Train Station Benches Labeled "Remove" Inside a Cage

MTA, mixed media, 2026

i love philly so much

Cover of Spring 2026 issue of n+1

One of @nplusonemag.com's very best issues ever is almost here, featuring journeys to mountaintops, artificial islands, fish processors, William Gass's interior life, and much more. Subscribe to read it as soon as it's out—20% off w/ discount code EXCURSIONS. www.nplusonemag.com/subscribe/

I would like this analysis/ graphic done but for coverage of the Live Nation federal settlement that mention that Live Nation paid off the justice department.

A few years ago, I was attacked by a dog. It changed a lot about me, including the book I was writing. I tried to describe it all here:

You know, I will bet it was this:

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/u...

Everyone wants sexy cars like @kcstreetcar.org

Kansas City is Again Expanding Its Once-Mocked Streetcar — Streetsblog USA The Midwestern city is showing the country that investing in transit really can work wonders.

Obligatory plug for the Kansas City Streetcar:

usa.streetsblog.org/2026/02/25/k...

kcstreetcar.org

The time period is also telling and important - the $400 billion was calculated as a cost incurred over the course of 30 years, so about $14 billion a year, whereas the $200 billion is presumably to be paid almost immediately.

This is not even the one I was thinking of, but having looked it up, their most recent Iraq-election-result piece indeed neglects to include the ”preliminary election counts” it alludes to in the first paragraph. Wild.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/w...

There is an nyt phenomenon wherein sometimes they privilege a good quote and narrative arc over the mechanics: I remember a piece about an Iraqi election results wherein they said there was a gridlock but refused to include actual vote percentages, that is the actual election results.

I think framing it as a budget saving measure suggests cheaper which suggests worst, when the main advantage is that single stair reform means you can actually build much higher quality housing. So something like...

To build better housing, some states are doing away with superfluous hallways.

Framing it as cost-cutting suggests that having more stairs = higher quality, which is just not true.

Yeah, that's a really unfortunate framing.

I would also take issue with the use of the phrase 'cut costs' - I have always understood single stair to be primarily about improving the quality of multi-family housing, not as an exercise in cost-cutting which evokes corner-cutting.

I will check with him, but I think it was indeed the standpipe that was the real kicker.

He wanted to include a bunch of small shops at the base of a line of townhouses he was building, and could not make the numbers work.

Got some insight about this from a developer recently: apparently there are certain code requirements that apply formidable fixed costs to all retail, no matter how large, so the more square feet, the smaller those costs become per square foot.

A BETTER BILLION, AMA: This is the latest report from the Transit Costs Project. It sought to take all the work we've done on subway construction and push it forward into a vision of what could/should be possible in NYC with a steady source of funding -- transitcosts.com/a-better-bil...

Taller Towers, Fewer Homes (Published 2022)

Possibly a dynamic unique to the upper east side, but what about when they tear down affordable units to build fewer high-end units?

www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/r...

I reviewed the office of Harper’s magazine -

I mean, pretty bad, but if the prompt is bleak courtyard...

Sounds like a joke but I actually wrote this www.alexandralange.net/articles/83/...

Want a Masterclass in How Not to Work With Artists? Ask Google | Artnet News Renown artist Judy Chicago shares her misadventures with an ambitious public art commission for the tech giant.

Google commissioned Judy Chicago to create a large scale work of art for the (former) James R. Thompson Center. Yet Chicago was unable to acquire accurate architectural drawings of the interior from the team, experienced long delays in communication, and was told that her colors were "too bright."

I just really like that color scheme.

At the Harper’s office, each intern is given a cardinal direction, reflected in their email address (i.e., north@harper.org) and then a desk that is—for reasons nobody could explain—oriented opposite their direction.

@nyreviewofarch.bsky.social

nyra.nyc/articles/666...

I visited the office of @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social and fell hard for the courtyard.

Excerpt reads: "Prioritize your neighborhood Neighborhoods drive our happiness (or unhappiness) more than we think. When Lina Martinez, director of POLIS, the Center for Wellbeing Studies at Universidad Icesi in Colombia, studied the happiness of households in the city of Cali, she couldn’t find much difference between poorer and richer areas. “Their happiness is pretty much the same,” she said. But that changed when she isolated neighborhood conditions, such as access to transit, health care and parks. “The conditions of the neighborhood affect happiness,” she said. “I can’t link that to the space where [people] live.” That aligns with findings from a 2023 study of the Vancouver metro area: Researchers found no significant differences in well-being between people living in single detached homes, duplexes, townhouses, laneway houses and apartment buildings (basement units smaller than 300 square feet were the only negative exception). What did people say they missed most in their neighborhood? Affordability, proximity to family and friends, and a sense of community. Home design was eighth on the list."

A Washington Post article suggests that, beyond a certain threshold, larger homes don't make people happier. Instead, well-being is correlated with affordable housing in walkable neighborhoods where they feel socially connected.

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Rumours of Our Death Print Ain’t Dead, Baby

Our symposium on the print magazine in the 21st century features Graydon Carter, Ian Hislop, Jo Ellison and more, and is perhaps the boldest thing we've ever run: do have a read here.

www.the-fence.com/rumours-of-o...

As a lifelong observer of Epiphany, reflecting today that it is unfortunate that Epiphany will always be on January 6.