NYC Intersections & Meritocracy
NYC is drowning in killer intersections and too-wide streets. Also, is meritocracy no longer working?
Featured Articles
NYC is Stuck in Traffic: Congestion Pricing and Reimagined Streets Can Break Us Free
Social Life Project • 14 Nov 2024 • ~4000 words
New York City is drowning in killer intersections and too-wide streets. Areas like Midtown are especially impacted by NYC’s unrelenting car culture. Congestion pricing is key but not the only change necessary. Reimagining streets may be the most important way forward.
A grid of streets is not enough at the core of a city. Streets move us around but destinations are where we stop and actually experience and enjoy the city. The streets need to lead us to destinations we want to end up at. Without destinations like vibrant squares, parks, landmarks, and plazas, or with destinations too few and far apart as is the case in Midtown, we are constantly moving without encountering opportunities to rest, experience, and recharge.
How the Ivy League Broke America
The Atlantic • 14 Nov 2024 • ~10550 words • Archive Link
David Brooks argues that “The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.”
Family life changed as parents tried to produce the sort of children who could get into selective colleges. Over time, America developed two entirely different approaches to parenting. Working-class parents still practice what the sociologist Annette Lareau, in her book Unequal Childhoods, called “natural growth” parenting. They let kids be kids, allowing them to wander and explore. College-educated parents, in contrast, practice “concerted cultivation,” ferrying their kids from one supervised skill-building, résumé-enhancing activity to another. It turns out that if you put parents in a highly competitive status race, they will go completely bonkers trying to hone their kids into little avatars of success.
Recommended Articles (9 Articles Today)
Can “Tech Criticism” Tame Silicon Valley?
Los Angeles Review of Books • 13 Nov 2024 • ~3050 words
Evan Selinger lauds Gary Marcus’s new book for its clarity on how to stop the madness and greed around generative AI. He questions the power of “tech criticism” to translate into actual reform, however.
Because tech criticism is so capacious, it’s tempting to look for ways to narrow down the genre. Some might be tempted to separate criticisms of technology and capitalism; my preference is to look at tech criticism as an inclusive field. Doing so has two advantages. The broader view helps us grasp how deeply—inextricably, even—technology is linked to social, political, ethical, and economic issues. It also helps us develop comprehensive strategies for addressing complex and often interconnected challenges. Concerns about financial incentives are central to much of what Marcus has to say about the scale and scope of potential harm.
