hope that the overall body of work will add up to broader ideals.

Considering both my goals for the blog, as well as the characteristics of blogging in general, it is my expectation that many posts will feature a stream of consciousness style.  Part of the value to me is the iterative process of going through these ideas and concepts, interacting with commenters and other bloggers, and using that feedback to refine and reassess my thoughts and ideas.  With that in mind, I approach this as a constant work in progress rather than a finished product.

Ethics:

As mentioned in the disclaimer above, the opinions and views expressed here are mine and mine alone.  Professional obligations may require me to recuse myself from some discussions, avoiding potential conflicts of interest.   Beyond specific issues, I hope to discuss larger principles and concepts in lieu of specifics in the event of potential conflicts of interest.