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Review of “King Coal” in Planning Magazine

The film paints the rise and fall of the coal industry with broad strokes. In the 1930s, over 140,000 people were directly employed in mining in West Virginia. The industry fueled the regional economy and the expansion of manufacturing, transportation, and urbanization across the country and around the world. Today, fewer than 12,000 of these jobs remain, but the region remains steadfastly loyal to its roots. Told partly through the perspective of two young girls growing up in the shadow of “King Coal,” the film leaves the viewer to ponder not just the past but also the future of this industry, lifestyle, and culture.

See the full review in Planning Magazine.

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Review of “Concrete Utopia”

Concrete Utopia is a thrilling ride with real personal drama and deep insights into both human nature and the communities we build, all presented in a visually stunning and surprisingly fun package. Bonus: it has one of the most uplifting endings of any disaster film ever made, through a stroke of filmmaking genius that will literally change the way you look at the world.

See the full review in Planning Magazine.

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Celebrating Black Lives on Screen

In honor of Black History month, my February column in Planning Magazine highlights a number of recent films that celebrate Black lives, with an emphasis on stories of Black joy.

With these [more diverse] voices comes a much more complex range of characters, emotions, lives, settings, perspectives, and stories for the cinema, extending far beyond the pat narratives of the past — which even when sympathetic, all too often cast Black lives as being limited to the subjects of oppression, especially in the urban context.

As Imani Perry, professor of African American studies at Princeton University, wrote in the article “Racism Is Terrible. Blackness Is Not” last summer: “The injustice is inescapable. So yes, I want the world to recognize our suffering. But I do not want pity from a single soul. Sin and shame are found in neither my body nor my identity. Blackness is an immense and defiant joy.”

This profound yet simple notion is spreading and reframing the way mainstream film captures the experience of being Black in America…. With special attention to stories that explore the interaction of people, places, and planning, here are a few that planners can add to their streaming queue, this month and always.

See Planning Magazine for the full article.

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Mayors on Film

For my latest column in Planning Magazine, I discussed a number of recent mayors on the big (and small) screen, including thoughts on Fred Wiseman’s City Hall, David Osit’s Mayor, and the latest NBC sitcom starring Ted Danson, Mr. Mayor.

And, of course, I couldn’t resist including a shout-out to the unforgettable Mayor of Amity Island from Jaws, portrayed by Murray Hamilton…

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Traffic Separating Device (Johan Palmgren, 2018)

This short and quirky documentary (14 min.) captures what happens on a busy Stockholm street when the City Council votes to install a “spår-vidds-hinder” (a new-fangled device embedded in the middle of the road to allow buses, but not cars, to use a specific lane — or, as described more accurately by one of the locals, a “car trap”).

Along the way, there are more than a few flat tires and broken axles — and one missed ferry-ride leading (sadly) to an aborted birthday party. It’s humorous and light, but planners will recognize and identify with real world challenges presented as a well-intentioned traffic solution goes horribly off-road. In the end, the experiment delivers an important lesson: even the simplest urban planning interventions need to account for “the human factor.” (Or, in the words of one of bemused on-lookers, “It’s bloody hilarious. There are idiots, and then there are idiots.”) Notes to self: nobody ever reads signs, everyone assumes that the rules don’t apply to them, and people trust their GPS more than their own eyes.

Streaming online via PBS.

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