The Deleted Scenes - New and Old #68
Why Tokyo Works, Discourse, Emily Hamilton, June 7, 2022 This is excellent, and you should read the whole thing—both the review and the book itself. Hamilton points out how the quirkiness of a great city isn’t something inherent in its character that has to be “protected” by stopping development. Rather, a flexible built environment with low costs of entry is essential to make room for people and small businesses. I’m not going to blockquote anything; just read it! The very mixed fad of the pedestrian mall often comes up when I and others write about making car-free streets in towns and cities. Why exactly is it mixed? Why do some pedestrianized areas thrive and others don’t? Obviously it’s complicated but this article tries to parse out some of this. There are a lot of details here, but what sticks out is that making large areas only for pedestrians seems to have a deadening effect just like making areas (effectively) only for cars:
Who’s Who: The Dictionary of ‘-In My Backyard,’ The Discourse Lounge, Darrell Owens, July 15, 2022 This may or may not be too inside-baseball for you, and I’m sure many would quibble with these characterizations. But it’s a good rundown of the terms you’ll see in housing and urbanist discourse, especially on social media, and what the heck they mean!
These kinds of pieces always have a touch of sensationalism; I’m not sure it was a step he had to take, given that most sushi restaurants haven’t taken it. But the underlying discussion is interesting. Some of it strikes me as a class thing; the average strip-mall joint will continue serving what it always has, while the higher-end restaurants will follow the trends and commentary in the food world. But some of it is based on real environmental concerns. “Decades into the farm-to-table movement,” Abarbanel observes, “fish overnighted from the other side of the world remains a signal of quality at sushi restaurants across the U.S.” That does seem a little indulgent. As out-of-touch as this sort of thing sounds to some people, I think it’s cool, and it helps to rebuild local and regional networks of commerce:
And check this out:
What’s happening here is we’re replacing the brute force of highly globalized supply chains with creativity and inventiveness. I make the same point at more length here, about beef. Check that piece out if this interests you. Related Reading: Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only post, plus full access to the archive: over 400 posts and growing. And you’ll help ensure more material like this! You’re a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber. |
Key phrases
Older messages
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A reminder of what we used to have
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