“The draw of a virtual restaurant is that of online shopping: The same products no matter where you are, or sometimes products exclusive to the virtual world. It’s fast food on an even grander scale.”
transportation
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction
The End of the Line for New York City
Without a reliable subway system, the city “won’t die, but it will become a different place.”
Posted inBlog Post
In Silicon Valley, Transportation Innovation Is a Flat Circle
Tech wizards may say they want driverless cars or the hyperloop, but what they really, really want is a bus.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
In Guatemala on the Wrong Bus
Sarah Miller travels in exactly the way she’d hoped to avoid.
Posted inBlog Post, Commentary, Op-Ed, Reading List
My Electric Bike is Not ‘Cheating.’ And It Could Replace Cars for Millions of People
My electric bike hasn’t replaced my road bike as much as it’s replaced my car.
Posted inBlog Post, Nonfiction
Riding the Rails: Celebrating Trains and Subway Commuter Life
My other half Rebekah and I recently returned from Japan, and we’re in that rapture phase where you wish the things you loved overseas were also available in America. I already miss the 24-hour action of Japanese cities, their automated restaurants, the street-side vending machines — and public transportation. In Japan, trains run on time. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Most Influential Box on Earth
The container’s efficiency has proven to be an irresistible economic force. Last year the world’s container ports moved 560 million 20-foot containers—nearly 1.5 billion tons of cargo altogether. Though commodities like petroleum, steel ore, and coal still move in specially designed bulk cargo ships, more than 90 percent of the rest—everything from clothes to cars […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Benefits of Being No. 2 in Business
Back in the early 1960s, also-ran Avis — a smaller, less successful business than Hertz — decided to run a new advertising campaign, one that embraced its market position rather than trying to change it. “When you’re only No. 2, you try harder. Or else,” the company’s advertisements read. Avis’s initial business insight was to […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Year That Cars Took the Roads Away from Pedestrians
In a new essay for Collectors Weekly, Hunter Oatman-Stanford and Peter Norton, author of Fighting Traffic, examine the history of the automobile in America, and how our perception of city streets changed: In 1924, recognizing the crisis on America’s streets, President Herbert Hoover launched the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety. Any organizations interested […]