New: We found 50 cops who misused Flock cameras and other license-plate readers for personal purposes, often to spy on their girlfriends or ex-wives. He "watched every single move I made. ... Who do you turn the chief of police in to?" wapo.st/3S6rTuo

She left her ex. He secretly tracked her through a network of policing cameras.

Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.

wapo.st

“The conversation we should be having isn’t even really about wildfire policy. It’s about how we distribute risk; about who is allowed to profit from dangerous landscapes, who is wealthy enough to live with exposure, and who is left to absorb the consequences after catastrophe.” —Emily Schlickman

When Fire Returns

Two wildfires ravaged the same California hills, 50 years apart. Can we continue to build, and rebuild, on land that will inevitably burn again?

placesjournal.org

For 3 years, I followed one community through an endless cycle of floods, demolitions, and evictions, in a single Nairobi slum. For @placesjournal.bsky.social, my deep dive into how the city's poorest residents are being evicted in the name of "climate resilience" placesjournal.org/article/doub...

Doubly Displaced

Fleeing floods and drought in rural areas, Kenyans find precarious refuge along Nairobi rivers. Now, residents say the city’s Climate Action Plan is being weaponized against them.

placesjournal.org

I'm over in my favorite European design mag, Landezine, this week to talk about my new book (due out in 2 weeks!), design culture and capitalism, and the small but important role we might play in responding to the climate crisis. landezine.com/building-pos...

Billy Fleming: We Need a Wider Aperture – Landscape Architecture Platform | Landezine

Interview with Billy Fleming on landscape architecture’s service to capital and what design could become in a just postcarbon transition: moving beyond he…

landezine.com

I choose to believe Mamdani's people knew what they were doing when they set up that 'Wheels' verse on Day 9 of his administration. They knew they were going to need it.

Mamdani Prasshant

Alt: Mamdani crying on the bus meme with Ms Rachel

static.klipy.com

Sickening new study from ASU about data center waste heat * Discharge warm air 14-25 degrees above normal * Equivalent to 40,000 household emissions * Raise air temperature by 4 degrees within five city blocks * Which leads to more AC cranking and more waste heat news.asu.edu/20260518-env...

Turning down the heat from data centers | ASU News

Heat pollution from data centers can boost air temperatures in downwind neighborhoods by as much as 4 degrees Fahrenheit, researchers at Arizona State University report in a new study conducted in the...

news.asu.edu

Oh this is special! "One day I woke up with the vision of a very yellow field, a long strip of yellow, that would be the equivalent of the duration of forsythia blooming (and the same color). ... These drawings became a way of telling time (time to draw, drawing time; spring time)."

Éireann@eireannmor.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I am really pleased by the care with which @kaseyryoen.bsky.social and @orionmagazine.bsky.social made this interview about flowers, time, walking, writing, etc.: orionmagazine.org/article/maki... (and pleased, gratified, that there are so many images!) thank you

"Guts are a collaboration between animal, land, and the logistics of bodies." - New from @maxliboiron.bsky.social, @clear-lab.bsky.social, in @placesjournal.bsky.social! placesjournal.org/article/thro... #plastics #envhist #science #water

Through the Guts

What can plastic fragments found in an animal’s digestive tract tell us about the waters it has traversed?

placesjournal.org

What can plastic fragments found in an animal’s digestive tract tell us about the geographies it has traversed? For Places, @maxliboiron.bsky.social wrote about the different world animals reveal through their appetites. “The heart of gut forensics is not classification, but learning how to see.”

Through the Guts

What can plastic fragments found in an animal’s digestive tract tell us about the waters it has traversed?

placesjournal.org

"Please do not hang out in the street!" Let Jessalyn Aaland take you on a tour of the Oakland DIY music spaces of her early 21st century... www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/please-do-no...

Please do not hang out in the street

Oakland DIY music spaces of the early 21st century.

oaklandreviewofbooks.org

Seeing like a machine! Alex Park reads Trevor Paglen's new book on AI images: www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/trevor-pagle...

AI’s empty head can see only the apple

In his new book, Trevor Paglen tries to look through a machine's eyes.

oaklandreviewofbooks.org

A devastating and tender piece by Mohammad Nahleh on the hideousness of Israel's war on Lebanon, on Iran, and on everything and everyone in the Middle East that won't bow down to its supermacist will.

Places Journal@placesjournal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Texas and Lebanon lie at nearly the same latitude; the same constellations travel through their skies along kindred arcs. In both places, darkness is an ecological commons turned military asset. To hold these nights together is to see how preservation at home aids devastation abroad.

another incredible text by Mohamad Nahleh - can't recommend his "purging of a wretched empire" enough averyreview.com/issues/71/pu...

The Avery Review | Purging a Wretched Empire

The Avery Review is an online journal dedicated to thinking about books, buildings, and other architectural media.

averyreview.com

Places Journal@placesjournal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Texas and Lebanon lie at nearly the same latitude; the same constellations travel through their skies along kindred arcs. In both places, darkness is an ecological commons turned military asset. To hold these nights together is to see how preservation at home aids devastation abroad.

I had to stop so many times while reading this to rewire my brain. Like (*spoilers*) here is the 1977 Army contest "Name That Bird," through which Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak is assimilated by his oppressors, his name inscribed in the Black Hawk helicopter, returned through the Arabic translation...

Places Journal@placesjournal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Texas and Lebanon lie at nearly the same latitude; the same constellations travel through their skies along kindred arcs. In both places, darkness is an ecological commons turned military asset. To hold these nights together is to see how preservation at home aids devastation abroad.

As a very proud UCP author, I'm delighted to support the peopIe who helped publish my book in their effort to unionize. Help them out by signing their petition here: We’re the UCP Workers Guild. Help our union get recognized! . Write one here: actionnetwork.org/letters/were...

