Werd I/O

[Oliver Milman in The Guardian]

Car culture isn't just physically bad for us, it affects us mentally too:

"The car is firmly entrenched as the default, and often only, mode of transport for the vast majority of Americans, with more than nine in 10 households having at least one vehicle and 87% of people using their cars daily. Last year, a record 290m vehicles were operated on US streets and highways.

However, this extreme car dependence is affecting Americans’ quality of life, with a new study finding there is a tipping point at which more driving leads to deeper unhappiness. It found that while having a car is better than not for overall life satisfaction, having to drive for more than 50% of the time for out-of-home activities is linked to a decrease in life satisfaction."

The trick, of course, is that most of our communities have been heavily designed around the car, in part because of a century of lobbying and pressure from the automotive industry. It's obvious that more integrated city planning that doesn't heavily favor car use leads to a happier and healthier life, but American society is largely not built for it.

In turn, most Americans can't even imagine a world that isn't car-centric, and vehicles have become a core part of the culture. That's as intrinsically toxic as smoking culture, but because it literally has dictated how the environment around us has been designed and built, it's going to take a long time to undo - and before we get there, we need to have the widespread will to undo it, which doesn't seem to exist.

Compounding that, our most walkable and transit-enabled communities are also by far the most expensive to live in, because - shocker! - they're the most desirable. So a reasonably healthy living environment has become the preserve of the relatively wealthy.

This is the kind of thing that needs to be legislated for: new built environments need to hit certain standards for integration, transit, and walkability, and then our existing environments need to be iteratively rebuilt. That seems like a tall order in the current American cultural era, but I don't see how this gets better on its own.

#Society

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[Annie Lowrey at The Atlantic]

This older interview with Matthew Desmond is doing the rounds again, and I discovered it for the first time. If you haven't read his books Evicted, and Poverty, by America, you owe it to yourself to do that. They're revealing, important works that shed light on the lived experience of many, many Americans.

On why American poverty is different, Desmond says:

"It’s different because it’s so unnecessary. We have so many resources. Our tolerance for poverty is very high, much higher than it is in other parts of the developed world. I don’t know if it’s a belief, a cliché, or a myth. You see a homeless person in Los Angeles; an American says, What did that person do? You see a homeless person in France; a French person says, What did the state do? How did the state fail them?"

It's only half-baffling to me why America has such bad social infrastructure. As Desmond points out here, social programs do work, but in America they address the symptoms and not the root cause. That's because the root cause is endemic to the entire American economic system.

"Half of us are invested in the stock market. Many times, we see our savings going up and up and up when someone’s pay is going down and down and down. Those two things are related. Or think about the housing crisis: Many times, it’s not just corporate landowners who are benefiting from high rents. It’s homeowners whose housing values are propped up and kept high by a scarcity of housing that they contribute to."

To solve poverty - which is something we absolutely must do - we have to change more than many people are comfortable with. You often hear complaints about "socialism" that are nothing of the sort - they're just the same kinds of social programs that every other developed nation has. But here they're weaponized as some kind of anti-democratic force rather than a democratic force that enhances the lives of huge swathes of the population.

The whole interview, as with Desmond's books, is worth reading: he's unflinchingly direct about what we need to do. I've personally given up hope that America will do these things. And that, quite frankly, cements other countries as far better places for most people to live.

#Society

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[Ben Kesslen at Quartz]

"Waffle House, the iconic American restaurant chain with over 1,600 locations known for cooking up Southern breakfast food, has developed an advanced storm center FEMA consults with."

Stores in the path of Milton were closed in advance of the storm, which is rare for Waffle House, which is often the last store standing.

It's been sophisticated about storm predictions and response since Katrina:

"The chain also developed the Waffle House Storm Index, which was started after former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said, “If you get there and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.”"

As Pat Warner, a member of "the Waffle House crisis management team" said in the article, it's not about the extra sales Waffle House gets when it does re-open, often using generators and other emergency equipment. It's more to do with how this integrates the stores with their communities. They wouldn't do it if there wasn't a positive uplift for the business, but it comes across as a genuine desire to help.

#Society

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[Daniel Kelly and Evan Westra in Aeon]

"Many genuinely good arguments for moral change will be initially experienced as annoying. Moreover, the emotional responses that people feel in these situations are not typically produced by psychological processes that are closely tracking argument structure or responding directly to moral reasons."

This is a useful breakdown of why arguments for social progress encounter so much friction, and why the first emotional response may be to roll our eyes. It's all about our norm psychologies - and some people have stronger reactions than others.

As the authors make clear here, people who are already outside of the mainstream culture for one reason or another (immigration, belonging to a minority or vulnerable group, and so on) already feel friction from the prevailing norms being misaligned with their own psychology. If that isn't the case, change is that much harder.

But naming it is at least part of the battle:

"Knowing this fact about yourself should lead you to pause the next time you reflexively roll your eyes upon encountering some new, annoying norm and the changes its advocates are asking you to make. That irritation is not your bullshit detector going off."

Talking about these effects, and understanding their origins, helps everyone better understand their reactions and get to better outcomes. Social change is both necessary and likely to happen regardless of our reactions. It's always better to be a person who celebrates progressive change rather than someone who creates friction in the face of it.

#Society

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This is completely lovely and the kind of thing America absolutely should be doing.

