When Bill Lueders asked me to do a blog for Isthmus I agreed immediately. But it was just days after the election. If Bill had asked me to drink acid while hanging by my thumbs and watching Oprah, I would have accepted. It had been a long week.
But I spent the next few weeks thinking about it and what I might write. I ruled a lot of stuff out. I don't want to mope around this space about my loss. I don't want to criticize my successor. I don't want to get into blog wars with others.
So, what to write about? Well, Isthmus has given me free rein on that and I'll take it. But what I'd like to focus on is good city building.
There's so much exciting stuff going on here. The new Central Library. Central Park. The Capital East Corridor. The North East Neighborhoods. The new zoning code. B-Cycle. The Congress for the New Urbanism. And there's lots more happening nationally and internationally.
Cities are the centers of civilization. I'm fascinated by everything about them and cities are what I'm most passionate about. That's why I ran for mayor in the first place eight years ago. And good city building is what I hope to keep working on as I move forward with my life.
So, we'll focus on cities in this space. Our city and others. What they're doing right and wrong, new ideas from other places. I hope you'll read along and comment as we go.
Dave Cieslewicz was mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011.
