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Urban Systems

How cities work, who they serve, and who decides. We investigate zoning reform, transit equity, missing-middle housing, highway removal, plaza design,...

How cities work, who they serve, and who decides. We investigate zoning reform, transit equity, missing-middle housing, highway removal, plaza design, shade policy, and the democratic systems that govern urban space. From parking mandates to participatory budgeting, infrastructure is political architecture.

5 articles

Construction cranes silhouetted against orange sunset sky over highway construction
urban systems

Why America Can't Build Anymore

Every empire tells time with its roads. Rome had milestones; we have press releases. In 2021, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—a vault of money large enough to make accountants need a hammock. The numbers are real; the cranes are not imaginary.

September 22, 2025
Modern shade structures and tree-lined streets with solar panels and cooling infrastructure in a desert city setting
urban systems

The Shade Treaty

A solarpunk blueprint for America's hottest century—rights, rules, and the civic art of lowering the temperature. Here is the short version of the century: heat is no longer a season; it is a governance problem. In 2023, the U.S. recorded 2,325 heat-related deaths—the highest in the 1999–2023.

August 4, 2025
Tree-lined street in a Spanish city with dappled shade covering pedestrians and outdoor café seating during golden hour
urban systems

The Right to Shade

How a Spanish-American heat commons can save lives, redesign streets, and teach the republic courtesy. The map of summer is a moral document. It shows where trees stand, where pavements glare, where bus shelters exist because someone cared enough to draw a roof.

July 31, 2025
Modern highway construction with solar panels, charging stations, and bilingual signage representing 21st-century infrastructure
urban systems

How to Fix a Broken Country, One Bridge at a Time

What America's infrastructure actually looks like in 2025—three places, four programs, one honest ledger. We like to pretend infrastructure is a sequence of ribbon cuttings—the pure joy of scissors through satin. In reality, it's a ledger written in three inks: authorizations (Congress),.

July 28, 2025
Aerial view of New Orleans showing the Mississippi River bend, French Quarter, and port facilities with ships from across the Americas
urban systems

New Orleans and the Cities That Could Have Been

Cities are usually born of stubbornness or luck; New Orleans was born of geometry. A kink in the Mississippi offered a natural levee and a commanding bend—close enough to the Gulf to smell salt, far enough upriver to dodge the worst of the waves. That curve made the city a hinge between the.

June 19, 2025