Urban Review Has Moved

After two years with the STLSyndicate I decided it was time to branch out on my own, in the blogoshere that means your own server. So if you are reading this, you are on the new site of Urban Review. All the old posts have been moved so regular readers will find things pretty much as they have been. For new readers, welcome.

Here is a list of some of the changes form the old system:

• Currently I don’t have the popular “most recent comments” section on the right but I have RSS available for comments. We will be adding the “most recent comments” in the near future.
• Until I can get some spam blocking measures in place, the first comment per IP address will need to be approved, after which future comments will appear automatically. I will approve all except spam so continue to speak your mind including telling me I am way off base if that is what you think.
• The template we are using has a quite lovely standard picture. Don’t get to used to it as it will be going away in the coming weeks.
• The graphics are a little nicer than the old but this may change as we tweak the aesthetic during 2007.
• I’ve dropped the “subscribe” email address — it was primarily another way for spammers to hit me. I will still offer the option of receiving an email as I do new posts — just send me an email to steveATurbanreviewstlDOTcom with a note to be informed of new posts. I’ll call this notification so as not to be confused with RSS subscriptions.

What is in store for the future:

• Bulleted & numbered lists like this are so much easier to do in WordPress than in Moveable Type. This will hopefully allow me to improve the visual appearance of posts as well as improve the readability.
• Banner advertising is gone, but not for long. Next month we willl be setting up an ad server and I will be selling advertising on this site to help cover the enormous amount of time I spend researching & writing.
• Links will be considerably easier to organize and update so I will begin working on that soon. They may go from being on the right to a links page.
• Categories are the same as they were before but look for these to get edited, revised and updated. I never had a plan for categories when I started so this will now get addressed and cleaned up.
• Additional pages will be added to communicate my big picture view of the region and specific issues such as transportation and housing. These will serve as position papers without the usual academic stuffiness associated with that sorta writing.
• I have a few other ideas I am tossing around. This software platform will give me the flexibility to grown, expand and change easily as issues warrant as much. Anything you’d like to see?
• I will be able to handle some changes to the site myself but some of the more complicated matters will be handled by a programmer and a graphic designer. That explains the “we” in places above — they are far more talented than I am when it comes to this HTML and CSS stuff.

I want to thank STLSyndicate organizer & host Brian Marston for all his help over the last two years. It has been as part of the Syndicate that Urban Review has gone from obscurity to recognition. Best wishes to him and all the associated blogs.
UPDATES

• 11/23/06 10am – “Recent Comments” now added to right sidebar.
• 11/23/06 10:30am – Comment verification added so that comments don’t have to be approved.
• 11/23/06 8pm – A series of 160+ quotes added to main page as “Food for Thought.” See upper right.
• 12/03/06 9pm – “Preview” feature added to comments, generic verification replaced cool word verification.