In recent months, the New York City subway system has seen a string of shocking and deadly incidents of violence, including several passengers who have been shoved from the platform into the paths of moving trains. A recent report finds that misdemeanor and felony assaults within the subway system have tripled since 2009. For everyday riders and visitors alike, there is now a lurking fear that their next trip on the subway could be dangerous.
Many, including the governor of New York, are seeking solutions, which range from adding more police presence to increasing surveillance to installing more lighting to combatting fare evasion. But there’s another approach that could go a long way to improving security and safety in the subway system. Through specific and targeted design interventions, the subway system itself could be retrofitted to reduce violent crime.
This is one of the conclusions of What To Do (and Not To Do) About Subway Safety, a new set of policy recommendations from the urban policy journal Vital City. Based on input and research from criminologists, behavioral scientists, transit experts, and policy wonks, the recommendations include focusing on mental health and substance abuse among users of the system, increasing access to social workers, and using police forces more strategically.
[Image: courtesy WXY]
Claire Weisz, cofounder of the architecture and design studio WXY, contributed to the report with ideas for design interventions that could increase a sense of security and comfort for subway riders. These design ideas include improving sight lines within the system’s underground stations, increasing visibility between passengers, and reducing dead ends and other areas that can isolate people. Rather than calling for a wide scale and expensive investment in safety infrastructure like Japanese-style platform barriers, the design ideas proposed here are lower lift interventions.
The standout design idea from Weisz and WXY is the addition of highly reflective surfaces throughout subway stations. Lining ceilings, walls, and even the areas right above the edge of the platform, these shiny surfaces passively increase visibility, spatial awareness, and navigation within the sometimes circuitous underground world of a subway station.
A current interior (left) and a render of proposed revisions (right) [Images: courtesy WXY]
“Mirrors or mirror-like surfaces, which could be stainless steel, in the right places can actually help people see around columns, see down hallways, see around corners, but also get a sense that I’m getting closer towards an exit, or I’m getting farther away, or here’s where a platform is,” Weisz says. “Right now, there isn’t kind of intuitive wayfinding.”
[Image: courtesy WXY]
Reflective surfaces can also increase a sense of security. Directly influenced by the violent shoving incidents that have been happening in recent months, the subway design interventions feature a curved reflective surface just overhead of the tracks, called a soffit. This gives people standing and waiting for trains the ability to catch glimpses of their surroundings without having to look behind their backs. “When you’re standing and waiting for the subway, you can see other people,” Weisz says. The soffit also visually tightens the station interior, making it feel more compact. “It closes down the space between the platform and the third rail on the tracks, so that you’re not as open to the whole track.”
[Image: courtesy WXY]
The idea behind these reflective surfaces comes from the world of hotel design, Weisz says. Hotel hallways and elevators are commonly outfitted with mirrors that let people see themselves but also, perhaps subconsciously, understand that they are also going to be seen by others in this public place. It’s a bit of social engineering informed by behavioral science that encourages more self-awareness and courteous behavior. The surfaces become like eyes on the platform.
[Image: courtesy WXY]
Adding these reflective surfaces could be a form of tactical design, improving conditions in subway stations without the need for a drastic and expensive redesign. But for a transit system with nearly 500 subway stationsand almost every one having a unique designmaking widespread improvements will not be easy. “Everything’s expensive, but I do think a couple of pilots in stations that are complex would go a long way,” Weisz says. “My hope is some of these discussions are going to bring money forth from philanthropy or from academia to do a couple of pilots that really get monitored and recorded to find out if this is changing how people feel in these spaces as they move through the subway.”
Weisz acknowledges that while the shoving attacks that have been reported in the subway system are rare, they’ve created outsized impacts on riders’ perceptions of safety within subway stations. To maintain the system’s essential role in the functioning of the city, she argues, those perceptions of safety must be improved. “Good design allows people to behave in a way that optimizes the use of public space in the system,” she says.
Weve been told that the future of work is all about freedom. Companies offer unlimited PTO, flexible hours, and asynchronous communication channels that we can access anytime. The promise is that fewer constraints will make us more empowered, more creative, and more connected.
Sounds great in theory, but in practice, that kind of freedom without structure often leads to chaos. Without clear boundaries, work becomes a blur. Expectations go unspoken, resentment builds, and ultimately, trust erodes. And the very flexibility meant to liberate us begins to wear us down. The healthiest organizations arent boundaryless; theyre boundary-wise.
Why Boundaries Matter More Than Ever
In todays workplace, where hybrid schedules, digital fatigue, and high emotional load are the norm, boundaries arent just a personal preference; theyre the cultural infrastructure. Consider this: 47% of employees say they feel burned out at work, and one of the top drivers is unclear or constantly shifting expectations. Meanwhile, 76% of remote workers report difficulty disconnecting from work.
A workplace without boundaries doesnt create engagement; it creates exhaustion. Boundaries arent about protecting hours but about safeguarding capacity in all its forms: the energy, focus, and attention we need to do meaningful work.
Many people resist the idea of boundaries because they sound rigid or limiting. But boundaries dont actually constrain our powerthey clarify it. Boundaries reinforce trust by setting expectations, expressing what we truly value, and defining where we end and others begin.
As workplace author Greg McKeown puts it: Constraints dont block progress, they shape it. A deadline forces a start. A boundary protects your attention. We need to stop thinking of boundaries as barriers and start seeing them as containersthe structures that give freedom its form. Boundaries dont prevent flow; instead, they create the conditions for it.
