National links: Home is becoming a personalized fortress against fire, floods, and disease. What are we giving up?

The pandemic marks a shift in how we see our homes and relate to the outside world. Panic over wealthy people leaving cities misses the point: cities shouldn’t revolve around them in the first place. Our love of same-day shipping is clogging up traffic and hurting the environment.

The home as a fortress: Our homes have transitioned from just a place to sleep at the end of the day to a full time fortress against all perils; germs, fires, flooding, heat and more. And in the future with more intelligent features and design, our homes will also become more personalized to our individual needs, but perhaps a bit more antisocial and unequal as well. (Max Holleran | The New Republic)

Rich people are leaving cities, and that’s fine: There are a number of times in America’s past when high income earners left the big city for the outskirts in search of more space. But the potential for their permanent evacuation leaves questions about why city budgets and resources depend so heavily on them when sustainability should be the ultimate goal. If we structure our cities right, we won’t need those who don’t want to take part. (Aaron Gordon | Motherboard)

Same-day shipping is crowding roads: With the holiday season also comes a surge in package delivery and traffic. Same-day shipping has a detrimental effect not just on congestion but also emissions and the climate as one-hour delivery creates seven times more vehicle miles traveled than a 24-hour one. A potential remedy for the situation would be a slower, more local online retail environment that would reduce vehicle miles traveled, congestion, and emissions. (Kea Wilson | Streetsblog USA)

Jane Jacobs and using data for public good: With extensive data collection platforms, planners now have more information at thier fingertips than ever before. But there’s an uneasy relationship with the technology that can be used also for exclusion. During the urban renewal period, Jane Jacobs argued against using data to make the case for wiping out whole neighborhoods and instead collecting the qualitative data that strengthened social ties. (Sarah Williams | Fast Company)

The UK’s first all-electric car charging station: A new first of its kind vehicle service station in the UK is serving up only electrons. The company Gridserve expects to build 100 of the electric charging stations in the next five years. The station has 36 solar-powered chargers and will collect £0.24 per kWh; it will cost around £10 to go from 20% to 80%. Funny enough, it still looks like an auto-oriented waste of land. (Jon Porter | The Verge)

Vanya Srivastava contributed to these summaries

Quote of the Week

“We’ve known for three or four years now that the only thing that was killing coho salmon was little bits of tire rubber and water. That was the only chemical source we looked at, from vehicle fluids and things like that, that could actually kill the fish.”

-Researcher Edward Kolodziej in Inverse discussing the discovery that a chemical in rubber tires was responsible for killing salmon in the Pacific Northwest.

This week on the podcast, Former Austin Energy General Manager Roger Duncan talks about his co-authored book The Future of Buildings, Transportation and Power.