'HOW THE WORLD GETS PUT BACK TOGETHER'
Maintenance And Care As Theoretical Framework
A working guide to the repair of rust, dust, cracks and corrupted code in our cities, our homes and our social relations.
placesjournal.org
NO, NOT THAT SONG BY WILL SMITH
At The Flip Of A Switch
Small and easy to overlook, the light switch is a highly charged interface between individuals and technological systems.
BOXED IN
Minecraft And Me
As the landscapes found within computer games have become more elaborate, they have become more important, and so has the time we spend within them.
A SLOW, PONDEROUS PROCESS
Mitigations: How Environmental Restoration Works In Modern America
In the coal country of Southeast Ohio, the past is a renewable resource, growing larger every year.
SURVEILLANCE AS CIVIL SERVICE
Databodies In Codespace
All our bodies and environments are already data — both public and proprietary. So how can we marshal whatever remains of our public sphere to take up these critical issues? How can we respond individually and collectively to the regime of quantitative rationalization?
FROM THE RUBBLE
The Last Fire and the Next One
After a disaster, survivors are forced to commit. Do they double down on their old lives? Or cut their losses and make a change?
THE HOUSE THAT MORRIS BUILT
'Housing Is Everybody's Problem': The Forgotten Crusade Of Morris Milgram
Largely forgotten today, Morris Milgram was a pioneer of multiracial suburban housing. His legacy in the fight for fair housing in America deserves to be remembered.
TREASURE MAPS
How Machines Will Map The World
Self-driving cars have sparked a "billion dollar war over maps," but the cars are the most boring thing about it. How do machine intelligences read and write the world?
RUNWAY TO THE STARS
The Radical, Intergalactic Tourism Experience
A visit to Spaceport America, where the coming of the Second Space Age is already history.
UP AND AWAY
Where Hong Kong Meets The Mountain
Hong Kong is relentlessly vertical, a city of towers and skyways, elevators and ladder streets, built on a mountainside. These photos capture the verticality of the city.
A MODEL FOR THE NATION
The Wisconsin Experiment
How Indigenous communities fought back against anti-environment measures — and won.
CANNED DOOMSDAY
Notes From A Nuclear Tourist
At this very moment, as you are reading this article, 90 highly trained US Air Force Officers are on alert across a network of Minuteman III Launch Control Centers.
APPROACH WITH CAUTION
The Incidental Beauty Of Construction Work
Construction barricades are structures built for a clear purpose, without any pretensions of “design,” below the radar of codes and regulations. Yet they follow discernible conventions, often exhibiting an intuitive sense of symmetry, hierarchy, layering, and rhythm that makes them more appealing than many structures that are intentionally designed.
WE RAN OUT OF STONE GARGOYLES?
Why Don't We Make Buildings Like We Used To?
Why not make buildings today as they once were made? This is actually a really good, really radical question.
SOILS OF WAR
The Mustard Gas In Sherwood Forest
The idea that violence leaves an invisible trace on the land has captivated artists and writers for centuries. Irish photographer Dara McGrath’s "Project Cleansweep" continues that tradition.
REBUILDING THE FUTURE
The Arab City
In a region at once feared and exoticized, we have been witnessing for more than a generation the devastation of old centers and the rise of new ones.
SEEING THINGS FROM A DIFFERENT HEIGHT
The Multilevel Metropolis
On the radical origins — and mundane deployment — of the urban skyway.
LET ME GOOGLE EVERYTHING FOR YOU
Is New York City Becoming An Experimental Lab For Google And Friends?
Hudson Yards, the world’s most ambitious “smart city” project, is here. Should we worry that New York City is becoming an experimental lab?
THE THIRD RAIL
Public Transit Is A Civil Rights Issue
As much attention as we give to the trials of the officers who are charged with killing Freddie Gray, we should give to a decision that implicates 10,000 construction jobs and billions of dollars of infrastructure investment in Baltimore that were eliminated in a single day by a single decision made by a single person.
EL CIVICS
This Houston Nonprofit Is Donald Trump's Nightmare
A modern settlement house movement is brewing in Texas. Can a nonprofit group with a budget larger than most public agencies revive the immigrant dream?
