"Larry Bushart has been freed after nearly 40 days in jail and a $2 million bond over a Facebook post ... A free country does not dispatch police in the dead of night to pull people from their homes because a sheriff objects to their social media posts.” theintercept.com/2025/10/30/l...

Experts warn this aggressive approach will likely fuel greater abuses of civil and human rights, heighten public anger and lead to more warrantless arrests, straying far from the previous stated focus on “the worst of the worst.” “Spectacle, not security.” www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/02/b...

Meanwhile, in South Korea: "Starting at the end of November, public parking lots with more than 80 spaces will be required to install solar power generation facilities. This obligation applies not only to newly constructed parking lots but also to existing ones." cm.asiae.co.kr/en/article/2...

First Portland, now Seattle — which US city will be next?

This might be a long shot but: I'm looking to speak with architects/developers who have worked on affordable housing projects that required (or got feedback to include) some type of 'historic complement' aesthetic—massing, materials, etc—for a story. Recommendations appreciated! thanks!

"We worked our asses off for a decade and barely made any money as it is." www.npr.org/2025/10/27/n...

The Municipal Art Society has fallen

"It is not just the heat. It is inequality — who has access to shelter, healthcare, money and social support — that often determines who lives and who dies." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Writeup of the housing-related ballot proposals by Christopher Robbins of Hell Gate, viz. Propositions 2, 3, and 4:

I wrote about the degrading choices our political system forces on us, the importance of respecting yourself, and the time I experienced a mild Oliver Stone moment at Sammy's Deluxe in Rockland, Maine. defector.com/what-job-is-...

100 percent agree — except if you have kids or elderly relatives and need some damn shade! Bjarke Ingels and ONE Architecture made great efforts to ensure the park would protect the neighborhood from rising seas, but rising temperatures were evidently an afterthought hellgatenyc.com/new-east-riv...

Here is our full story that Vance is dismissing, with primary source documents showing Trump cabinet members with multiple primary-residence mortgages www.propublica.org/article/trum... www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

"More people are realizing that EVs alone are an insufficient solution to the climate crisis, since even the most optimistic projections of adoption would not prevent a potentially catastrophic 2°C increase in global temperatures by 2100." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"One day there will be no more looking away... One day there will be an accounting." A powerful excerpt from Omar El Akkad's searing book "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This," in my new publication, Hidden Cities. Read and subscribe! hiddencities.substack.com/p/omar-el-ak...

Loved going on Late Night Live in Australia — a country that knows a thing or two about shade — to talk about my book with the great David Marr Come for the coolibahs and verandas, stay for the Slip Slop Slap www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

My piece - to be in this week's issue - on the South Shore raid and what it says about Donald Trump's America: www.economist.com/united-state... My view is this stuff is as much or more about creating content and fear than it is about actually catching immigrants, though that's a goal too

"We’re getting older and I guess we’re becoming porch people," she said one night, as a neighbor walked by and said hello. "But since we don’t have a porch, this is the place where friends will drop by for a drink or to maybe watch sports with us when we bring our TV down."

"The A Line’s purpose is to get us out of our cars. But its stations’ designers can’t imagine a life without cars... Many stations are bordered or surrounded by large, empty parking lots, occupying too much space where new, transit-friendly development should be." @zocalopublicsquare.bsky.social

"West Virginia is so poor, miserable, and misgoverned that it bans abortion and suicide in desperation to make people live here." westvirginiawatch.com/2025/09/18/w...

masked men snatching a family off the street in Chicago -- your tax dollars at work blockclubchicago.org/2025/09/28/a...

“One of the blessings of Bologna, in northern Italy, is that it knows how to ride a heat wave. A tip for anyone designing a metropolis from scratch: start with a portico, and take it from there.” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

“Temporary street closures are great. But they miss out a number of quantifiable benefits of permanent pedestrianization.” Terrific Diana Lind column that explains why pilots aren’t good policy: substack.com/home/post/p-...

The sun man @billmckibben.bsky.social glimpses the dark side of a bright future. "As temperatures continue to rise, we have to do what we can to stay cool. Which means, among other things, shade, as a matter of survival and as a matter of justice." pioneerworks.org/broadcast/pr...

Important story on the show this week about the dangerous meatpacking industry turning to refugees for cheap labor

Shteamer on Oneida in the park: "Avant-garde rock is as much homegrown New York folk music as a busker covering “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and it’s nice to see it being treated as such — showcased in a free, public setting, available to anyone who might happen upon it." substack.com/home/post/p-...

