Placemaking

This is all to say: it’s worth listening when a place calls to you. It’s worth thinking about whether the place you live enables your goals or stands in their way. And it’s worth noticing what surroundings speak of enchantment, cultivate the conditions you feel at home in, and aim toward them. Life is more malleable than we think. It’s a surprise t... See more

When 90s nightlife icon Chloë Sevigny recently complained about all the Lululemon athleisurewear and public dogwalking taking over New York, what she was on some level protesting against was a certain genre of bourgeois AM wellness culture flooding the streets of her city.

Sevigny’s criticism resonated with a lot of people, because the truth is that... See more

Doing work in a coffee shop, drinking coffee on a terrace and walking around—often to many of the tourist sites or local hot spots—for an extended period isn’t living in a place. It’s a working vacation, often part of a series of working vacations, typically for the relatively privileged among us.

As Mireille Silcoff noted in a piece exploring how real life subcultures have been reduced to online aesthetic trends: ‘youth culture’ comes alive when the sun goes down, and by stopping young people from hanging out in cities at night, they’re ultimately cutting off the lifeblood of these scenes: “ the youth belong at the rave, at the block party,... See more

Why we love cities that never sleep.

In contrast to Berlin's nachtgestalten (rough translation: c reatures of the night ), Sydney is home to a lively dawn chorus of early morning run clubs, beachgoers and surfers. Bondi at sunrise could be mistaken for a beach in Europe during sunset; crowded to the brim, hundreds of people basking in the warm glow of first light.

I am very affected by place. Actually I think everyone is. Probably more than they realize.

Our surroundings act on us. Some foster chaos, others encourage enchantment. Broad landscapes, beautiful artwork, and ancient architecture fill people with awe. Office buildings with drop ceilings and an unimaginative palette of gray, screeching subways, and... See more

These two archetypes both embody a sense of superiority for their way of life. Morning cities love bragging about the integrity of early starts, which (in their minds) automatically make them better: more ambitious, virtuous. And maybe there’s some truth to that: scientists talk about the morning morality effect, which posits that people behave bet... See more