More often than not, I take the desire path. We’re taught that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, after all.

Just south of Prospect Garden and just north of First College, around the art museum construction site, there’s a beautiful phenomenon of the human condition. There are sidewalks that cross this area ...

The little dirt off-shoot of the pavement, soft ground underfoot replacing hard rock. Getting to your class a little faster, wandering a little more. It is likely that everyone reading this has, at ...

Humans argue about a lot of things, but if there’s one thing we’re consistent about, it’s this: we don’t like unnecessary effort. When something feels overcomplicated, we’ll often, whether we realize ...

About ten years ago, a Michigan State University administrator asked Campus Planner Steve Troost whether the walkways around north neighborhood’s West Circle were really needed. It was an ...

Years ago, when I was a student at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, I met a staff member whose job was "continuous improvement." This job title intrigued me. At the U, as it is ...