Abandoned subdivision near Dallas, TX

Today being Halloween, I bring you a graveyard of dreams: an abandoned sub-division somewhere on the Southern side of Dallas, Texas. Judging by the size of the trees in the scraped lines that once anticipated streets, I would guess this development went under during the 2008 financial crisis and has been slowly mouldering ever since, nature working hard but not yet able to erase the marks scored upon it by the economics of humanity.

Gateway to Chem-Bio, University of Arizona, Tucson

This remarkable gateway into the chemistry and biology region of the University of Arizona it filled with scientific allusions: a dividing cell, an ionic crystal solid, a microscope, DNA, a virus, corn, a gel digest, etc. In honor of the upcoming holiday, however, I will point you toward the skeleton in the center left.

University of Arizona Student Union, Tucson

The Student Union at the University of Arizona is one of those inside-out buildings that only make sense in warm, dry climates: it is not so much a solid building as a lacework of shops, rooms, and walkways, full of interesting passages, catwalks, and unexpected openings to the sky.

Rooftop solar panels, University of Arizona, Tucson

With its dry cloudless skies and lower latitude, Arizona is an ideal place for solar energy, and I saw great racks of panels in many places, on top of roofs and above parking lots.

Tucson, AZ skyline

Tucson, Arizona is the flattest big city that I can ever recall visiting. With more than half a million people, there still seemed to be nothing even vaguely like a skyscraper. Instead, the city seems to spread uniformly in all directions until it laps up against the mountains on its sides.

Alewife Sunset, Cambridge, MA

Sunset over the parking garage at the Alewife T in Cambridge.

Boston container terminal

The last bit of land that you see before crossing the harbor and landing at Logan when coming from the South: the colorful "legos" of Boston's container shipping terminal.