Welcome to ryanjrichter.com! In case you don’t know me, I am the real Ryan J. Richter – accept no substitutions. Welcome to my next project, designed to showcase myself to the world, or at least the world-wide web. I am certainly not new to the internet, having established a transportation planning blog, Transport Nexus. This project is a little different, a little more personal.
I established Transport Nexus in February 2012 in part to discuss my profession as an urban planner outside of my real gig. They are not too keen on discussing work on the internet and I am not too keen on getting fired. So, Transport Nexus was my voice in my profession discussing urban transportation, planning, transportation politics and other urban planning items of interest to me. This new project, eponymously named, will allow me to showcase my other interests outside of planning. I’ll keep updating Transport Nexus with the urban planning stuff while posting everything else on this site.
First, a bit about myself. I am an urban planner (obviously) living and working in Chicago, my hometown. I work for Metra, the commuter rail agency in the Chicago region and help the agency to plan for development around its stations, a term planners call transit-oriented development. I’m also involved in spatial analysis, corridor planning and map production as needed.
Outside of work, I am married to a wonderful wife and have two daughters, ages 2.5 and 6 months. I live in Jefferson Park, on Chicago’s northwest side.
The interests I plan on exploring are maps, planted aquariums, beer brewing, history, politics, architecture, and various other musings, not in any particular order. This site is continually evolving and I hope to be posting early and often, as the saying goes. I hope you will join me in the fun and feel free to contact me via comment here, at Transport Nexus, or via email at ryan [at] ryanjrichter [dot] com.
