by Leo Hollis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2013
A good read, popular without being condescending, for students of the modern city and the metropolises of the future.
We are city dwellers, to paraphrase the Whole Earth Catalog, and we might as well get used to it.
Our appeal to the good old days usually looks to the countryside for inspiration. Yet, joining the literature of the new urbanism, British historian Hollis (Stones of London: A History in Twelve Buildings, 2011, etc.) argues that the city is a multifaceted, inexhaustible source of possibility for human achievement. Where others have argued for economic good (cities are engines of innovation and enrichment, à la Lewis Mumford) and cultural and social advancement (cities are where smart people congregate and create things, à la Richard Florida), Hollis opens with an intangible: “It is places like the High Line,” he writes of the newly opened Manhattan park, “that allow us to think again about the city and how it can make us happy.” Happy? Yes, happy, and Hollis does a solid job of showing how cities can buck many of the negative trends that so define the Western world in particular: Don’t like the fact that the United States hasn’t signed the Kyoto Protocol? No matter, Hollis suggests, since “It will be cities…rather than nations, which will be at the forefront of the climate-change challenge, driving initiatives, setting out practical policies and ensuring that they are followed through.” Don’t like the anonymity of the city dweller? Then, Hollis urges, redefine community and create a miniature village within the city where everyone knows everyone else. Hollis’ tone is optimistic but grounded, which is a nice switch from the usual doomsaying of trends analysts. Though he sometimes ventures out onto the scaffolding without much visible support—for instance, for his suggestion that the world’s future mega-regions “will not happen organically” (Why not? They did in the past)—he manages not to plummet to the sidewalk below.
A good read, popular without being condescending, for students of the modern city and the metropolises of the future.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62040-206-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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BOOK REVIEW
by Leo Hollis
by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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SEEN & HEARD
by Bari Weiss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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