Kathy, I’m lost,” I said, though I knew she was sleeping.“I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why”Counting the cars on the New Jersey TurnpikeThey’ve all come to look for AmericaAll come to look for AmericaAll come to look for America Paul Simon It’s the strangest Fourth of July […]
A phrase used on BBC News at 2:00 today is my newly adopted mantra: “A Time of Excitement and Anxiety.” I’ve adopted it as a fair summary of the balance between public health and the economy. It’s also an example of where I’ve been stuck in my head for over […]
I’m not sure whether malls are places where viruses thrive, but they seem like they could be the cruise ships of retail for all of their enclosed spaces and recycled air. At least that’s what I was first thinking in Kingston today when I picked up a keyboard at the […]
For many, the pandemic has been a catalyst to compare the urban life that was to what it now seems to be. Yet, that is not an easy task, because in a world of moving targets, balancing priorities, and mixed messages of fact and emotion, each day’s news has a […]
People blend with their surroundings in cities. Today, in our dual pandemic world of disease and social justice (including a new tragedy in Atlanta), we see just what protest looks like against urban landscapes. The systemic injustice on display is both disheartening and tragic, through whichever lens we select to […]
Over the past several years, I have often posted a photograph and used it as a prompt for reflection. In Seeing the Better City, I encouraged this approach as a helpful way to spur meaningful discussions about urban land use disputes, particularly in American cities. In my pending book, I […]
Pandemic or not, we tend to talk only about what we see, even though we instinctively know that things are not always what they seem. We often divide the new and old, without imagining how the two might blend. But now is an enlightening time for long-term stories of adaptation, […]
Here in the United Kingdom, things are waking up again, with many pandemic-based recalibrations advancing to new venues. Things are much the same as before, but personal space is now strangely buffered, with in-person interactions altered in subtle ways. For instance, who would have imagined the need to explain that […]
During these all-too strange days of pandemic and protest, it is hard to say something someone has not said already, or to express outrage in an innovative way. But neither is it a time to remain silent, particularly when people remark here in London about an American President and expect […]
