Bear & Suburb
Bears are moving in. Also, the secret history of the world’s first suburb.
Featured Articles
Lake Tahoe’s Bear Boom
The New Yorker • 25 Nov 2024 • ~7600 words • Archive Link
The vacation hot spot has been overrun by people—whose habits are drawing fast-moving animals with sharp claws and insatiable appetites.
Greg told me, “You’d be absolutely amazed at how fast they move. See that fence? See the stump? I’ve seen a bear, at a full-tilt run, jump on that, vault its back legs onto the fence, and then roll over the top of it—that fast.” Usain Bolt topped out at 27.8 miles an hour; bears can hit thirty. Greg was awed, not angry. Bears were “just trying to live, and this is free food. So, if you don’t protect it, it’s your fault.”
The secret history of the world’s first suburb
The Mill • 23 Nov 2024 • ~2050 words
David Rudlin explores the history of Whalley Range, which may be the world's first suburb. Created by Samuel Brooks in the 1830s, it was built by the desire to move away from the crowded and polluted city center of Manchester, the world's first industrial city.
Until this point people used to measure their status by how close to the centre of the city they lived — how close they were to the centre of commerce and power with the factories and poorest housing pushed to the edge. But as Manchester industrialised, the centre became increasingly overcrowded, insanitary and intolerable.
Recommended Articles (9 Articles Today)
If My Dying Daughter Could Face Her Mortality, Why Couldn’t the Rest of Us?
New York Times • 25 Nov 2024 • ~5050 words • Archive Link
Sarah Wildman writes about the societal aversion to death and the critical need for open conversations about end-of-life care, particularly for children facing terminal illness.
Doctors know parents of critically ill children are endlessly searching to find the miracle, the untried drug, the new treatment, the expert with a plan that will reshuffle the cards. Hearing “There is no cure” is not the same as hearing “She is dying. She will die,” nor is it the same as saying “Death is near.” Many of us with terminally ill children need to be told that our child is going to die over and over again to really believe it.
