Patrick Sisson's Curbed article, "In the apartment amenity arms race, service and technology win out" exemplifies the adolescence of the burgeoning world of luxury apartment design. Like teenagers, these buildings want so badly to be recognized as unique that they're w...

We've all been dumped and it's thoroughly lousy. What should cities do when they get their plans scrambled? Check out our latest piece in the SF Chronicle.

The news that Amazon has decided to pull the plug on their proposed HQ2 location in Long Island City is a sign that the old rules no longer apply. It’s surprising because Amazon, Mayor Di Blasio, and Governor Cuomo followed the traditional playbook made popular by the...

The trick to being your best self has nothing to do with other people. It is to turn the volume up on your finer qualities and let your unavoidable flaws fade to the background. Not just because it will present a better version of yourself, but because focusing on thos...

I realize it's just a hashtag on Curbed's SF website, but the idea of there being a welcome manual to the city is wonderful, especially because this is a city of booms and busts, and so one chock-filled with transplants. But also because there are manuals for every pro...

Cities ask, “How can we communicate our values? We’re a massive, impersonal bureaucracy!” This’ll do the trick.

These are the kind of organizations and stories that are going to be increasingly important to the health and vibrancy of cities. With decreasing membership in diverse social organizations we end up self-sorting which leads to feeling "like I was performing life in Aus...

Great interview on Fresh Air yesterday with Will Hunt, urban explorer and author of Underground. He tells the story of a graffiti writer named Revs who, during the 1990s spent six years writing anecdotes from his childhood on the walls of subway tunnels. Numbered all 2...

Excited to see my latest essay in the San Francisco Chronicle. Places, just like people, express who they are not just through words and deeds but also through symbols. And with all the change SF is undergoing we should think deliberately about who we are and how we ca...

This is a big deal. It's a concrete example of established health care companies not only recognizing but acting on the public health benefits of reducing housing insecurity. It's one of those obvious things that for the longest time nobody acted on: not having a home...