A Moment When Yes Was the Problem
I once worked with the leaders of an innovative climate tech company that was scaling fast. Responsiveness was a badge of honor, Slack was always on, meetings were rarely unscheduled and often urgent, and everything was an immediate yes. But beneath the surface, there was extreme fatigue, frustration, and blurred priorities. The culture looked high-performing on paper, but felt hollow in practice.
In a facilitated session, one team member admitted, I never know when Im allowed to shut off. And Im afraid that setting limits will make me look like I dont care.
That moment shifted everything. What followed wasnt a productivity fixit was a shared reset. The team introduced core hours for collaboration, quiet blocks for focused work, and Focus Fridays without meetings or Slack messages. Within weeks, their energy felt reinvigorated. A sense of clarity returned, morale improved, and creativity reemerged. The team didnt slow down; it just aligned itself using boundaries. When you stop trying to do everything, you make space for what matters most.
How to Build Healthy Boundaries at Work
Boundaries arent about shutting others out but about showing up with intention. Heres a simple framework I use with leaders and teams:
Be clear about your nonnegotiables. Before you can communicate boundaries to others, you need to define them for yourself. What lines cant be crossedwhether thats after-hours communication, personal ethics, or feedback norms? Clarity starts within, then becomes a shared agreement.
Articulate your boundaries early. Dont assume others know. Share them out loud, and revisit them when your context shifts. Setting boundaries isnt a one-time conversationits a leadership habit that evolves alongside your role and relationships.
Leave room for a buffer. Not every line is absolute. Build a pause zone for conversation and recalibrationthis could mean committing to a 30-minute delay before responding to nonurgent messages or setting up clear blocks in the week for focused work versus collaborative time. A pause zone creates space to respond with intention rather than react on autopilot.
Align with your values. A boundary that protects your time but violates your purpose wont hold. Make sure your boundaries serve your bigger why. The most sustainable boundaries are those that feel not only practical but deeply principled.
Notice your signals. Resentment, anxiety, and exhaustion are often signs that a boundary has been breached or needs reinforcement. Your emotional patterns are datalisten to them before they become burnout.
Communicate with care and clarity. Boundaries are an act of mutual respect, not a rejection. Consideration doesnt require an apology. You can be both direct and generousand thats often when boundaries land best.
Evaluate and evolve. What worked last year may not work now. Boundaries should shift with your life, your leadership, and your team. Revisit them regularly and treat them as a living part of how you work, not a fixed set of rules.
Boundaries as a Cultural Practice
Boundaries arent just personal; theyre also cultural. When leaders model them, teams follow. And when teams build them together, the results are measurable. Focus sharpens, collaboration becomes more intentional, burnout decreases, trust deepens, and innovation increases, not because people hustle harder, but because theyre working from a place of clarity and care.
Boundaries dont diminish connection. They deepen itbecause they make it safe to be fully present. Start by asking yourself and your team these questions:
Where in our work are we overextended, unclear, or always on?
Whats one boundary you need to set, or revisit?
Where is so-called freedom creating confusion or drift?
In work cultures without boundaries, people dont thrive. They scatter and self-protect, and eventually, they burn out.
But when leaders and teams get clear on their edgeson whats okay and whats notthey build something far more powerful: trust, clarity, creative energy, and a deeper sense of shared purpose. Boundaries arent a sign of disconnection, but a practice of alignment. They dont hold us back; they keep us together.
I dont know about you, but I usually cringe when I get my weekly Screen Time Report. Did I really spend that much time online? Turns out, Im pretty average. According to DataReportals 2025 Global Overview Report, adults worldwide clock in about six hours and 38 minutes on digital devices each day.
While being average is comforting, I know I could benefit from more time unplugged. Yet, the thought of a full digital detox feels scary.
It’s very hard to completely disconnect yourself, says Cristiano Winckler, director of digital marketing for Somebody Digital, a digital marketing agency. But anything in excess is going to have negative consequences. The question is, how can we still be present online, but not in a way that is going to cause anxiety?
Worries about being offline are common, and Winckler analyzed the most common perceived career risks according to Google Trend search data. He found three of the biggest concernsand why we shouldnt stress over them so much.
Being Inaccessible
People who work remotely often fear that a digital detox may portray them as inaccessible or out of the loop, says Winckler.
For example, in our organization we have lots of different ways of communicating with each other, he says. We have emails, WhatsApp, and Slack. Some clients like to use Microsoft Teams. If you’re managing three to five clients, you have to communicate with them, plus your team members. People are afraid of being inaccessible.
Instead of being tethered to message apps all day, get ahead of other peoples expectations. For example, let your team members know when youll be offline or are doing focused work. Winckler adds that organizations should implement policies that help their employees feel more confident placing boundaries around their time.
You don’t have to be 100% available all the time, he says. People will feel more comfortable having conversations, and they will become more efficient in dealing with certain tasks than before.
Missing Networking Opportunities
Social media, such as LinkedIn, can be a valuable networking tool, and another common worry is that a digital detox could cost opportunities if they dont act quickly enough. But that’s not the case, says Winckler.
People need to understand they do not control how their posts are going to be presented, he says. I sometimes get comments from people on posts that I published several weeks ago because LinkedIn and other social media platforms dont necessarily show that post to everybody on my network at the same time. They usually pace out the exposure.
Instead, Winckler recommends time-blocking an hour per week to go through your social media channels and interact and reply. You can still keep that networking element, which is quite important, while still keeping a good balance, he says.
