Even before the rich fled New York City during the pandemic, native New Yorker Mara Gay asked if the Big Apple has run out of big ideas. A New York Times video Op-Ed.
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JR East, the East Japan Railway Company, wants Tokyo commuters to stand on both sides of station escalators instead of reserving one side for impatient people who want to walk. A study found that most escalator accidents happen when walkers stumble over luggage or run and slip, so the all-standing policy is safer and more efficient.
Good luck with that. The policy was tried in Hong Kong, London’s underground and DC’s Metro, but it didn’t go over well. Standing to one side on escalators and walking on the other is too firmly embedded in urban behavior. In Washington, there’s even a song about it:
One reaction to Amazon’s pending HQ2/2 project in New York’s Long Island City.
More:
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not thrilled about Amazon coming to Queens,” Melissa Locker, Fast Company
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The city of Philadelphia thought it was getting an anti-graffiti program. What it got was art. Phil Edwards of Vox explains.
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South Park takes on the hip New Urbanism.
More:
“The SoHo Effect,” 99% Invisible
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Backyard chickens rule the roost at local regulation hearings, and designer coops and exotic chickens are the new status symbols. The media and Web may abound with pictures of cute kids cuddling hens, but pet family fowls are not an unmixed blessing:
“As of September 23, 2014, a total of 344 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Infantis, Salmonella Newport, or Salmonella Hadar have been reported from 42 states and Puerto Rico.
31% of ill persons have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.
Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback findings have linked this outbreak of human Salmonella infections to contact with chicks, ducklings, and other live poultry from Mt. Healthy Hatcheries in Ohio.
78% of ill people reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began.”
— “Multistate Outbreak of Human Salmonella Infections Linked to Live Poultry in Backyard Flocks,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
More:
“Backyard Chickens: Cute, Trendy Spreaders Of Salmonella,” Nancy Shute, NPR
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Image from the National Nursery Book
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How much does a cheese pizza cost in various neighborhoods of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC?
Quoctrung Bui at NPR crunched the numbers, if not the crusts:
The Price Of A Pizza In 237 U.S. Neighborhoods,” Quoctrung Bui, NPR Planet Money
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“Each stand in the city makes do with whatever space is available, whether it’s under the F train or in the shadow of the projects. As diverse as the locations are, each Christmas tree vendor is even more unique. It’s a New York subculture that paints a diverse and ambitious picture of the New York the city struggles to be.”
— “NYC’s Incredible Christmas Tree Seller Subculture” (photo essay), Nick Stango, Gizmodo
It’s a tough racket …
“While most New Yorkers are drawn to the glitter and nostalgia of the Christmas tree business, few see it for what it is: an exacting, complex and bitterly competitive industry. Vendors wage bidding wars each year over plots of land in city-owned parks and ink deals with local shopkeepers or property owners to construct their tree stands on the busiest sidewalks.”
— “Hidden Malcontents: New York’s Christmas Tree Industry,” Adam McCauley, City Beats
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority closed the Smithsonian, L’Enfant Plaza, Federal Center SW, and Capitol South subway stations for construction work on tracks and station platforms this past weekend. Metro buses were used to bridge the rail line gaps. Since subway trains can haul 1,000 to 1,400 passengers and a bus fits only about 75, it took lots of buses. The logistics reminded us of the Berlin Airlift (June 27, 1948 to May 12, 1949) when British and U.S. airplanes flew food and coal into West Berlin, which had been blockaded by the Soviets.
“From the first known use of closed-circuit television cameras to monitor crowds in London’s Trafalgar Square during a state visit by the king and queen of Thailand in 1960, urban video surveillance has come a long way. The Brookings Institution calculates that today it would cost $300 million in storage capacity to capture a year’s worth of footage from Chongqinq’s vast camera network. But by 2020, thanks to the steady decline of cost for digital storage devices, that figure could be just $3 million per year. ‘For the first time ever,’ they warn, ‘it will become technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders — every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner.’ What’s worse is the active involvement of American firms like Cisco, which is supplying the city with network technology optimized for video transmission for an undisclosed sum.”
— “Your city is spying on you: From iPhones to cameras, you are being watched right now,” Anthony M. Townsend, Salon [links added]
More:
“Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian Governments,” John Villasenor, Center for Technology Innovation, Brookings Institution
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Image (“Grand Frère à Paris, after Caillebotte”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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