Why Skyscrapers Became Glass Boxes(construction-physics.com) The most common style for skyscrapers in the US (and probably the world) is the glass box — a structural skeleton of steel or concrete, with a skin of non-load bearing curtain wall made of glass and metal (typically aluminum), and without much in the way of decoration or ornament.
The case for letting Malibu burn (1995)(longreads.com) Many of California’s native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt?
Good cities can't exist without public order(noahpinion.blog) Anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m a huge fan of dense, walkable cities. Much of my enthusiasm comes from living in Japan for several years, and I’ve written a bunch of posts about why Japanese cities are so especially great. Here was the most relevant one for today’s post:
A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert(theatlantic.com) The concept of the food desert has been around long enough that it feels almost like a fact of nature. Tens of millions of Americans live in low-income communities with no easy access to fresh groceries, and the general consensus is that these places just don’t have what it takes to attract and sustain a supermarket. They’re either too poor or too sparsely populated to generate sufficient spending on groceries, or they can’t overcome a racist pattern of corporate redlining.