Posts Tagged ‘Ben Brown’
Comp Plan for Westeros? Same issues, more swordplay
Frustrated with efforts to pull your little kingdom together for long term strategizing? It could be worse. You could be caught up in the public outreach drama in Westeros. The battles renew on Sunday night, when HBO debuts season seven of “Game of Thrones.”
Read MoreThe Other Side of Anxiety? Realism. And maybe hope.
When the dust settles after the current traumas, I think we’ll see this time in our lives and in our nation’s history as a period in which what we’ve learned about human psychology, democracy and policy-making at every scale has exposed weaknesses in ourselves and our institutions that will take a while to fix. And…
Read More‘So all we have to do is…’ call bullshit
Chuck Marohn was in my town last week with his better-than-ever demonstration of the lies we tell ourselves about infrastructure finance. Chuck’s message and that of Joe Minicozzi prod us to get our arms around the math. And that’s a crucial message. But, jeez, our problem is way bigger. Thanks to the never-ending hangover from…
Read MoreFlorida Man Fails to Fix Everything, Reconsiders Position
You know magical thinking about cities is fading when one of the gurus says stuff like this: “My optimism has been tempered and I’ve become more of a realist.” That’s Richard Florida, the guy who inspired a (mostly unsuccessful) stampede to hipness 15 years ago with the publication of The Rise of the Creative Class:…
Read MoreFeared Dead, Math’s Back: Planning nerds vindicated
Planning for the future tends to be a humiliating exercise. Whatever’s headed our way is both inevitable and unpredictable. Yet because it brings with it the consequences of decisions we made or ducked in the past and now have to manage or endure in the present, we have to take a stab at decisions that…
Read MoreSmall Goes Big: The Katrina Cottage Connection
If you’ve been following our work here, you know we have a soft spot for Katrina Cottages and the neighborhood design movement they inspired. And you also know some of us — okay, me — have been grumpy about the way Tiny House talk has sucked oxygen out of the discussion of small scale homes…
Read MoreWhere Thinking About the End is a Good Place to Begin
In this time of increasing uncertainty, of trepidation about what the future holds for ourselves, our families, our communities, wouldn’t it be great if there were something we could absolutely count on? Something we could predict with 100 percent confidence no matter who we are or where we live or what particular challenges lie ahead?…
Read MoreBubble Burst Strategy No. 1: Do something. Now.
You know things are getting dicey when the outgoing president of the United States feels obliged to remind us there’s still hope for American democracy at about the same time the incomer is on Twitter alleging (again) that America’s democratic institutions are plotting against him.
Read MoreStep Away from the Vehicle (And take back the journey)
Leading into the Thanksgiving weekend, a video of holiday traffic on Los Angeles’ 405 Freeway hit the Twitterverse. Kinda hypnotizing, but probably not as fun to experience if you were in one of the cars “stuck in traffic.” (Smart Growth transportation planners couldn’t resist tweeting one of their favorite jabs: “If you find yourself in…
Read MoreThe City as NORC: It’s the people thing
When The New York Times used my wife and me as examples in a story about retirees’ growing preferences for urban life, it was a chance to literally walk the talk. I’ve been writing about my Baby Boomer cohort for all my career, first in the ‘60s alternative press, then in newspaper and magazine stories…
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