Virginie Tisseau:

I ride the tram because every day it takes me to a place less familiar.

Nick Paumgarten:

If you're the type to count the steps you take each morning on the trek from apartment to subway platform (third I-beam in, rear car), and then on to lobby and desk, you find that the number hardly varies. After a while, you stop looking around.

Tyler Cowen:

When I visited Santa Monica in January it struck me how much it reminded me of ... Arlington. Arlington and Santa Monica have never been more alike, or less distinctive.

David Kolb, on sprawl:

Are we imprisoned in a universal Disneyland?

Sarah Perry:

The American urban design pattern is characterized by, first, an orientation toward the automobile above all else; second, toward consumption as the main activity besides work; and third, toward efficient human storage. Human activities other than consumption and "being stored" -- as in day cares, schools, prisons, offices, nursing homes, and "housing units" themselves -- are made difficult and uncomfortable by the physical built environment itself. Religious activity and social activity, two main components of human flourishing that transform local environments, are increasingly rare and emptied of transformative power.