Per Square Mile

Wired has an amazing spread in this month’s issue that surveys how eight different cities are planning for the future. I’m honored to have contributed to the piece. You can check it out online, but I’m assured that it’ll be even better in print.
∞

Christopher Mims, writing for the Wall Street Journal:
It may sound paradoxical to use high tech to make modern schools resemble those of bygone eras. (Picture Socratic dialogues mixed with challenging, rather than rote, vocational training.)
But consider the alternative, which is what many public schools have drifted into: Curricula in which students are overwhelmed with homework and tests, as physical activity and extracurricular pursuits dwindle....

Philip Brasor and Masako Tsubuku, reporting for the Guardian:
The bullet train has sucked the country’s workforce into Tokyo, rendering an increasingly huge part of the country little more than a bedroom community for the capital. One reason for this is a quirk of Japan’s famously paternalistic corporations: namely...

Patricia Leigh Brown covers, for the New York Times, the efforts in Oakland to bring more of the city’s namesake trees back to the area. I was pleased that this tidbit made it into the final copy:
The people restoring the oaks point out that there is a strong link between urban trees and health, and that children get more exercise when they live in a greener neighborhood. In Oakland, disparities between the leafy hills and low-income flatlands...