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Truth Or Consequences

From an early age, my life’s goal was to get at “the truth.” There were only two obvious...

And Since You Mention SNAP,

Among others oozing angst about “democratic socialist” Zohran Mamdani’s election were two...

PAST AS PROLOGUE: An Engineering Legacy

1980s photo of the author, right; his father, center; and his sister, left....

Drugs, Crime, And… Homelessness?

A commenter contested my statement that gang murders are a much greater menace to public safety...

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Fred PhillipsRSS Feed of this column.

After a dozen years as a market research executive, Fred Phillips was professor, dean, and vice provost at a variety of universities in the US, Europe, and South America. He is now Visiting Professor... Read More »

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In 2025 it’s hard to argue that social media are not to blame for much antisocial and suicidal behavior among preteens and teens (e.g., Orben and Matias 2025). The harms of online bullying, deepfake nudes, and fringe conspiracies, all present on social media, were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, years in which young people were buried in their screens.

What are sustainable cities, and can we build them? I put my Institute Fellows’ decades of experience together with the content of this fine conference, and conclude: (1) A sustainable city will attend equally to innovation, to human opportunity and dignity, and to the Earth. (2) Cities are not yet doing that. (3) There are obstacles.

       The book is author Alex Hannaford’s lament about changes in Austin, Texas, since his initial visit to the city in 1999. This at first spurred your reviewer, who moved to Austin in 1969, to think, “1999? Well, isn’t that just too precious?”

(Image by Henry Reich)       

One thing, singular. Two or more things, plural.

Subjects must agree with verbs in number: It is, they are.