Virginia Postrel

5 days ago | worksinprogress.news | Virginia Postrel

The Linear No Threshold model says that there is no safe level of radiation exposure. There is overwhelming evidence it is false, yet it inspires the ALARA principle, which makes nuclear power unaffordable worldwide. Read the lead article from Issue 19 of Works in Progress. Here, Virginia Postrel asks how the future lost its glamour. 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.

1 month ago | dwell.com | Virginia Postrel

View 3 PhotosMore than two decades ago, we wrote about what it means to restore an architectural classic, using superfans of the legendary midcentury tract houses as a case study. View 3 PhotosAs a part of our 25th-anniversary celebration, we’re republishing formative magazine stories from before our website launched. This story previously appeared in Dwell’s January/February 2004 issue. In the 1950s and 196os, developer Joseph Eichler brought modern architecture to mass-market suburban houses.

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Virginia Postrel

More than two decades ago, we wrote about what it means to restore an architectural classic, using superfans of the legendary midcentury tract houses as a case study. As a part of our 25th-anniversary celebration, we’re republishing formative magazine stories from before our website launched. This story previously appeared in Dwell’s January/February 2004 issue. In the 1950s and 196os, developer Joseph Eichler brought modern architecture to mass-market suburban houses.

1 month ago | reason.com | Virginia Postrel

Deregulation Progressives used to believe in building more stuff. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson want to do that again.

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Virginia Postrel

Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 304 pages, $30At the turn of the 20th century, labor leader Samuel Gompers had many specific demands, including job security and an eight-hour day. But his list of "what labor wants" added up to a single overarching—and open-ended—desire. "We want more," Gompers said in an 1890 speech. "We do want more.