Metropolis: a column about urban life
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5/23: EVs are going to transform street parking (The Atlantic)
Where will people who park on the street charge their electric vehicles? It’s going to get messy.
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5/23: PODCAST: If there's so much parking, why can't I find a spot?
A special edition of the Decoder Ring podcast
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4/23: An interview with Sen. Brian Schaatz, D-HA
He’s got the YIMBY discourse down pat.
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3/23: Revisiting broken windows theory
What a discarded idea about urban crime can teach us about the post-pandemic city.
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2/23: The 15-minute city catches on (The Guardian)
How the concept went from Paris to the suburbs of St. Louis in just a few years.
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12/22: Cities are for people who want to be there
Reorienting urban policy to attract residents, instead of corporations.
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12/22: Buy the architecture guide
The best way to visit a new city.
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11/22: The rise and fall of the chain pharmacy
Shoplifting is only one of the problems plaguing CVS, Walgreen’s, and Rite Aid.
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9/22: Why fast food is racing to ditch the dining room
The industry’s shifting business model begins to change its restaurant design.
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9/21: California's fight against single-family zoning
California’s historic duplex bill won’t kill the suburbs, for better or for worse.
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8/21: How condo buildings end
Chicago is the perfect place to understand how condos usually meet their end—not in a pile of rubble, but in a buyout that leaves some owners feeling lucky and others feeling betrayed.
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8/21: Paris tries not to break the bank on the Olympics
The Olympics are going on a diet, and Paris will be the first city to test the new model.
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7/21: Condos are in uncharted territory
The first US condos are reaching old age, testing a governance model that makes it hard to raise money for repairs.
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6/21: Zoning reform comes to the South
Charlotte becomes the latest city to move towards ending the apartment ban.
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6/21: The problem with free transit
Better service would be a more important use of the money, especially for low-income riders.
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5/21: Against pretextual planning
In which planners defend bad laws, because bad laws give them power to grant exemptions.
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4/21: City councils are not helping
Deferring to local representatives on local issues is a reactionary practice with terrible results.
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4/21: Good design is making bad cities
How can we mandate good buildings and increase housing production at the same time?
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2/21: The golden age of yelling at your representatives
When the public meeting is on Zoom.
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2/21: The end of rush-hour
If rush-hour dies, how can mass transit survive?
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1/21: What’s your signature New York City Mayoral project?
Play our game.
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12/20: The year of the neighborhood, if you were lucky
A 15-minute city for me but not for thee.
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4/20: Put restaurants outside
Almost every restaurant in America has the ability to quadruple its footprint overnight, with one weird trick: putting tables in the parking lot.
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4/20: The pandemic density lie
New York City didn’t get sick because of its subways, apartments, or population density.
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3/20: We're all on the cruise ship now
Lockdown and the “essential” workforce.
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8/19: The mad rush to bulletproof American schools
A trip to the new Sandy Hook Elementary. This piece won a Silver Medal for writing about architecture from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.
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5/19: The California housing crisis is generational warfare
Life in the gerontocracy
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5/19: What does gentrification even mean?
When Beverly Hills complains about gentrification, maybe it’s time to think more precisely about the term.
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4/19: Historic architecture and smaller family sizes
If a neighborhood looks the same as it did 50 years ago, it’s probably home to a lot fewer people.
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2/19: The end of the growth machine
New York City’s botched Amazon deal and the end of an era in local politics.
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2/19: How big box scores bilk local governments
The dark magic of “dark store theory.”
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1/19: If you can make it here
Once, big cities were a golden ticket for workers across the board. That opportunity is disappearing for some.
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12/18: The CatDog theory of Elon Musk
To understand his new Loop system, consider the children’s cartoon.
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12/18: Minneapolis ends single-family zoning
The city is the first to undo the policy in an attempt to fight high rent, long commutes, and segregation.
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11/18: How to avoid another Amazon HQ2 fiasco
Work together!
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10/18: London underground
The city’s elites go to war over “iceberg basements.”
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10/18: The affordability question
There are some problems with our methods of measuring rental affordability.
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9/18: Seeing Black space
Why white Americans have such a hard time picturing a middle-class black neighborhood.
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7/18: When China tried to stop the growth of its biggest cities
Beijing and Shanghai hit the limit.