Lagging Industry Awareness
In addition to networking opportunities, social media can serve as a real-time feed for industry trends and news. Implementing a digital detox may cause you to worry that youll fall behind on emerging practices and competitor updates.
If you completely disconnect yourself from important channels, you will definitely miss market trends, says Winckler. Everything happens superfast in the digital world, and I would not recommend that you disconnect completely.
Instead, utilize tools to curate content for you so you can spend less time staying current. For example, Winckler recommends using news alerts and filters. Or subscribe to channels and newsletters that package relevant information and events that happened last week in your field.
In the digital marketing world, for example, there are amazing channels on LinkedIn and other social media platforms that will summarize everything for you and will give you a snapshot of what you need to know, he says. You can consume what is relevant to you and spend more time on the topics that will have a direct impact on your career. Its using technology in your favor.
Finding Balance
You dont need to go offline for long stretches of time to improve your relationship with the digital world. While its natural to be concerned about being inaccessible, missing network opportunities, and industry awareness, its also possible to create balance with boundaries, leveraging technology as a tool and not let it take over your life and habits, says Winckler.
That’s a true digital detox, he says. The benefits outweigh the concerns of not always being available by quite a margin. It can take time to establish, but you will see a positive impact. The goal is to be present online, but not in a way that is going to cause anxiety.
Step inside a newly built apartment complex in almost any American city and you’re likely to find people congregating in an unexpected place. They’re not in the pool or the game rooms or the gym. The people are gathering in the mailroom.
Through an unusual collision of building codes, postal regulations, shopping habits, and a global pandemic, mailrooms have become a new kind of social space in apartment buildings. And designers are finding new ways of taking what has long been a utilitarian peripheral space and turning it into a central square where residents can dwell and interact.
Julia Lauve is an interior designer in Dallas and her firm Workshop Studio designed the mailroom for a recently completed 213-unit apartment building in suburban Lewisville, Texas. Instead of presenting a simple row of metal mailboxes, the mailroom appears to be more of a lounge, with a large U-shaped sofa in the middle, dark paneled walls, soft lighting, and wide carpeted floor. There are tables where residents can sit and open their mail or pull out a laptop, and doors to the street turn it into a waiting room for visitors or rideshare services.
“It pulls you in with some soft seating and invites you to stay there for a little while instead of just opening your mailbox, getting your three or four pieces of junk mail, tossing them in the trash, and leaving,” Lauve says.
The Mill [Photo: The English Den/courtesy Workshop Studio]
The mailroom is also front and center in the building, rather than hidden in some back room.
“It is an extension of the lobby and the community spaces within this property, instead of it being an afterthought and tucked away,” says Lauve. She’s created several other similar mailroom designs for apartment complexes in Texas, and there are residential projects from Arizona to Virginia where mailrooms are considered just as much of a resident amenity as a pool or a gym.
The Mill [Photo: The English Den/courtesy Workshop Studio]
Why mailrooms are such a desired perk
The mailroom’s sudden rebirth may seem random, but it has come about through a perfect storm of outside influences.
“A lot of it is driven by code,” says Sheena Brittingham, managing partner of Vida Design, an interior design firm based in Portland that has multiple mailroom design projects in its portfolio. Recent revisions to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) require large apartment buildings to have at least some mailboxes within a “reach range” between 15 and 48 inches from the ground, and many local jurisdictions require all mailboxes to fall within that range, adding more linear footage to the overall mailroom size.
Building codes that once required turning radii in hallways and common areas to be at least 60 inches have increased the minimum to 67 inches, adding additional space between rows of mailboxes. “[Mailrooms are] just getting larger and larger and taking up more space,” says Brittingham. “On most of our projects we’ve approached it like, let’s make this a beautiful experience and make it a place people actually want to come.”
That means putting more design touches into a real estate footprint that has swollen in size. Lauve’s project in Lewisville, Texas, for example, has about 8,700 square feet of amenity space on two floors, including a clubhouse, a gym, and a business center. Almost 1,000 square feet of that is dedicated to the mailroom. “It’s a lot of space,” she says.
The Mill [Photo: The English Den/courtesy Workshop Studio]
The main courier of mailthe United State Postal Service itselfhas also influenced this trend. Mail receptacle standards revised in 2020 now require that multifamily residential buildings locate their mailrooms “reasonably close” to the nearest place where a mail carrier can park their delivery vehicle, which many local postmasters have interpreted as a 100-foot rule of thumb. That’s brought mailrooms out of the dark corners and much closer to the front of the building, blurring the edges between mail infrastructure and the lounge-like lobbies and sleekly designed common areas many of these developments include.
Brittingham says her firm used this new condition to influence its design concept for a mailroom in a recent project in San Diego, which sets aside some of the mailroom’s counterspace for a typewriter that nudgs people to contribute to a public journal of sorts. “It’s trying to engage the residents a little bit more in an analog way,” she says. “Mail is such an analog experience that it’s kind of nostalgic.”
The Society, Bradbury [Photo: courtesy Vida Design]
Redesigning mailrooms for the work-from-home era
With the rise of e-commerce, dedicating more space to mail has become a modern necessity. “Anything that you could possibly need can be delivered to your door,” says Lauve. “People are now receiving all of this stuff from mail services, delivery services. So it’s become this behemoth amount of space that a developer needs to consider to make everybody happy.”
