While I know television is not a frequent subject of this blog, I though do have forays into it professional such as this one.

But today I want to write about something not related to transit and TV. There is so much good television on, that even great shows can easily get overlooked. I bet that’s what happening with this show, Anne with an E, that I happened to come across. Thank God I have a child, and so I gave it a chance. It’s amazingly well done. Textured, layered, both in the depth of the characters, and the depiction of life in those times. I never read the book, Anne of the Green Gables, so I’m not burdened with knowing how much it is departing from the original text. I can see this is a great show. And although safe for children, it’s not childish in its depiction of life and people. And frankly, it’s nice to have a show where you are not bumping into boobs, extreme violence and seamy plot lines. You have to work harder as a show maker, I bet, when you don’t get to use those things to grab viewers’ attention. Anyway, I suggest checking it out.

I had this essay, first in Common Edge, then in Arch Daily, that examines, through the lens of two recent books on urbanism, why it’s so hard to build walkable urban neighborhoods from scratch.

It’s an obvious point, but not always  thought of. He who shapes and controls the infrastructure of a country, controls the country. And so it is with Venice, that magical city and empire on the Adriatic. Read, and weep, with tears of joy or sadness, as you wish.

From Today’s New York Daily News. “It’s called platform screen doors. London has them on some lines. So does Paris. Seoul has them, and Shanghai has them. In fact, they are common now in metro systems all over the world.

Platform screen doors are glass walls between you and the dangerous tracks in the open pit. When a train enters the station, it lines up with the glass doors, which open to let the passengers in and out.”

Nathaniel Rich had an interesting review of two recent books about the urbanist Jane Jacobs in the November issue of The Atlantic. It was fascinating, particularly where he shows how as a young writer Jacobs praised praised urban renewal and tall towers with that same voice of certainty that a few years late she would use to condemn those same practices. But he gets it wrong when in summarizing Jacobs’ impact, he states that “no one questions anymore . . . that investment in public transportation reduces traffic.”

Here’s an op-ed I had in Crain’s New York Business not too long ago. I talk about why it’s better to have cheaper prices for subways and buses.

Immigration is a thorny issue and it’s easy for people on both sides to feel they have the moral high ground. But it’s a tricky issue, whichever side you take. Here’s mine from Governing Magazine. 

This story by Jim Rutenberg in today’s New York Times introduced a welcome bit of perspective into press coverage of Obama’s visit to Cuba that has been noticeably too rah-rah and lacking in well, perspective, particularly historical. And even Rutenberg did not say the name that should have been in many a Obama-goes-to-cuba story: Batista. Fulgencio Batista, to be exact. The reason why Cuba has a left-wing dictator now, is that it used to have a right-wing dictator, one supported quite firmly for decades by the United States. Support that took the form of money, weapons, advice and policy. That’s why it’s ahistorical and bad journalism for the press to focus so intently on the political prisoners held by Cuba under Fidel and Raul Castro, in a sanctimonious and supercilious way. There should be some mention that the United States had little problem with political prisoners – as well as torture and murder – back when they were being held by a right-wing dictator. Some might say this is ancient history, but it’s not so ancient. It has led directly to the state of affairs in Cuba today. 

Nice essay by the esteemed Tom Vanderbilt, in which he mentions a column I wrote for Governing on how there is a bias against infrastructure maintenance.

I went and saw Mayor Bill DeBlasio and economist Paul Krugman converse last night, in a moderated conversation about Inequality at the the Graduate Center of CUNY in the old Altman’s building at 5th Avenue. I was hoping to leap up and ask a killer question about infrastructure, but although I was sitting in the press section, I didn’t have a chance. When questions were asked, on index cards, the first was about the Clinton/Sanders race, or Hillary/Bernie race. Even I was a bit surprised that after an hour talking about inequality, both men essentially said they preferred Hillary, even though both acknowledged Bernie’s leadership on the issue. Of the two men, Krugman was more succinct and memorable, perhaps surprising given that he’s not a politician. The line of his that stuck with me, about Sanders: “Having your heart in the right place is not enough.” And also, that clear thinking and rigorous analysis also needs to be a progressive value. I turned on my recorder when the conversation got to politics, so here is about six minutes, with DeBlasio speaking first.