Apartment Choice

Photo by: John Dixon/The News-Gazette Though rains have caused some delays, the revamped fields along Stadium Drive between Oak and First Streets are expected to be completed by Aug. 15. The eastern half (top) will be the Marching Illini 's new practice field , and the western half (bottom) will house new campus recreation fields . Taken Thursday July 17 , 2014. Image Tough to think about on these unseasonably breezy July days , but school is just around the corner at the University of Illinois. OK, the start of classes is still more than a month away, but housing officials, construction crews and campus rental agents are busy prepping. Here's a look at some changes you will see on campus this fall. Campus Recreation / Marching Illini fields You may have noticed the giant concrete bunker at First Street at Stadium Drive, which closed off a big chunk of First Street for a while. It's actually an underground detention basin to alleviate flooding in that area, which w...

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...