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Im a drummer with a soft spot for vintage snares. I own a few that rarely get played. They sound great and look even better, but they take up space. If I kept collecting more, Id eventually have to give up something else: chairs, food, clothes, books, art. No matter how practical I claim these drums are, theyre bulky objects that sit idle for most of their life. When it comes to city building, Americans struggle to apply that same basic interior design logic to personal vehicles. The magical thinking is that 10 pounds of Motordom can fit in a 5-pound bag. Country living, suburban living, and city living are not interchangeable. You should be free to choose whatever suits you best, including the kind of vehicle you want to drive. But cities have a constraint that rural areas and the suburbs dontphysical space. There simply isnt enough room for every household to store multiple personal vehicles out front, let alone build the number of lanes so that everyone can drive in the same direction at the same time. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}} Automobile storage centers Despite that physical reality, most American cities have been engineered as massive automobile storage centers. This isnt a value judgment about driving. Its a spatial critique. Cars are large objects that sit idle 95% of the timeand when cities prioritize motor vehicles over everything else, its inevitable that housing, parks, and commerce get squeezed out. Every time a road is widened, space for people walking, rolling, and riding bikes shrinks. Intersections balloon, making crossings longer and more dangerous. Parking garages devour valuable land. Building cities around the automobile is an absurd and wasteful decision that leaves cities congested, expensive, and less livable. The worst part is that it doesnt even work. Expanding roads to solve traffic only invites more people to make trips they wouldnt have made. (The wonky planning term is induced demand.) When you make solo driving easier, more people drive solo. The new lanes fill up, and the traffic jams return. Places of exchange Cities are places of exchange: goods, services, ideas, and relationships. That exchange requires spacenot just for people to live, but to move, meet, flirt, play, rest, buy stuff, sell stuff, or just plain linger. Building cities around peopleinstead of machinesdelivers places people want to be. Like any interior designer knows, good design isnt about cramming more furniture in an already-packed room. Its about prioritizing what makes the space work for the people using it. Here are three proven strategies for applying that same mindset to your citys public realm. 1. Stop forcing developers to build car storage. Minimum parking mandates are among the most damaging policies in city planning. These rules require developers to build a set number of parking spaces regardless of context or market conditions. A local government might require 150 parking spaces for a 100-unit apartment building near high-frequency transit. The rulemakers dont care if its easy to opt out of owning a car. These mandates inflate construction costs, reduce housing supply, and crowd out other uses. Let the property owners decide how much parking makes sense. American cities already have abundant housing for cars. 2. Expand your view of pedestrians. Frequent and reliable bus service is an express sidewalk. Think of bus routes as part of the walking networkan option you use when the weathers bad, your bags heavy, or your legs are tired. That mindset shift helps normalize transit as a default mode of movement, not a last resort. Engineering solutions like dedicated lanes and signal priority help keep the buses from being stuck in traffic. The more the bus feels like a moving sidewalk, the more people will choose it. 3. Make bike rides pleasant. A connected bike network is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase mobility and reduce congestion. Especially now, with the rise of e-bikes, a 5-mile ride becomes a breeze even for older adults. E-bikes flatten hills, reduce sweat, and make iffy weather more manageable. Build protected bike lanes that link destinations (residential areas, job centers, retail corridors, etc.). Build secure parking and charging stations for electric cargo bikes. Make biking the most attractive option for short trips. Cities shouldnt be treated like storage units for large piles of personal property. If you wouldnt let stacks of idle drum kits block your kitchen, dont let oversize metal boxes dominate your streets. Good urban design, like good interior design, serves the people who live there. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"salmon","redirectUrl":""}}
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E-Commerce
Finding a job is hard right now. To cope, Gen Zers are documenting the reality of unemployment in 2025. You look sadder,” one TikTok post reads, flipping the recent You look happier trend on its head (in which people respond with the real reason theyre smiling a little more than usual). @yasamelon “Thanks, yeah, I’ve been laid off since September, applied to 700+ jobs, 30+ interviews, no offers, and rent is due again,” the post continues. The video has over 783,000 views, with many commenting they are in the same boat. Being unemployed in 2025 means spending half the day on Linkedin and the other half walking around town looking for a Waymo to run me over, the same creator jokes in another video. @yasamelon everybody say waymoooo original sound – Yas For many job seekers, their unemployed status is not for lack of trying. Some are busy testing out different job hacks and documenting the results. Others are posting day-in-the-life videos of unemployment, highlighting the harsh reality of searching for a job in the current climate. I think the new Hot Girl Summer is actually gonna be Unemployed Girl Summer, one TikToker says. Even the recruiters are weighing in. I am still shocked how many people in my comment sections are underestimating how cooked the corporate job market is, one recruiter explains in a recent video, currently at 617,400 views. Ive literally never seen candidates struggle as much as they are right now. @the_realest_recruiter It seriously blows my mind #jobmarket #jobsearch original sound – TheRealestRecruiter The comment section is filled with those sharing their own experiences and frustrations with the job search and current hiring processes. Ive come to the conclusion that most job board sites are nothing but data-mining operations, one person writes. I had to send in my birth chart (wish I was kidding), comments another. The data backs it up: It hasnt been this hard for Americans to find work since 2021, according to CNN. While new data released Thursday showed that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, the number of recurring claims made by people who already have filed for unemployment rose to their highest level since November 2021. Rather than conducting mass layoffs, employers are reining in hiringleaving unemployed job seekers with the short straw. CNN also reported that people are staying unemployed for about six months on average, with long-term unemployment (27 weeks or more) nearing a three-year high. Faced with such dire circumstances, some are choosing to look for a silver lining. As one TikTok post reminds: Enjoy your unemployed era while you still can. Or at least try to.
