Ben Hopkinson

Dec 5, 2024 | worksinprogress.co | Ben Hopkinson |Virginia Postrel |Niko McCarty |Xander Balwit

24 Mins Why do high-cost cities have more homelessness? It’s not just about rents — it’s also about the rooms friends and family can’t afford to share. Diona’s mom gave her one week’s notice. There were too many kids and too little space. If 17-year-old Diona didn’t find someone to stay with, she would be forced to check herself and her 3-month-old son into a homeless shelter. Because she was a minor, doing so would put her baby ‘into the system’. She was determined not to let that happen.

Dec 5, 2024 | worksinprogress.co | Salim Furth |Ben Hopkinson |Virginia Postrel |Jared Hutchins

25 Mins What do cryogenics, butterfat tests, and genetic data have in common? They’re some of the reasons behind the world’s most productive dairy cows. Here’s how it all started. No matter where you are in the world, there’s a good chance the milk or cheese you’re buying is the product of the US dairy industry. Even if it didn’t come from American cattle, the cow that produced the milk could well have been inseminated by an American bull.

Dec 5, 2024 | worksinprogress.co | Salim Furth |Ben Hopkinson |Niko McCarty |Xander Balwit

31 Mins When the future arrived, it felt… ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow? Progress used to be glamorous. For the first two thirds of the twentieth-century, the terms modern, future, and world of tomorrow shimmered with promise. Glamour is more than a synonym for fashion or celebrity, although these things can certainly be glamorous. So can a holiday resort, a city, or a career. The military can be glamorous, as can technology, science, or the religious life.

Oct 28, 2024 | samdumitriu.com | Ben Hopkinson

Birmingham is right now building a mile long extension to the West Midlands Metro, which will end up taking 13 years in total from the initial proposal to the first trams operating. More than six years were spent in the planning process. This isn’t atypical either, tram construction experts we’ve spoken to have said that schemes in the UK take more than a decade to get built. Countries that build trams cheaper, tend to also approve and build them faster.

Sep 12, 2024 | samdumitriu.com | Ben Hopkinson

Over the last three decades, trams have made a remarkable comeback across Europe. Cities that had torn up their tracks in the 1950s to make space for cars and buses realised they had made a mistake. Since the turn of the century, 21 French cities have built new tram systems, while in Germany, 60 cities now have a tram. Britain, by contrast, isn’t doing so well.