how we shape cities, and cities shape us

Greif situates fitness culture at the nexus of several contemporary threads: the relentless quantification of everything, the drive to optimize the self, the decline of public space—and, of course, “wellness,” as the concept has come to be known. We all want to be “well,” or should want to, at least. But why?

But the image of “Incredible Hulks who push papers,” as Greif describes one type of contemporary gym rat, is absurd—a physical adaptation entirely out of whack with environmental conditions, serving little practical purpose, as if to repudiate the idea of evolution itself, or to suggest that it no longer manifests itself primarily in our bodily for... See more

We accept today that the days of startup cities, at least in the West, are over, but I don't think we should. And the societal changes that a post-COVID world makes possible could restart this cycle. For thousands of years, ambitious young people have had to move to big cities run by the kind of people who run big cities to maximize opportunity in ... See more

There is a gentrification that is happening to cities, and there is a gentrification that is happening to the emotions too, with a similarly homogenising, whitening, deadening effect. Amidst the glossiness of late capitalism, we are fed the notion that all difficult feeling - depression, anxiety, loneliness, rage - are simply a consequence of unse

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You are always internalizing the culture around you. Even when you wish you didn’t. So you better surround yourself with something you want inside—curate a culture.

n Hannah Black’s essay for Artforum, “Go Outside,” she describes the possibilities illuminated by 2020’s riots, emphasizing a return to social life and public space. A riot, she writes, is “just something that can happen when a lot of people are outside in the same place.” She continues: “By providing new uses for public space—by uprooting street f... See more