Monday, May 9, 2016

A New Urban Map For America

Friday I was on the nationally syndicated public radio program To the Point, along with guests Parag Khanna and Benjamin Barber. The main focus was Khanna’s new book Connectography (see his recent NYT op-ed), and a bit about Barber’s Parliament of Mayors initiative.

I appreciated Khanna’s focus on infrastructure for the movement of physical goods, such as pipelines and ports, and his stressing of the importance of the tangible economy in the United States. Also, it’s always good to be reminded that one of America’s great strengths as a country is that we are a continental scale nation.

I disagreed somewhat with Barber’s mayoral triumphalism (mayors in the US typically represent only a fraction of the metro population in any case), but think the idea of a global parliament of mayors is a good one. Cities should come together to exchange ideas and collaborate on areas of mutual concern.

Thanks to KCRW I’m including the segment in the podcast. Again, you can also click over to find out more about To the Point.  If the audio player doesn’t display for you, click over to listen on Soundcloud.

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from Aaron M. Renn
http://www.urbanophile.com/2016/05/09/a-new-urban-map-for-america/

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