My friend Scott Timberg has been writing a very interesting series for Salon about the “creative class” and what he sees as its decimation, largely by digital technology and the internet economy (and the resulting loss of ability to monetize “creative” careers), but also by the recession and other obstacles to self-employment like staggering healthcare costs. It’s really worth a read. His latest target is the architecture profession, one that he cites as the quintessential cool creative career, that now stands in tatters.
However, on reading his story, I had a …

The New London Quarterly wrote that this year’s “biggest London transport story was on two wheels:” Mayor Boris Johnson’s cycling scheme for central London, in which 400 Barclays Cycle Hire docking stations have been located throughout the heart of the English capital (this one is off Tottenham Court Road), in a bid to alleviate traffic congestion and pollution. I was a bicycle commuter in that city 20 and more years ago, a time when bicyclists were regarded as a marginal, slightly oddball species, similar to the way they have …