"O’Neil hopes the trail born from eastern Indiana’s old railroad tracks will eventually become a central cog in the proposed Great American Rail-Trail — a continuous network of walking and biking routes spanning from Washington state to Washington, D.C."

Yes, please! #Society

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Transport for London have redesigned the Tube map in concentric circles as part of a promotional partnership with a phone company. Just one of the many, many ways public transit is desperately grasping for funds all over the world.

Here in Philly, SEPTA is working to rename stations based on corporate sponsorships. The Tube actually did this once before already, renaming Bond Street to Burberry Street for London fashion week. That (as well as these new maps, presumably) was temporary; these are permanent.

I don't blame transit authorities for trying to make up for budget shortfalls however they can. But it's also sad. Public transit is an important public good; it's a real shame that we can't seem to fully fund it from the public purse. The point is not for transit to be profitable, it's to provide real infrastructure that lifts everybody up. #Society

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"Proposed legislation would prevent trans people from being able to update driver’s licenses, hold public office, use public restrooms, or take shelter from domestic violence unless they do so according to their sex assigned at birth."

I'm grateful, as ever, for The 19th's (and, specifically, Orion Rummler's) reporting here, digging into the details and impact of this proposed legislation.

One ray of light: "The ACLU and other civil rights groups are tracking a lot of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation this year, and expect another record-shattering year. However, advocates want the community to remember that although a record number of anti-trans bills were introduced last year, the majority of anti-trans bills — hundreds of them — never passed into law." #Society

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I hadn't caught that the US's first high-speed railway is going to be built by Network Rail, which runs Britain's railway infrastructure.

The San Francisco to Los Angeles route will take under three hours; right now it takes nine hours and thirty minutes. I've done that journey in the past, including a bus connection in Bakersfield. This will be a huge improvement.

I like the idea that the rail expertise of other nations is being deployed to build infrastructure here. That's probably how it should be. Hopefully in the process, a whole new generation of infrastructure experts will be created domestically.

Fascinating all round. Bring on high speed rail nationwide. #Society

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This data was widely cited and used to justify some frankly racist rhetoric. I particularly noticed it in the usual circles who complain about the decline of San Francisco supposedly due to progressive policies.

It speaks to the power of data to tell stories, and to peoples' willingness to trust it as infallible and objective when, like every other storytelling medium, it carries underlying biases and context.

It never rang true, and I'm glad this is coming to light. #Society

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Some of the worst humans on the planet, crediting a third worst human on the planet for paving the way for their noxious ideology.

"Now everyone’s a white identitarian. Maybe not fully, but certainly it’s far more acceptable in the conversation — even the word white — than it was years ago." #Society

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Nobody should need to prepare for a mass shooting. Nonetheless, across the country, many children do. That the police at Uvalde were less prepared than an eight year old is a travesty. #Society

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"Every year I invite people who are celebrating the colonial holiday to do something in support of Native people. Amid an overdose crisis and high rates of poverty, illness, and unemployment, Indigenous organizers are doing incredible work to reduce harm and help our peoples thrive. Through mutual aid, cultural work, protest, advocacy, and the sharing of Indigenous lifeways, these organizers are making a profound difference in the lives of Indigenous people in the U.S. If you can and would like to, please join me in supporting one of the following organizations this weekend." #Society

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I read this the other day and haven't stopped thinking about it.

Mostly I worry about the children who have to grow up in this kind of environment. To my mind it's tantamount to child abuse.

What happens to them later? Do they stay inside this restrictive framework, or do they rebel? I'm genuinely curious to know how successful it is. It's not obvious to me that children will respond to it - unless they then go their whole lives never encountering an alternative point of view. #Society

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I truly aspire not to be one of these parents. #Society

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"Somewhere between 300 to 400 physicians a year in the US take their own lives, the equivalent of one medical school graduating class annually." #Society

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This presumably means that the Turf Tavern is the best student pub in the world. #Society

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"Hostile immigration policy stokes racism but the foundation it builds upon itself is racist and maintains a 'colonial present'. Through dealing with migrants like pests, who deserve to be locked away in a prison barge, the British government continues to ignore the fact that, “Borders maintain hoarded concentrations of wealth accrued from colonial domination."" #Society

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Lots of interesting insights in this poll, including on nationwide attitudes to gender-affirming care (only 29% of Republicans think their party should focus on it) and gun control (82% of Americans want to restrict access in domestic abuse cases). #Society

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One thing I learned from this story is that forced sterilization of inmates has still been widespread in the 21st century in America. Ghoulish. #Society

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It turns out that if you give homeless people money as assistance, it really helps them. This is something society should do. #Society

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It says a lot that in areas where officers aren’t allowed to put schoolchildren in holds that restrict breathing or their ability to speak, departments take officers out of schools in protest. These laws should be in place everywhere, and police officers should not be in schools. #Society

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There are so many stories like this one. There should never be another. And yet, we've rolled back the clock at the behest of religious extremists, so there will be many more. This cannot go on. #Society

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Hey, sounds like my middle school experience! This is important for me to understand as a parent, and it's important for schools to adapt to as de facto caregivers. These dynamics should be corrected for, not accepted. #Society

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A prominent writer platformed by the New York Times and Washington Post, and championed by major figures in tech, including by Marc Andreessen and the CEO of Substack, turns out to be an actual white supremacist. #Society

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I've traveled across America four times: three by car and one by train. I've never done it by Greyhound, and I probably never will. This country's infrastructure is falling apart and being eaten by wolves. #Society

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