The Society, Ruby [Photo: courtesy Vida Design]
Parcel rooms and delivery lockers are now also part of the mailroom landscape, with an increasingly sophisticated array of hardware capable of handling the daily onslaught of deliveries too big to fit in a typical mailbox. Brittingham says some of her firm’s projects have invested in space and technology to make this process as smooth as possible for residents, including secure rooms with key-coded doors, video surveillance, and elegant lighting. “We want to really elevate that experience because everybody is going here almost every day to pick up their packages,” she says. “We don’t want it to feel like you’re going down some creepy corridor to get your stuff.”
Increased rates of package delivery is one side effect of the pandemic. Another is the growth of flexible work, which has turned many spacesintentionally or notinto places where people can do their jobs.
“We’re seeing a lot of overlap in any amenity space for cowork,” says Brittingham. “Any space or any surface where you give people an outlet and Wi-Fi, it gets utilized.”
Her firm’s mailroom design projects have built this reality into its designs, adding extra seating and tables to allow for people to linger or even decamp from their usual workspace. In post-occupancy studies of projects, Brittingham says the shared spaces within mailrooms are used regularly. “We see a lot of people coming down during the day and just sitting on their laptop or being on their phone in a public space and just wanting to be together in any common area,” she says.
The Society, Felix [Photo: courtesy Vida Design]
Building managers are also claiming these spaces for themselves. Brittingham says the loungelike atmosphere of the mailroom has become an informal area for a building’s leasing manager to meet with prospective tenants, closer to the ebb and flow of residential life, showing a glimpse of the social potential of living in a big apartment building.
The Society, Felix [Photo: courtesy Vida Design]
The reemergence of mailrooms is partly happenstance, but this space is becoming the heart of multifamily residential projects. It may be a more critical third place than the other conventional amenity spaces within these buildings.
“We’ve done arcade rooms. We’ve done golf simulators. We’ve done coffee shops that are attached as part of a multifamily property. So there is this chase for what is the most sought after amenity,” says Lauve. “What we have really found through our experience is it’s not the amenity, it’s community.”
Cultural planning has shape-shifted throughout its history, encompassing beautification initiatives, placemaking (and placekeeping) projects, and preservation work. But in the past decade, the field has accelerated significantly, according to Rana Amirtahmasebi and Jason Schupbach, the editors of The Routledge Handbook of Urban Cultural Planning, a new manual that compiles the most innovative programs, policies, and approaches to the discipline that have recently emerged.
A throughline? That creative wellness is essential to cities, and that everything from the climate crisis to displacement, tourism, public space, and infrastructure can benefit by centering culture and the people responsible for it. Its a provocative angle, considering how efficiency and technocracythe opposite of the difficult to quantify nature of culturestill dominate urban planning. As Amirtahmasebi and Schupbach write in the books introduction, cultural planning should be seen as a critical tool in the toolbox of building equitable communities and no longer as a siloed topic on the fringes of city policy.
The new manual, which clocks in at over 500 pages, features case studies from around the world on how arts and culture are entering urban planning in new ways. While the usual suspects of public art, museums, and cultural districts appear in the book, theyre joined by less expected approaches. For example, an essay describes how the Los Angeles Department of Transportations first resident artist helped pedestrian safety come across more urgently by centering real people and their stories instead of statistics in Vision Zero presentations. Meanwhile, a chapter on land trusts explores how new ownership models are combatting real estate speculation in Oakland, California.
[Cover Image: Routledge International]
We spoke with Amirtahmasebi, an urban planner and cultural strategist, and Schupbach, Dean of the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University, about their new book and what it means for the future of cities. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Congratulations on the book! What sparked it?
Rana Amirtahmasebi: The field of cultural planning and policy has come a long way, but there was really no book about its intersection with other sectors and challenges like housing, gentrification, environment, economic development, public health, and disaster risk management.
Jason Schupbach: We’re way beyond the just put a mural on a wall type of beautification projectalthough there’s an excellent article on murals in the book. Ideas are much more advanced today, but there hadn’t been a survey in almost 10 years, and there has been a massive explosion of thinking and networks and people in urban cultural planning. We thought, let’s get together all the people who are sophisticated about bringing cultural planning in conversation with other fields so that the handbook can be of actual use to people.
Tell us about some of those new ways of thinking. I was drawn to a quote in the book from Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, the former head of the National Endowment for the Arts, who argued that creative wellness is part of how we understand a good quality of life and that planners should take note.
Amirtahmasebi: What we missed as urban planners and policymakers is that we looked at the city as a bunch of sectors, like housing and transportation and we really didnt really think about how to bring all of them together. But the city is also a cultural construct. How do you make this into a place where people can live, thrive, and be happy?
In one essay, Dr. David O. Fakunle and his coauthors write about the creative process of storytelling and how it’s a powerful tool to address disinvested communities, loneliness, and public mental health. So arts and culture can cultivate opportunities for human-centered approaches to individual and collective healing, growth, and empowerment.
What are some of the new policies that represent a more integrated approach to cultural planning and cities?
Schupbach: Cultural land trusts are a big one. Were so challenged by land prices in many places, and culture is one of the things that will get priced out first. How do you hold on? Theres an interesting article by Dr. Angie Kim about community ownership in Oakland, California. There, the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is exploring new financing models to buy land that might otherwise go to real estate speculators. And Erika Hennebury, a cultural affairs officer in the City of Toronto, offers a survey of cultural land trusts in Toronto, Vancouver, London, and San Francisco.
