How Driverless Cars Will Change the Feel of Cities

Autonomous vehicles promise safety and efficiency. But nobody knows what it will be like to live with them.

It’s 6 p.m. in Tempe, Arizona and pitch-black outside. I’m standing in the middle of a five-lane thoroughfare, among a group of people too numerous for the narrow median. We got trapped here after a brigade of left-turning cars preempted our passage—that’s a thing that happens in cities like this one, designed for automobiles over pedestrians. An SUV pulls up… read more

The Secret Life of Cities

Geoffrey West and Urban Withdrawal.

There’s a terrific article in today’s New York Times about theoretical physicist Geoffrey West’s attempt to build a general-purpose logical model of cities. The way West describes his motivations, “I’ve always wanted to find the rules that govern everything,” offers an elegant summation of why I find procedure a more compelling object of concern than process. These are the laws,… read more

All Airlines Are Now the Same

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. Everyone knows that air travel isn’t what it used to be. Domestic flights are crowded and unglamorous. One receives little more than peanuts, and full meals may not be offered even in first class. You have to fight with your fellow passengers for… read more

The Secret Meaning of Prime Day

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. This year marks the tenth Prime Day, the shopping holiday that Amazon invented for itself in 2015, in honor of the company’s 20th anniversary. The marketing effort was so successful, according to Amazon, that sales exceeded those from the previous year’s record-breaking Black… read more

The Myth of ‘Dumbing Down’

If you write about your expertise from a place of contempt, maybe you’re not so smart after all.

One of the pleasures I enjoy as an editor at The Atlantic is bringing the work of scientists and scholars to our pages. From the Object Lessons series on the ordinary lives of everyday things, to the Metropolis Now project on technology and urbanism, to our regular coverage of science, technology, and health, I have had the privilege of editing… read more

When Malls Saved the Suburbs From Despair

Like it or not, the middle class became global citizens through consumerism—and they did so at the mall.

“Okay, we’ll see you in two-and-a-half hours,” the clerk tells me, taking the iPhone from my hand. I’m at the Apple Store, availing myself of a cheap smartphone battery replacement, an offer the company made after taking heat for deliberately slowing down devices. A test run by a young woman typing at a feverish, unnatural pace on an iPad confirms… read more

Metropolis Now

A series at The Atlantic on how technology is transforming cities, for better and worse

Starting in early 2018, I’ve been editing a special project on how technology is changing cities, for better and worse. The series addresses urbanism, transit, computation, policing, inequality, climate change, commerce, development, and many more topics, through a lens that’s somewhat different from what you’ll find in publications focusing on technology alone, or architecture alone, or planning alone, or politics… read more

Houston’s Flood Is a Design Problem

It’s not because the water comes in. It’s because it is forced to leave again.

Floods cause greater property damage and more deaths than tornadoes or hurricanes. And Houston’s flood is truly a disaster of biblical proportions: The sky unloaded 9 trillion gallons of water on the city within two days, and much more might fall before Harvey dissipates, producing as much as 60 inches of rain. Pictures of Harvey’s runoff are harrowing, with interstates… read more

More Evidence Cars Will Never Be Sexy Again

Apple’s rumored takeover of McLaren is a symbolic final breath in the life of automotive desire.

The automobile has become the enemy of progress. It’s an unlikely outcome, from the vantage point of the 20th century. Not that long ago, cars were still unequivocal symbols of personal power—especially in America, where basic mobility is often impossible without one. But now cars are increasingly uncool. For one part, they’re a major source of carbon emissions, and thereby… read more

The Tragedy of Pokémon Go

What it takes for good ideas to attract money.

Summer, 2001. Players install the boxed, retail software for an Electronic Arts game called Majestic. After signing up, the game sends players messages by phone, email, AIM, BlackBerry, and even fax—shards of a paranoia fiction story that plays out in real-time. The title goes on hiatus after the September 11 attacks—this was not the year for fourth-wall-breaking paranoia fiction entertainment. It… read more

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