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Six children were found dead after a fiery house collapse that injured four other family members who escaped from the home in Northeast Baltimore's Cedmont neighborhood Thursday morning, the city Fire Department said. It was one of the deadliest fires in Baltimore's recent history. In 2002, Angela and Carnell Dawson and their five children were killed in a fire in an East Baltimore rowhouse in retaliation for their calling police about drug dealing. In 2007, six people, including children, were killed in a fire near Green Mount Cemetery. In 2010, three children and three adults were killed in a fire in the East Baltimore Midway neighborhood. (Baltimore SUN, Feb 19, 2017) Baltimore Cedmont neighborhood: Six children perished That a fire in an older house can kill six people of a single family is unfortunately not a freak occurrence that practically never happens. It isn't even only a result of historic building techniques with inherent risks such platform framing or the lac...

T he end of work as we know it  may be responsible for the collapse of  the existing world order. Fewer people finding jobs or enough income for a living has destabilized the European Union, has fueled Brexit and has determined the US election. There are several explanations for job scarcity and insufficient wages. One points to international trade as the culprit; another identifies technology as a job killer. Politicians promising jobs, jobs, jobs differ on which explanation they use for the job crisis, but all assume that they can create jobs, either by reducing or eliminating free trade or by slowing automation. Those who blame other countries for the US job woes ignore the fact that manufacturing in the US had a pretty stable share on the overall GDP from 1960 to now. Its not that nothing is made in the US anymore, it is just that fewer people make it ( Brookings ). Discourse during election campaigns doesn't dig deep, nor does it provide historical perspective. Politician...

For optimists the matter is clear: Technology and culture are trending towards self driving (autonomous cars) which are dispatched by Uber or similar companies and not individually owned. As a result cities will be able to free up to 50% of their footprints devoted to all kinds of car services and parking (most cities devote decidedly less space to parking), car crashes will plummet and cities will become sanctuaries for pedestrians and bicyclists who can enjoy all the freed up space in the form of plazas and parks. Congestion will be a thing of the past because  the existing lanes will have drastically increased capacity when they are used by platoons of driverless cars instead of individual erratic drivers. Air pollution and noise will be also much lower since these new vehicles will run electric. Transit will run more cost effective because it can be freed from the inefficient last mile trips that will be covered by on demand driverless van transit. In short, the future is brigh...

The city is the site where people of all sorts and classes mingle, however reluctantly and agonistically, to produce a common if per­ petually changing and transitory life.  The Creation of the Urban Commons, by David Harvey 2012 Aside from whatever political conclusions one can draw from millions of people gathering in over 600 US cities and around the globe from Toronto to Sidney and from Warsaw to Helsinki, from Nairobi to Durban and from Madrid to Tokyo, aside from what that means for the US, the President or the international world order, it certainly proves that people still take their real bodies to real places to real encounters for real causes in real cities. Facebook, Twitter and all the rest are not substitutes but enablers of such gatherings. What spaces do cities offer for such gatherings? Boston Commons on 1/21/17 When times get tough people yearn for the comfort of company, for the support that comes from togetherness, the consolation from others who share a concern ...