The extended remote working "experiment" that COVID has meant for most white-collar workers has some wondering about the future of cities. As in, "why pay downtown rents and subject your employees to soul-crushing commutes when people can log in from anywhere?" Indeed, Manhattan and San Francisco are seeing mass vacancies and commensurate office rent declines, albeit from eye-wateringly high levels. Is this the end of cities as we know them?
Stuff I liked lately on the Internets:
235.1 Useful taxonomy of place-based economic development strategies pew.org/3crwQGZ @pewtrusts
235.2 We watch the videos on social media but don't realize the 1000's of takes/failures/preps needed to pull it all off...there's a huge life lesson in here youtu.be/g5hWz0hSpWk
235.3 Masks + hygiene + closures = way less flu, as in 400,000 hospitalizations last season vs. 165 so far this season n.pr/3bBSkz1 @npr
235.4 Another reason to visit Japan: this amazing "bookshelf theater" inside a Tokyo cultural museum bit.ly/3qDp5SD @thisiscolossal
235.5 In honor of Black History Month, a wide range of critically acclaimed cultural expressions recommended by @nytimes nyti.ms/3dvAO1B
I didn't want Black History Month to pass without mentioning some great Black authors whose works I've read in the past few years. Highly recommend all, and can't wait to read more (that's a not so subtle request for suggestions please, and yes I know there are many in the "canon" that I haven't yet gotten to!).
Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem – Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship On and Off the Court
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi – Half of a Yellow Sun; We Should
All Be Feminists
Alexander, Michelle – The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration
in the Age of Colorblindness
Blow, Charles – Fire Shut Up in My Bones
Coates, Ta-Nehisi – We Were Eight Years in Power: An
American Tragedy; Between the World and Me
Fluornoy, Angela – The Turner House
Gay, Roxane – Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Hinton, Anthony Ray – The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life
and Freedom on Death Row
Kendi, Ibram - How to Be an Antiracist
Powell, Colin – It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership
Ramey Berry, Daina – The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The
Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation
Rice, Condoleezza – Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to
Shetterly, Margot Lee – Hidden Figures: The Untold True
Story of Four African-American Women who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space
Stewart, Alison – First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar,
America's First Black Public High School
Wilkerson, Isabel – The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story
of America's Great Migration; Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Wright, Richard – Black Boy
Holding a hard job along with many civic roles and parenting responsibilities is always a juggling act. The pandemic has added a degree of difficulty. Snow earlier this month was yet another layer of complexity. Along the way, I'm wired to respond by trying to control what I can control, which means quickly determining how to flex my schedule to accommodate all of the tasks and all of the limitations. But very often the wheels fall off, because there are too many tasks and too many limitations to restore order to my day. My default when that happens is to either try even harder or else spiral in despondency. I'm learning, ever so slowly and in a two steps forward and then two steps back manner, that a better way is to accept and even lean into the chaos, to be ok with not knowing and doing and just take things one at a time without being able to dictate what the next seven things are.
It is an ongoing challenge, to balance needing to be
informed while not overwhelming yourself with the deluge of information out
there. Social media is many things to many people, including a source of
news items and hot takes. Too little and you’re out of the loop, too much
and it’s not good for your sanity or your soul.
Stuff I liked lately on the Internets, Black History Month version:
234.1 New film about conservative economics titan Thomas Sowell bit.ly/3aranac @EconomicsOne
234.2 The Charleston plantation tourism industry reckons with its genealogical/commercial ties to slavery bit.ly/3rmx9Hj @AmericanWay
234.3 We'll never again hear George Floyd tell his story but here are the accounts of others Officer Derek Chauvin assaulted bit.ly/3jj20l3 @MarshallProj
234.4 How many famous Black architects (& their iconic works) do you recognize? bit.ly/2O68hoV @BobVila
234.5 From 1776 to 1619 and back to 1776: another attempt to pursue truth & unity in America bit.ly/3axCg0y @EducationWeek
The past year in particular has brought a reckoning in this country on the issue of race and specifically the many layers of explicit, implicit, and structural racism visited upon our Black brothers and sisters throughout this nation's history and into the present. There are now scarcely any people or spaces that are not sensitized to matters of justice and diversity.
Apropos to absolutely nothing to do with musing, urban, or Christian, today's post focuses on my love of acapella music, covers of popular songs, and the proliferation of clever audio and video tricks in creating magical content. I highly recommend all of these artists so anything in their YouTube channels is must-watch, but what I post here brings me particular delight. Enjoy!
"Holy," Justin Bieber (Mike Tompkins)
"Take on Me," a-ha (First to Eleven)
"Waving Through a Window," Dear Evan Hansen (Jared Halley)
"Zombie," Cranberries (Julia Westlin)
"Blinding Lights," the Weeknd (Pentatonix)
"Bruno Mars Medley" (Kurt Hugo Schneider)
"Stuck with U," Ariana Grande & Justin Bieber (imy2)
"Mirrors," Justin Timberlake (Committed)
"Story of My Life," One Direction (Andie Case)
"Circles," Post Malone (Tyler Mancuso)
Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "Moby Dick," by Herman Melville. Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, bec...
