#atlantic cities

The magic hour?

[T]he situational experience of individuals around the world at 7 p.m. was, on average, highly similar and largely pleasant, and the homogeneity of individual situational experience was nearly as large between as within countries. This finding emerged even though the study examined situational experience in 20 countries, on 5 continents, using materials rendered in 14 different languages.

The common sensation?

In general, people found whatever they were doing at that time to be "simple and clear-cut," "social," and "potentially enjoyable"; they also felt they were free to speak and feel a range of emotions. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the lowest-rated descriptions made reference to abuse, physical or emotional threats, loss of freedom, or deception.

This is the kind of thing that I feel like should be made public knowledge if for no reason then that people can soak in the common knowledge (and more likely, reminder) that they have a time everyday to look forward to, that, even if they don’t try very hard or go out of their way, they are likely to find it to be a peak in their day. Kind of comforting, no?

Transforming Tysons, my Atlantic Cities debut

And Now for Something Completely Different: I wrote a 2,000-word feature for Atlantic Citiesabout the ongoing effort to turn the Northern Virginia suburb of Tysons Corner — a massive, unplanned, car-dependent “Edge City” — into a walkable, public-transit accessible, liveable urban locale. The opening of Metro’s Silver Line this summer will be a key element of this plan, and the place is expected…

The image captures one of the central paradoxes of life in New York: the way that the city's crowds of disparate people create a climate that is both lonely and communal, both private and exhibitionistic.

Get outside! 

Have a nice weekend, 

Fresh Air

I've been a big fan of MIT's Senseable City Lab since I was a grad student at Penn. Their work sits at the intersection of cities and technology, and so I've always found it incredibly fascinating.

Recently, the lab examined data from all of New York's 13,586 registered cabs and looked for ways that technology and mobile tech could potentially optimize the way the system works today. In particular, they were interested in examining instances where people were heading to the same place at the same time, and were within no more than a 3 minute walk of each at the start of the trip.

What they found was that, of the 150 million taxi rides taken in New York City during 2011, almost 80% of them could have been shared.

That is, 80% of the time, there was an overlap in both time and route. That's an hugely interesting stat because it starts to show just how much waste and inefficiency there currently is in the system. Think about all the trips and carbon emissions that could be potentially eliminated through optimization.

Here's a video they produced on the project. Click here if you can't see it below.