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E-Commerce
At its heart, pizza is deceptively simple. Made from just a few humble ingredientsbaked dough, tangy sauce, melted cheese, and maybe a few toppingsit might seem like a perfect candidate for the kind of mass-produced standardization that defines many global food chains, where predictable menus reign supreme. Yet, visit two pizzerias in different towns, or even on different blocks of the same town, and youll find that pizza stubbornly refuses to be homogenized. We are researchers working on a local business history project that documents the commercial landscape of Gainesville, Florida, in the 20th and 21st centuries. As part of that project, weve spent a great many hours over the past two years interviewing local restaurant owners, especially those behind Gainesvilles independent pizzerias. What weve found reaffirms a powerful truth: Pizza resists samenessand small pizzerias are a big reason why. Why standardized pizza rose but didnt conquer While tomatoes were unknown in Italy until the mid-16th century, they have since become synonymous with Italian cuisineespecially through pizza. Pizza arrived in the U.S. from Naples in the early 20th century, when Italian immigration was at its peak. Two of the biggest destinations for Italian immigrants were New York City and Chicago, and today each has a distinctive pizza style. A New York slice can easily be identified by its thin, soft, foldable crust, while Chicago pies are known for deep, thick, buttery crusts. After World War II, other regions developed their own types of pizza, including the famed New Haven and Detroit styles. The New Haven style is known for being thin, crispy, and charred in a coal-fired oven, while the Detroit style has a rectangular, deep-dish shape and thick, buttery crust. By the latter half of the 20th century, pizza had become a staple of the American diet. And as its popularity grew, so did demand for consistent, affordable pizza joints. Chains such as Pizza Hut, founded in 1958, and Papa Johns, established in 1984, applied the model pioneered by McDonalds in the late 1940s, adopting limited menus, assembly line kitchens, and franchise models built for consistency and scale. New technologies such as point-of-sale systems and inventory management software made things even more efficient. As food historian Carol Helstosky explains in Pizza: A Global History, the transformation involved simplifying recipes, ensuring consistent quality, and developing formats optimized for rapid expansion and franchising. What began as a handcrafted, regional dish became a highly replicable product suited to global mass markets. Today, more than 20,000 Pizza Huts operate worldwide. Papa Johns, which runs about 6,000 pizzerias, built its brand explicitly on a promise rooted in standardization. In this model, success means making pizza the same way, everywhere, every time. So what happened to the independent pizzerias? Did they get swallowed up by efficiency? Not quite. Chain restaurants dont necessarily suffocate small competitors, recent research shows. In fact, in the case of pizza, they often coexist, sometimes even fueling creativity and opportunity. Independent pizzeriasthere are more than 44,000 nationwidelean into what makes them unique, carving out a niche. Rather than focusing only on speed or price, they compete by offering character, inventive toppings, personal service, and a sense of place that chains just cant replicate. A local pizza scene: Creativity in a corporate age For an example, look no farther than Gainesville. A college town with fewer than 150,000 residents, Gainesville doesnt have the same culinary cachet as New York or Chicago, but it has developed a unique pizza scene. With 13 independent pizzerias serving Neapolitan, Detroit, New York, Mediterranean styles, and more, hungry Gators have a plethora of options when craving a slice. What makes Gainesvilles pizza scene especially interesting is the range of backgrounds its proprietors have. Through interviews with pizzeria owners, we found that some had started as artists and musicians, while others had worked in engineering or educationand each had their own unique approach to making pizzas. The owner of Strega Nonas Oven, for example, uses his engineering background to turn dough-making into a science, altering the proportions of ingredients by as little as half of a percent based on the season or even the weather. Visitors to Satchels Pizza get a creative welcome. [Photo: courtesy of the authors] Satchels Pizza, on the other hand, is filled with works made by its artist owner, including mosaic windows, paintings, sculptures, and fountains. Gainesvilles independent pizzerias often serve as what sociologists call third placesspaces for gathering that arent home or work. And their owners think carefully about how to create a welcoming environment. For example, the owner of Scuola Pizza insisted the restaurant be free of TVs, so diners can focus on their food. Squarehous Pizza features a large outdoor space: an old, now repurposed school bus outfitted with tables and chairs to dine in, and a stage for live music. Squarehouse also is known for its unusual toppings on square, Detroit-style piesfor example, the Mariah Curry, topped with curry chicken or cauliflower, and coconut curry sauce. It refreshes its specialty menus every semester or two. While the American pizza landscape may be shaped by big brands and standardized menus, small pizzerias continue to shine. Gainesville is a perfect example of how a local pizza scene in a small Southern college town can be unique, even in a globalized industry. Small pizzerias dont just offer foodthey offer a flavorful reminder that the marketplace rewards distinctiveness and local character, too. Paula de la Cruz-Fernández is a cultural digital collections manager at the University of Florida. Avi Ackerman is a researcher at Inquire Capitalism UF at the University of Florida. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
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