Night mayors are another growing trend. Laia Gasch Caslas writes about how London implemented this policy, and theres so much practical stuff in there. When the area around the Ministry of Sound, the legendary electronic music club, began to gentrify, the city required new development to have triple-pane windows and soundproof walls. A housing development person might not have been concerned about something like that, but a person in the city government paying attention to culture at night was.
Guaranteed income for artists through programs that fund them to do work in communities is a new trend, toolike the Mellon Foundations $125 million Creatives Rebuild New York COVID-19 relief initiative. There have been some real interesting innovations, and it’s always in a place you might least expect where culture might intersect with city making.
Equity and justice are strong currents throughout the book. To rewind a bit, the conversation in the aughts around urban cultural planning revolved around orienting cities toward Creative Class in service of economic growth, which contributed to gentrification and displacement. You argue that just framing cultural planning from an economic perspective is limiting. Why is that an important distinction?
Schupbach: Cities are very complex things and you need every tool in your tool kit to try to make it better for all of the citizens. There are cultural tools, so why wouldn’t you use them? In the aughts, there was a strong economic argument that kind of rode a wave across cities around the world because of Richard Floridas The Rise of the Creative Class book. It opened a lot of doors for mayors and cities to start a conversation about urban cltural planning. So Im grateful for that. What Florida was talking about still matters, but we have a deeper level of sophistication about all the places that culture can help, and also how to build equity and justice.
This work has come way beyond the creative economy. It intersects with transportation, as Katherine Dirgas chapter on artists and transit planning explains. One chapter describes how a law lab at Northeastern University is working with community groups fighting housing instability.
Amirtahmasebi: In a lot of contexts, when we talk about culture, we have to assign value. There’s no other way. In some places, there are grants available to develop theater or music or create a mural. But in a lot of parts of the world, when that money is not available, you have to make a case. So I think that’s why the creative class argument was very appealing to a lot of my colleagues and myself at the time. When you go talk to a mayor of a secondary city in Asia or Africa, how can you say let’s build a theater when you don’t have sanitation or housing? It’s extremely difficult to quantify qualities like social cohesion and social capital.
Dr. Jackson says in the book that if you want to destroy a society, you kill the culture. It’s also true that if you want to build a society, you build their culture. It should be obvious, right? We shouldnt have to make an economic case for it.
Recognizing where value lies is another theme. You argue that culture bearers are important to center in planning and that expanding the fields understanding of who these figures are is critical. Can you share a bit more about this?
Schupbach: This concept of culture bearers is so important. It’s an inside urban cultural planning term, but it really is about who holds the culture in a place, and who passes it down. Everybody kind of knows who that is in their neighborhood probably, right? It’s not just about the formally trained artist. For example, altar makers in Los Angeles may not call themselves artists, but they are truly holders of the culture. There’s an article in the book on cultural asset mapping. It’s not just the number of artists and theaters; it’s really about digging deeper into what makes a place a place.
Where would you like to see urban cultural planning go next?
Amirtahmasebi: The next step is not thinking of culture as something that is completely separate from other sectors in the city. I would like cultural plans to be one chapter of the citys overall plan. A lot of times, cultural plans don’t speak to what is happening with planning departments in other parts of the city.
Schupbach: Theres huge potential in the under-explored public health space. Dr. Fakunle saw the power of storytelling in the loneliness crisis, as we talked about. Well, there are a lot of health crises. There’s a lot of stuff about art therapy, but how does it intersect with place in a smart way? And how does that connect to disaster?
We’re in a moment of creative destruction right now in the United States. A lot of stuff is being torn down. Im not so interested in the daily panic about the tear down; Im really interested in what do we build on the other side? What are the new policy ideas? What are the new structures we can build? Things are changing. A lot of things for a lot of people weren’t working before. Lets actually try to build something better.
What do you see as the ultimate outcome of cultural planning applied to the fullest degree?
Amirtahmasebi: The well-being of humans and being able to thrive, especially with intangible cultural heritage. To be the source of social and psychological resilience, especially in these times of hardship, everywhere in the world
Schupbach: Hard same.
The Routledge Handbook to Urban Cultural Planning is available from routledge.com.
In a new bag from Freitag, every partfrom the fabric to the zipper, straps, buckles, and the thread that holds everything togetheris made from a single material. The product is the latest example of a “monomaterial” design approach that some brands are beginning to use for a simple reason: It means that the products can actually be recycled when they eventually wear out.
[Image: Freitag]
Right now, a typical backpack or bag has components made from multiple different materials. Dismantling everything at the end of its life is too time-consuming and expensive to be feasible. But using one material makes it essentially as simple as recycling a plastic water bottle. “You can basically put that entire product into a shredder instead of taking things apart first,” says Elisabeth Isenegger, who leads international communications at the Switzerland-based, 32-year-old company. Then the material can be melted down and made into pellets to make something new.
[Image: Freitag]
The company chose a material called polyamide 6, which is commonly used in everything from textiles to toothbrush handles. Because it’s ubiquitous, there’s a market for recycling it. But it was a challenge to find sources for every component that they needed. Freitag also had to find a way to avoid a water-repellent coating that would normally be used on the fabric, but would have made the fabric unrecyclable. To do this, the company worked with one of its suppliers to develop a version of the fabric with three layers, laminated together, that was water repellent on its own. A backpack using the approach came out last year, followed by the smaller new bag, the Musette, that just launched.