Bravo to @davidrussellmoore.bsky.social and @donnydonny.bsky.social at @sludge.bsky.social for exposing Democratic PR firm SKDK's contract with the Israeli gov't to provide social media/propaganda bots. One day later SKDK says it's cutting ties, ending the contract readsludge.com/2025/09/17/f...

Good thing Obama is not a Washington Post columnist or talking head on MSNBC, or he’d be fired for saying this.

Climate action is hard, and this isn't the first time a political leader has paid the price for courage. (Think of Ada Colau getting booted in Barcelona after the superblocks.) But Engardio is right: "We are on the right side of history." missionlocal.org/2025/09/sf-j...

Among those handcuffed in a video promoted by DHS Sec’y Kristi Noem on X is Joe Botello, an AMERICAN citizen. @chicagotribune.com photog @staceywescott.bsky.social was there and we spoke to him. He was later released and “blessed that I’m still alive." Story: www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/16/e...

donald trump and the white nationalists that run his government want you to think that slavery was just fine www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Interesting article about the demise of Berkeley's People's Park, basically suggesting that '60s ideals of free expression — made manifest in open spaces and parks — are no longer a progressive priority but a luxury link.latimes.com/view/6520704...

New PEN America statement: “The firing and suspension of multiple journalists after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk should alarm anyone who cares about free speech and a free press. Taken together, these measures risk creating a chilling effect that extends beyond those directly targeted..."

@samkbloch.bsky.social has two events coming up, featuring his new book on shade! SUN. 9/14: MIAMI, FL, in conversation w/ Germane Barnes MON. 9/15: AUSTIN, TX, in conversation w/ Charles L. Davis II Here’s more about the book, and how it emerged from an article Bloch wrote for Places in 2019:

"She and others repeatedly mentioned echoes of the pandemic: parents seeking virtual learning, restaurant staff needing car rides to avoid mass transit, would-be diners choosing instead to stay home." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

If the federal show of force in Washington has had a deterrent effect on crime, it appears to have deterred entirely normal aspects of city life, too. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

Delicious story about jerks who (allegedly) kill their neighbors' trees to score better views. Come for the shade hate, stay for the zingers www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

Happening this Sunday! For folks in the Miami area interested in the key role that shade plays in protecting human health, enhancing urban life, and protecting the planet — don’t miss this evening w/ @samkbloch.bsky.social and Germane Barnes. RSVP is free!

In MIAMI, FL, this SUN 9/14: Environmental journalist @samkbloch.bsky.social in conversation with architect/designer Germane Barnes @booksandbooks.bsky.social. They’re talking Bloch’s new book, “Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource,” and the key role of shade in public space. RSVP! ⬇️

There are better fixes for food delivery riders, like having companies provide more secure contracts so riders are compensated even if they have to stop work. One of the companies has started hiring them as employees. “Rents don’t go down when temperatures go up.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/w...

Chicago folks: I'm talking shade with the inimitable Anjulie Rao tomorrow night at City Lit in Logan Square, would love to see you there! www.citylitbooks.com/events/33125...

Because palms aren't trees, and their slender trunks don't block anyone's view, and views are the most important thing to a starchitect. That's why there's not a single tree in front of Frank Gehry's cone-meltingly-hot Disney Concert Hall on Grand Avenue www.latimes.com/lifestyle/st...

"The war on science, on democracy, on constitutional norms, the war on immigrants—all of these things are branches of the class war, because losing the class war is what granted the bad people the power to pursue those things in such an unchecked manner." www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/all-the-th...

This is what the slow breakup of the United States could look like—not political violence or civil war, but blue states banding together to protect themselves from Trump's unchecked and unaccountable regime. And meanwhile, states like Florida ban vaccine mandates. apnews.com/article/flor...

She was brought to the US as an 8yo, worked hard, studied, earned a scholarship, planned to become a nurse. ICE kidnapped her. Held her for 6 MONTHS in a detention facility with conditions so miserable that she finally agreed to voluntarily move to Honduras, which her family left at gunpoint.

Israel justified its strike on the Nasser Hospital, which killed six journalists and more than a dozen others, by claiming a "Hamas" camera was set up there. The location they attacked is where Reuters and the AP livestream. From me and others (see byline/contribs) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/w...

If you're in Chicago, come to City Lit Books nxt Friday, 9/5, where I'll be in conversation with author (& Oak Park native!) @samkbloch.bsky.social about his new book, SHADE. We'll be chatting about the wild politics of city cooling, greenspace, and more! www.citylitbooks.com/events/33125...

A classic conundrum from agriculture, construction, and other outdoor industries — make money, or save the lives of workers — comes to the world of sport

My family when I'm debating whether to open or close the windows

So many recent books about the Magazine Golden Age — rooted partly in lamentation, because the web sucks so bad