The Conditions of Listening

Organizing some old files and I found this from five years ago . So sad that nothing has changed. Get rid of the Electoral College; End gerry-mandering; Restrict presidential pardoning and commutation powers; Give full representative rights to the citizens of Washington D.C. and all overseas protectorates and territories; Establish term limits for Senators and Representatives; Make Election Day either a national holiday or have it on the weekend; Shorten and publicly fund the political campaign season; and, Establish a truly independent Department of Justice by making the Attorney General an elected office. These are a handful of no-nonsense, plain and simple, no-brainer, bipartisan changes to the way our government currently works. I can’t exactly say how many there are, since some of these proposed changes might overlap in what they are addressing, or how they would be implemented. Plus, I’m not really trying to count them out in my head as I think of them. Goes to show how obvious t...

Over the past few years, I'm hearing more and more these sorts of statements surrounding architecture, urban design, and technology. Here are my thoughts. Technological solutions will play a key role in sustainable urban transformations. Advancements in technology can certainly be harnessed for the common good and a sustainable future. However, I’m hesitant to put too much faith in technical solutions to widespread structural problems originating from habits of culture and economic inequality. We need to recognize the risk of new technologies furthering forms of “carbon lock-in,” just as the post-WWII proliferation of a novel mobility technology – ubiquitous private ownership of the automobile – ensured the wasteful, inefficient, and impersonal suburban landscape. We are excited by the electric self-driving car, but it furthers the problems of larger concrete highways, traffic jams of single riders, and deleterious public health. Myriad other examples of new technologies transformi...