Jennifer
A few months ago, I wrote about all the things it was illegal for kids to do in Northwest parks. This Berkeley playground is the opposite of that.
Also, this piece by Seattle’s A-P Hurd does a great job of explaining how city requirements to provide expensive parking spots in new development makes building affordable, family-sized housing units in urban areas nearly impossible. It also mucks up good design. Here’s my favorite line of hers:
Why do cities require developers to build parking and bundle it with apartments? Because people in surrounding neighborhoods don’t want the residents of new apartments using up “their” street-parking spots. It’s as if we were trying to get people to eat healthy affordable meals then forcing them to bundle it with an order of French fries because we don’t want to upset the potato lobby.
Jerrell
The idea that big Hollywood films do not feature racially diverse casts is far from a secret. But new data from the University of Southern California confirms this notion.
In slightly more humorous fashion, Vox tackles the same issue, detailing in both past and upcoming films that Hollywood loves to pretend ancient Egypt was full of white people. Hollywood executives have never been particularly accurate historians, though, since they also curiously assume that ancient Romans all had British accents.
Watching from afar the seemingly interminable turmoil and war in the Middle East, I was forced to stop and wonder if future residents in that region will one day come together in peace and calm reflection, much as the former European rivals did this past week in honor of the World War One centenary.