We’re the UCP Workers Guild. Help our union get recognized!

The University of Chicago Press produces and distributes books and journals that meet the highest standards of scholarship, foster public understanding, and enrich cultural life. For over 130 years, p...

actionnetwork.org

On the "pedestrian purgatory" of the pedway: "Limbo is a waiting room — a liminal space, of which the Pedway has plenty — but in Purgatory there is a job to do."

Places Journal@placesjournal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The Chicago Pedway is a question that the city asked and left unanswered about how truly public urban space might be shaped below the streets. From writer and historian Andrew Holter: the past, present, and future of this subterranean network that has only ever been a work in progress.

Love this, wish the reason for the commission were different

Victoria Rose Richards@aerialembroidery.bsky.social · 3mo ago

'Beltsville Agricultural Research Centre', Maryland - I was privately commissioned to memorialise the BARC by a past employee after learning it will be shut down by the USDA after over 100 years of research. They wanted to focus of this aerial embroidery to be the field plots... 1/3 (see thread)

Urban historian Stathis G. Yeros will be in San Francisco next week to talk about his recent book, QUEERING URBANISM, from @ucpress.bsky.social. "Combining urban history, architectural critique, and queer and trans theories," the book traces a history of insurgent spaces in the fight for justice.

Upcoming Events — GLBT Historical Society

glbthistory.org

SALT LAKES is in the latest issue of @nybooks.com! www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

This Bitter Earth | Rosa Lyster

The world’s salt lakes are the canary in the coal mine for the climate crisis, and they are shrinking at a drastic rate.

nybooks.com

This is enraging as a cyclist who depends on bike lanes for my family’s safety and the safety of everyone. More broadly, this is a worrying pattern: gaining trust with safe behavior and then becoming less safe over time.

David Zipper@davidzipper.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"Waymo has told advocates that expecting it to respect bike lanes is 'too high a bar' because customers expect to be dropped off in them." To be crystal clear, it's illegal for a car to be in a bike lane. It doesn't matter what Waymo's customers expect; the company shouldn't be doing it.

It's Earth Day, which means you should preorder my new book, "Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions." cup.columbia.edu/book/buildin...

Building Postcarbon Futures | Columbia University Press

What would a postcarbon future look like? How would a more just, decarbonized world require us to change the way we live? What would it take to build this wo... | CUP

cup.columbia.edu

Pulitzer-worthy reporting here from Minnesota immigrant news @sahanjournal.bsky.social. 70+ children detained during Operation MetroSurge. 30 sent to Dilley. Two dozen held >20 days, a Flores violation. 7 still detained as of March 10. ~20 have been deported. sahanjournal.com/immigration/...

ICE detained more than 70 Minnesota children, data reveals

Immigration officials detained more than 70 Minnesota children between Dec. 1 and March 10, a Sahan analysis of court records and federal deportation data shows.

sahanjournal.com

1901: Days of rioting after NYC removes Central Park benches during a heat wave. Private rocking chairs smashed. Rent-to-sit attendant chased off by a woman with a hat pin. Crowd tosses police officer into a pond. The people win funding for 5,000 new free benches. A usable past!

Places Journal@placesjournal.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Benches are microcosms of an expansive debate about who belongs in urban public spaces. When they are removed or made uninviting, we lose more than just a place to rest. From journalist Gabrielle Bruney: "The Disappearance of the Public Bench"

Why is ICE buying so many warehouses, and what does this have to do with the warehouse's shifting place in the US economy? In Places Journal, I chronicle the long arc of Warehousing's carceral geography and the speculative building boom that ICE is absorbing. placesjournal.org/article/the-...

The Warehouse, in Plain Sight

That concrete box off the freeway wasn’t designed for storage so much as capture. It’s a disappearing machine. We need to see it clearly.

placesjournal.org

"The ships, the trucks, the loading docks: these are containers of immiserated labor, and so they are also containers of revolutionary potential," says @charmainechua.bsky.social.

Places Journal@placesjournal.bsky.social · 4mo ago

That concrete box off the freeway wasn’t designed for storage so much as capture — of markets, workers, and, now, people detained by immigration agents, as the federal government turns warehouses into million-square-foot concentration camps. It is a disappearing machine. We need to see it clearly.

placesjournal.org/article/the-...

The Warehouse, in Plain Sight

That concrete box off the freeway wasn’t designed for storage so much as capture. It’s a disappearing machine. We need to see it clearly.

placesjournal.org

Last week, a worker one of Amazon's Portland area facilities died on the warehouse floor. Employees were told to look away and keep working. A new story by @ryanjhaas.bsky.social for @thewesternedge.bsky.social - reporting this news first. www.thewesternedge.media/p/everyone-i...

‘Everyone is Replaceable’: Death Rattles Oregon Amazon Facility

A worker died at Amazon’s Troutdale warehouse last week. Employees were told to look away.

thewesternedge.media

"Black sonic politics in Oakland, in nine sounds," a playlist. By Alex Werth (as told to Tommy Craggs): www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/black-sonic-...

Black sonic politics in Oakland, in nine sounds

A playlist.

oaklandreviewofbooks.org

A @kimkelly.bsky.social byline is always an automatic click for me but this @orionmagazine.bsky.social piece on building solidarity across climate and labor is SO GOOD.

All for One - Orion Magazine

The urgent need for solidarity between the climate and labor movements

orionmagazine.org

YouTube documentarian Chris Parr, who grew up not too far from North Oaks, set out to change that earlier this year. For a brief few days, after recording the area with a drone, he literally put North Oaks on the map. Then it was gone again.

Mapping Google's Unmappable City

How filmmaker Chris Parr put North Oaks, Minnesota on the map.

404media.co