[Image: Freitag]
If something breaks on the bag, consumers can bring it to a Freitag store and then the bag will go to one of the brand’s 10 global repair centers. (The team set up a new repair kit for the backpack and bag, since repairs can also only be made with the same material.) When the bag eventually wears out, consumers can bring it back, and Freitag will work with partners to recycle it; it’s not handled in typical municipal recycling centers. Before launching the first backpack, the company worked with the Switzerland-based Institute for Materials Technology and Plastics Processing to validate the process.
Ultimately, Freitag aims to become fully circular in everything that it makes. The brand’s best-known product, messenger bags made from old truck tarps, are already a form of recycling. But the company is now also working with trucking companies to test a new type of tarp material that can also be fully recycled after it’s made into a bag.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
The AI search landscape is transforming at breakneck speed. New “Deep Research” tools from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity autonomously search and gather information from dozenseven hundredsof sites, then analyze and synthesize it to produce comprehensive reports. While a human might take days or weeks to produce these 30-page citation-backed reports, AI Deep Research reports are ready in minutes.
Traditional AI queries deliver isolated answers to specific questions, while Deep Research tools conduct sophisticated investigations with dozens of interconnected searches. Its like the difference between a quick reference check and a thorough research expedition.
Nine Practical Ways to Use AI for Deep Research
AI research tools shine when you need comprehensive information on complex topics. Here are specific use cases where they excel:
1. Craft Custom Itineraries
Create detailed, personalized travel plans by specifying your destination, dates, activity preferences, budget, cultural interests, and whatever else is important to you.
These AI-generated itineraries often surface unexpected gems. When planning a family trip recently, my wife and I discovered a fantastic farm stay in Pennsylvania through a Perplexity query. We wouldn’t have found it otherwise. Use the results as a starting point to identify interesting possibilities, then follow up with targeted research.
Specify dietary preferences, accessibility needs, and your taste in accommodations, restaurants, and entertainment, for more tailored recommendations. Ive saved a block of text about this to reuse.
Use follow-up queries to get more specifics on attractions or activities that appeal to you, or to compare and contrast potential itineraries.
Example: Deep Research itinerary for a family vacation in Brookline, MA. Compare results from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot.
2. Compile Organization Reports
Get comprehensive backgrounders on companies, non-profits, or any organization in minutes rather than clicking through dozens of search results.
Compare similar organizations or competitors
Specify format. Maybe youd like a case study format, a topical report, a chronological history, or an industry context analysis.
Specify metrics of interest like funding history, revenue growth patterns, leadership changes, media coverage trends, law suits, or anything else you care about. For closely-held private organizations data may be scarce, so read results skeptically.
Advanced tip: Copy excerpts from Deep Research reports into Claude to transform them into visual dashboardsincluding charts and interactive elementsusing Claude Artifacts. You can share those with colleagues. Watch: Grace Leungs helpful video illustrates how and why to try this.
Example: Deep Research report on Trader Joes.
3. Research Notable People
Explore backgrounds of news figures, historical personalities, or even fictional characters. Request specific information like podcast appearances, YouTube videos, or published works to build a well-rounded understanding of the individual.
Ask about connections between the person and influential contemporaries
Ask for lesser-known background details or contributions often overlooked
Specify time periods to focus on particular life phases or epochs
Example: Deep Research on Michel de Montaigne.
4. Explore Complex Concepts
Learn about complex topics in any fieldfrom botany to venture capitalwith AI-structured explanations tailored to your knowledge level.
Ask for real-world examples, analogies, anecdotes, quotes, common misconceptions, and step-by-step explanations.
Ask for quiz or discussion questions to test your understanding.
After reading the report, generate an AI tutor with a Custom GPT, Gemini Gem, or Poe bot to further strengthen your understanding.
Example: Applications for AI in medical diagnosis via Gemini & Perplexity.
5. Discover Places in Depth
Investigate a places historical significance, cultural development, architecture, art, music, literature, or economic, social, or political history. I find this richer, personalized context can feel more resonant than a more generic travel guide.
Ask about little-known local events, hidden gems, or notable personalities
Specify your interest in fashion, architecture, history, sports, or whatever else
Products too: Get a backgrounder on a new type of oven youre considering, or pianos that might suit your home.
Example: Help me learn about Coolidge Corner in Brookline, Massachusetts.
6. Analyze Debates and Controversies
Explore complex controversies from multiple perspectives. Examine international conflicts, ethical debates, or local issues. Deep Research reports can present multiple viewpoints with examples and evidence to deepen your understanding of nuances. You can also ak for notable quotes and an annotated reading list.
Ask how the debate has evolved over time and who has been involved
Specify that you want evidence-based arguments from multiple disciplines
Ask for areas of common ground between opposing viewpoints
Example: Is generative art revolutionizing creativityor devaluing it?
7. Decode Cultural Works
Gain insights into books, paintings, music, or other creative works by exploring critical analyses, historical context, and expert interpretations. This works particularly well when you’re in the middle of reading a book or have just encountered an intriguing piece of art.
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art last week, I saw Tang Dynasty zodiac figurines and asked AI to help me learn about them. (More info & a generated image). Caveat: as a non-expert learning about something new, Im not always in a strong position to assess the merits of AI analysis. When in doubt, its helpful to have cited sources for gauging the quality of the information.
