Episode 133: Urban Reckoning

Jessica talks with writer, editor, and urbanist Allison Arieff. Having written early on in the pandemic about a possible silver lining for cities, Allison reflects on where we are six months into a crisis that has laid bare racial and economic inequalities:

The awareness that obviously black people have had, but that the rest of us hopefully are coming to terms with now, really means that planning, architecture, city building, etc. are really in a time of reckoning right now.…

Once you begin to absorb the full measure of how much has been done wrong — redlining, home loans, unsafe streets — after advocating for so long for bike lanes, things like that… It’s impossible to even know how to right the wrongs and where to begin. So I think cities and all the people who work on them are just undergoing and need to undergo this massive period of soul searching and trying to figure out how to do something different.

Also:

• Allison Arieff, the New York Times, The Magic of Empty Spaces
• Jenny Offill, Weather
• James Altucher, Linkedin, NYC IS DEAD FOREVER. HERE’S WHY
• Taylor Lorenz, New York Times, College Is Everywhere Now
• Meyer Schapiro, Mondrian: On the Humanity of Abstract Painting
• Bumper: HBO’s Silicon Valley parodies tech expos
• Allison Arieff, the New York Times, Solving All the Wrong Problems
• Sara Hendren, What Can a Body Do?
• Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor
• Bumper: The Good Fight Season 3 Opening
• Green Apple Books
• The Good Fight
• CBS, How The Good Fight’s Explosive Credits Came To Life 
• What We Do in the Shadows

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