Carlo Ratti— One of the lesser-known casualties of COVID-19 has been a new, large-scale urban development in Toronto, led by Google sibling company Sidewalk Labs. Several years in the making, the “Google City”—as it was sometimes dubbed in the media—ultimately came to a halt because of the ongoing recession, but
Danny Dorling— Did you think that the rate of innovation was rising and that more and more was being invented every year? Did you pause to question the claim, if you ever heard it, when, on January 23, 2018, at Davos, Justin Trudeau said: “Think about it: The pace of
Susan Crawford— In the United States, we cannot even imagine cheap, unlimited communications capacity in our homes. Because of decades of political maneuvering by the enormous private companies that sell internet access to American consumers, a lack of leadership at the federal level, and the invisibility of this entire policy
Jon Coaffee— Recent scientific research has revealed that we have drastically underestimated the threat of climate change, with the impacts of sea level rise and extreme weather abnormalities likely to be felt most dramatically in large urban conurbations. Almost exactly seven years after Hurricane Sandy hit the US Eastern seaboard causing devastation
Susan Crawford— Here is the tech revolution America may miss: On a gray, cloudy weekday morning in August, I drove across the wide Han River that divides the northern and southern parts of Seoul. I turned east onto a furiously busy highway that runs alongside the river. I was noticing
James Bessen is an economist and lecturer at Boston University Law School. He is the author of Learning by Doing: The Real Connection between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth. In a recent conversation, we had the chance to talk about the effect technology has on wages and job availability. Yale University Press: In your
Follow @yaleSCIbooks Michelle Stein— Notes from the Ground: Science, Soil & Society in the American Countryside, by Benjamin R. Cohen is primarily the story of the merger of agriculture and science in early America, and all the attendant debates and developments in agricultural life. But in the spirit of