Request info about a work’s influence on subsequent artists or movements
Ask for analysis of technical innovations or stylistic elements
Compare interpretations of the book, play, poem, art, or piece of music from different time periods or cultural contexts
Example: Help me deepen my appreciation of Mozarts 5th Violin Concerto.
8. Explore Evolving Trends
Investigate linguistic, political, fashion, sports, arts, business, or cultural trends in a particular place or time period, or compare trends across cultures.
Ask for predictive insights about how the trend might evolve
Include in your prompt questions about counter-trends or critics
Request data visualizations if the trend has quantitative aspects, e.g. the Beanie Baby craze
Example: What are top AI training programs for journalists around the world?
9. Examine Historical Context
Explore historical events through multiple lenses – political, economic, social, and cultural. Direct your AI research assistant to focus on specific date ranges, if relevant. Ask it draw from diverse sources across countries and perspectives.
Request primary source recommendations
Ask for comparisons across countries, regions or time periods
Specify your prior knowledge so the report is tailored for your context
Example: Help me learn more about the history of the Dozier School for Boys.
When Deep Research isn’t your best option
Use other tools when youre not looking for a comprehensive research report, but instead want something quick, or for:
Simple factual questions like award winners or sports results are better addressed with basic Google or Perplexity searches.
Breaking news where online info is limited.
Multimedia searches may work better with specialized search engines, like Listen Notes for finding someones podcast appearances.
Paywalls If the open Web lacks relevant info, dont expect miracles.
Further Caveats
The bottom line: Check the source list before diving into a report. When you know of high quality sources, reference them in your prompt. This Claude thread helped me include high-quality sources for my Trader Joes inquiry.
Keep an eye out for errors. Verify info in these reports. The presence of citations doesnt guarantee accuracy. For example, some sources may publish estimates that get treated by an AI search agent as definitive data.
Research is only as good as its sources. Some subjects lack extensive source material. AI research reports may, in such cases, rely heavily on publishers with flimsy fact-checking or an axe to grind.
How to strengthen Deep Research queries
The quality of your prompt significantly impacts your results:
Be detailed about your topic, reasons for interest, and how you’ll use the information
Unlike standard Google searches where you only provide keywords, deep research queries benefit from detailed direction. Guide your AI research assistant on specific areas of focus, recommended sourcing, prior context, and formatting: how best to present its findings.
Specify your preferred tone & format tables, lists, pros/cons, bullets
Request tables for comparing options, pro/con lists for debates, or categorized lists for resources like podcasts, videos, and books. You can even customize language complexitygraduate-level analysis vs beginner-friendly simplicity.
Provide context about your existing knowledge and audience
Mention what you already know. If youll be sharing a report with colleagues, clarify that specific audiences context. If you want something brief, say so.
Be patient. Quality research isnt instant.
While Gemini and Perplexity typically deliver results within a few minutes, ChatGPT’s deeper analysis can take a half hour. The thoroughness of these results justifies the wait vs. instant but shallower search results.
This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
In my decades of working in cybersecurity, I have never seen a threat quite like the one we face today. Anyones image, likeness, and voice can be replicated on a photorealistic level cheaply and quickly. Malicious actors are using this novel technology to weaponize our personhood in attacks against our own organizations, livelihoods, and loved ones. As generative AI technology advances and the line between real and synthetic content blurs even further, so does the potential risk for companies, governments, and everyday people.
Businesses are especially vulnerable to the rise of applicant fraudinterviewing or hiring a phony candidate with the intent of breaching an organization for financial gain or even nation-state espionage. Gartner predicts that by 2028, 25% of job candidates globally will be fake, driven largely by AI-generated profiles. Recruiters already encounter this mounting threat by noticing unnatural movements when speaking with candidates via videoconferencing.
For many companies, the proverbial front door is wide open to these attacks without adequate protection from deepfake candidates or look-alike candidate swaps in the HR interview process. Its no longer enough to just protect against the vulnerabilities in our tech stacks and internal infrastructures. We must take security a step further to address todays uncharted AI-driven threat landscape, protecting our people and organizations from fraud and extortion before trust erodes and can no longer be restored.
Fraud isnt new, but it is taking a new form
Heres the thing: Synthetic identity fraud happens in the real world every day, and has for years. Think of the financial industry, where stolen Social Security numbers and other government identifiers allow fraudsters to open and close accounts in other peoples names and ransack savings and retirement funds.
The difference now is that hackers no longer have to lurk in the shadows. Instead, a synthetically generated person shows up to a videoconferencing meeting and speaks to you live, and 80% of the time, people will perceive the AI-generated voice as its real counterpart. How do you protect against that?
Interview impersonations are not new within HR. There have been cases where an employee’s family member interviews with a company, and a different person shows up on that first day of work. But as it becomes increasingly easier to create deepfakes (taking only about 10 minutes and a web browser), it becomes increasingly more difficult to differentiate between whats real and whats fake across applicants LinkedIn profiles, résumés, and the actual candidates themselves.
Preparing our HR departments for a new attack landscape
Unfortunately, HR teamsoften understaffed and using outdated techare frequently perceived as the weakest part of the organization by hackers and fraudsters given their lack of security focus (other than perhaps background checks). That makes the HR department the ideal entry point for an adversary.
Coming through the front door via the hiring process is often far easier and more fruitful for malicious actors than the back door (i.e., taking advantage of infrastructure vulnerabilities). Further, adversaries could even capture recordings of executives during the interview process for future impersonation attacks or gain access to product road maps or other strategic information that could compromise the company down the road.
