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2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed (2024)
MorePALACES FOR THE PEOPLE: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life (2018)
MoreModern Romance (with Aziz Ansari) (2018)
MoreGOING SOLO: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone (2012)
MoreFIGHTING FOR AIR: The Battle to Control America’s Media (2007)
MoreHEAT WAVE: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (2002)
MoreWe Were Wrong About What Happened to America in 2020
New York Times, Feb 7 — I’ve come to think of our current condition as a kind of long Covid, a social disease that intensified a range of chronic problems and instilled the belief that the institutions we’d been taught to rely on are unworthy of our trust.
MoreThe Busiest Basement in Jackson Heights
New York Magazine, Feb 7 — t’s impossible to know exactly how many [mutual aid societies] New Yorkers started in 2020, when the labor market crashed and so many families found themselves cash-strapped with little hope of getting adequate public assistance. It’s also impossible to say precisely how many families avoided starvation or radical isolation because of the help that their neighbors provided. What we do know, though, is that hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions of New Yorkers, fared far better in the COVID crisis than they would have without the extraordinary rise and surprising resilience of mutual-aid societies. Today, as the city faces a different kind of emergency, New Yorkers are adapting and reassembling the groups they formed in 2020. The pandemic left the city worse off in so many ways, but the creation of organizations like O’Doherty-Naranjo’s is one lasting change for the better. These groups get little recognition — and little, if any, public funding — for the services they offer. Without them, though, the city would hardly function.
MorePublic Culture, Feb 1 — In the United States, the COVID‐19 pandemic has proved to be especially destructive and divisive. One of the few things that has united Americans during the pandemic, however, is the experience of watching a new genre of viral videos—face mask face‐offs—that showcase citizens going toe‐to‐toe in public places because someone refuses to wear a mask. These videos are not mere political theater; they are replete with sociologically meaningful data about the nature of Americans’ cultural divisions. By closely analyzing recorded conflicts over collective coronavirus risks and individual freedoms in public settings, the authors identify six justifications for not wearing a mask. These justifications point to emerging cultural discourses and practices organized around phones that not only point to new ways for us to observe social life but participate in the reconfiguration of social life—and social conflict—itself.
MoreOn Our Own: Social Distance, Physical Loneliness, and Structural Isolation in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Social Problems, Feb 1 — The early months of the COVID-19 pandemic were defined by distance and isolation, raising concerns about widespread loneliness. Drawing on 55 in-depth interviews with residents of New York City who lived alone during the first wave of the pandemic, this article examines the experience of living alone and dealing with loneliness during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, asking: What are the specific aspects of being or feeling alone that cause distress?
MoreThe Seas Are Rising. Could Oysters Help?
The New Yorker, Feb 1 — How a landscape architect is enlisting nature to defend our coastal cities against climate change—and doing it on the cheap.
MoreWe Need Social Solidarity, Not Just Social Distancing
New York Times, Feb 1 — To combat the coronavirus, Americans need to do more than secure their own safety.
MoreNew York Times Book Review, Mar 12 — *An American Summer* is a powerful indictment of a city and a nation that have failed to protect their most vulnerable residents, or to register the depth of their pain. It is also a case study in the constraints of a purely narrative approach to the problems of inequality and social suffering.
MorePalaces for the People: Why Libraries Are More Than Just Books
The Guardian, Sep 24 — Libraries are not the kinds of institutions that most social scientists, policymakers, and community leaders usually bring up when they discuss social capital and how to build it. But they offer something for everyone, regardless of whether they’re a citizen, a permanent resident, or even a convicted felon – and all of it for free.
MoreAmerica’s Social Infrastructure is Falling Apart, and It’s Hurting Democracy
The Atlantic, Sep 20 — For decades, we’ve neglected the shared spaces that shape our interactions. The consequences of that neglect may be less visible than crumbling bridges and ports, but they’re no less dire.
MoreTo Restore Civil Society, Start With the Library
The New York Times, Sep 11 — This crucial institution is being neglected just when we need it the most.
More
The New Yorker
Feb 19: Did the Year 2020 Change Us Forever?
Chicago Magazine
Feb 7: Year of Fear: Conversation with Chicago Magazine
Feb 1: Starred Review of 2020 from Library Journal
Aug 24: Starred Review of Palaces for the People in Booklist
Aug 24: Starred Review of Palaces for the People in Publishers Weekly
The New York Times
Oct 3: Next Time, Libraries Could Be Our Shelters From the Storm
Times of India
Apr 17: Single, but Not Lonely
The Economist
Feb 28: The Rise of Solo Living: A Room of One’s Own
NPR Morning Edition
Jan 25: Neighborhood Connections Key to Surviving a Crisis
The Daily Mail
Jan 25: The Rise of the Sassy Singleton
NYU Alumni Magazine
Dec 6: Table for One
Glamour
Oct 10: Alone But Not Lonely
The Globe and Mail
Sep 20: How Do You House All Those People Living Alone
The Economist
Aug 29: The Attraction of Solitude
Brain Pickings
May 9: Going Solo: A Brief History of Living Alone and the Enduring Social Stigma Around Singletons
The Guardian
May 3: Going Solo: If we can afford to live alone, we do
The New Republic
Apr 18: Only the Lonely
The New Yorker
Apr 16: Why Are So Many Americans Single?
The Atlantic
Apr 12: Living Alone Really Is the New Shacking Up for Some Couples
CBC
Mar 25: CBC Radio, Sunday Edition
Feb 11: Is Loneliness a Health Epidemic?
GOOGLE
Sep 5: authors@google presents Going Solo
HBO
Apr 13: Real Time with Bill Maher
PBS
Mar 27: Newshour: Why More Americans Are Living Alone
PENGUIN GROUP
Feb 2: Going Solo
C-SPAN
Feb 6: After Words with Eric Klinenberg
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