Status Updates From Nonstop Metropolis: A New Y...

"the volunteer police forces of homophobia and misogyny" - I hope Solnit was proud of this one because it's a helluva line

I just re-read several paragraphs of the Water essay to figure out what was going on. They go from hydropower in Canada supplying NYC (and sure, relevant) to the nuclear power plant (which is somewhat relevant for a tiny mention of contamination, but they bury that in so many other details), to blackouts (what?) before getting specifically to the Hurricane Sandy blackout (pfew, back to water). What on earth????

Maybe I’ll change my mind on this, but I think so far these are the weakest essays of the 3 atlases. I’m just not feeling the same love of place in these. We started off strong with music, but there really hasn’t been anything joyful or quirky since then. We’ve got two essays with a lot of content on Occupy Wall Street separated by a mere chapter. Someone just subtly shaded bike lanes to boot.