HR leaders must be aware that fraud at the hiring level can take many different forms, but they cant be the only ones. The C-suite must also recognize these potential dangers to better equip HR teams to combat deepfake and impersonation fraud on the frontlines. For example, real-time deepfake video technology can be used to impersonate someone during virtual interviews, matching facial expressions and lip-syncing.
Fraudsters will also use sophisticated voice cloning to simulate accents, intonations, or entire voices. Tools that most people use every day, like ChatGPT and Claude, are being used to fabricate résumés and cover letters, and even code samples or portfolio materials tailored to specific job postings.
Information gleaned at any part of the interview process can be weaponized, including an organizations competitive strengths and weaknesses. The individuals who commit applicant fraud can repurpose information to solicit personal or confidential company information that can be used later for more severe extortion. We have already seen nation-states like North Korea leverage these techniques to infiltrate enterprises through their human resources departments.
Its time we reassess security at every level and within every process to protect against these threats that show no signs of slowing down. Proper policies and procedures must be in place to navigate and respond to these attacks in real time. From an HR perspective, this involves awareness training on deepfakes, policy development, and implementing solution deployment services throughout to prevent an attack.
With sophisticated tools, such as advanced audio and video content authentication and verification platforms that provide alerts if a threat of a deepfake is detected, we can also better detect and mitigate deepfakes, helping our teams understand exactly which aspects of a file are synthetic or manipulated.
Its no longer enough to authenticate who is accessing a system from the outside. As we increasingly rely on images, audio, and video for critical decision-making, we now have a vested interest in verifying that every piece of digital content we consume is deemed trustworthy and accurate. If we dont, were putting everyonecolleagues, executives, and ourselvesat risk.
Artificial intelligence: its not just for tech experts anymore. Instead, a heaping helping of free online resources has emerged. These classes are specifically designed to welcome beginners into the world of AI, even if they possess little or no prior technical background.
I selected these Coursera courses for their beginner-friendly approach, high ratings, and comprehensive coverage of foundational concepts and key AI domains.
AI For Everyone
If youre taking your very first steps into AI, “AI For Everyone” on Coursera is a great starting point.
The course requires no prior experience in AI or programming, making it truly accessible to everyone, and its got a reasonable completion time of around six hours.
The curriculum is structured into four modules: What is AI?, Building AI Projects, Building AI in Your Company, and AI and Society.
Google AI Essentials
Another good starting point for your AI journey is the “Google AI Essentials” course. It offers a unique perspective on Googles AI philosophy and features hands-on activities and real-world scenarios.
Similar to “AI For Everyone” mentioned above, “Google AI Essentials” is designed to be accessible to individuals of all skill levels.
The six-hour course is structured into five modules: Introduction to AI, Maximize Productivity With AI Tools, Discover the Art of Prompting, Use AI Responsibly, and Stay Ahead of the AI Curve.
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
For a slightly more structured and in-depth introduction to the foundational concepts of AI, the “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course offered by IBM on Coursera is an excellent option.
This 12-hour course aims to equip beginners with a solid understanding of core AI concepts, and incorporates videos, readings, assignments, and even hands-on labs.
The curriculum is divided into four modules that cover a range of essential topics: Introduction and Applications of AI; AI Concepts, Terminology, and Application Domains; Business and Career Transformation Through AI; and Issues, Concerns, and Ethical Considerations.
Introduction to Generative AI
Dont have 612 hours to get up to speed with the aforementioned courses? Skip right to the good stuff with the “Introduction to Generative AI” course, which offers an overview of . . . well, what most people are referring to when they mention AI nowadays (whether they realize it or not).
The course defines generative AI, explains its underlying mechanisms, describes the different types of generative AI models, and discusses how the technology is used in the real world.
It’s worth noting that this course is part of a larger “Introduction to Generative AI Learning Path Specialization,” so if you find the topic particularly engaging, youll be able to keep the good times rolling with additional courses.
Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office said Sunday.
Biden was seen by doctors last week after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule were found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.
While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” his office said. “The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.
Prostate cancers are given a score called a Gleason score that measures, on a scale of 1 to 10, how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells. Bidens office said his score was 9, suggesting his cancer is among the most aggressive.
When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it often spreads to the bones. Metastasized cancer is much harder to treat than localized cancer because it can be hard for drugs to reach all the tumors and completely root out the disease.
However, when prostate cancers need hormones to grow, as in Bidens case, they can be susceptible to treatment that deprives the tumors of hormones.
Many political leaders sent Biden their wishes for his recovery.
President Donald Trump, a longtime political opponent, posted on social media that he was saddened by the news and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.
Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, said on social media that she was keeping him in her family’s hearts and prayers during this time.
Joe is a fighter and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership, Harris wrote.
The health of Biden, 82, was a dominant concern among voters during his time as president. After a calamitous debate performance in June while seeking reelection, Biden abandoned his bid for a second term. Harris became the nominee and lost to Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House after a four-year hiatus.
But in recent days, Biden rejected concerns about his age despite reporting in the new book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that aides had shielded the public from the extent of his decline while serving as president.
In February 2023, Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. And in November 2021, he had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign, but potentially pre-cancerous lesion.
In 2022, Biden made a cancer moonshot one of his administration’s priorities with the goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next 25 years. The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a disease that had killed his older son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015.
His father, when announcing the goal to halve the cancer death rate, said this could be an American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things.
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By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press
Associated Press writer Jon Fahey in New York contributed to this report.
