Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
Works in Progress is a magazine of scientific, technological & economic progress. Pitches: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/how-to-write-for-works-in-progress
The new episode of the Works in Progress podcast is out now, with a conversation about the intangible economy, public funding for social science, and more, with @stianwestlake. Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6HhVJE… Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sti… Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=unGux1…
I was joined by Stian Westlake to talk about the intangible economy, govt funding for social science, why restaurants can't scale, and why it is that cities like San Francisco have become such powerful magnets for economic activity. Plus: • Why London dominates Britain's…
An idea whose time has come: The End Kidney Deaths Act worksinprogress.news/p/the-end-kidn…
🚨It’s time for a new issue of Works in Progress 🚨 Read Issue 19 to find out: - What we can do to eliminate lead in the developing world - How Japan successfully densified its cities - The best way to build good railway networks, cheaply And much more! worksinprogress.co
It's time for another WIP article about how mass transit can be affordable for even smaller places. Today: how "Tram trains" can effectively create new metros for small cities the size of Stoke-on-Trent or Coventry. worksinprogress.news/p/tram-trains
New from me @WorksInProgMag about a great idea to improve transit all around the world (but especially in Britain) – the tram-train. By running trams onto suburban railway lines, cities can get big transit networks at comparatively little cost. worksinprogress.news/p/tram-trains
Yesterday’s news to protect PEPFAR from budget cuts will likely save millions of lives. PEPFAR is one of the biggest global health successes in history, as Saloni describes in the inaugural episode of Hard Drugs. youtube.com/shorts/JEmXK6b…
The most life saving taxi-ride in the history of the world? How a USAid official learned traditional cars without cathalitic converters could run on unleaded gasoline and started Africa's path to eliminating lead. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-end-…
I had no idea that inflation targeting, now used by every major central bank, was born out of a New Zeland policy maker's (FM Roger Douglas) despair rather than an economist or central banker brainy paper. A surprising story in @WorksInProgMag worksinprogress.co/issue/how-one-…
I sat down with Samuel Hughes and Ben Southwood to discuss THE GREAT DOWNZONING. Why did the world ban housebuilding in a matter of years in the 20th Century – and what can this tell us about changing course? Samuel (@SCP_Hughes) explains why zoning was so popular in cities as…
The Great Downzoning: when the world adopted zoning laws and other rules banning housebuilding. Why did it happen? What made it so popular? And can we learn its lessons to make a Great Upzoning happen? Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sam… Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/3SiNrPYpk… Youtube:…
I sat down with Samuel Hughes and Ben Southwood to discuss THE GREAT DOWNZONING. Why did the world ban housebuilding in a matter of years in the 20th Century – and what can this tell us about changing course? Samuel (@SCP_Hughes) explains why zoning was so popular in cities as…
We finally have a painkiller for post-surgery pain that isn’t an opioid. And unlike our other powerful painkillers, it isn’t addictive, doesn’t cause euphoria, and doesn’t risk shutting your heart down in an overdose. worksinprogress.news/p/the-first-no…
Opioids cause dependence, tolerance, and ultimately because of those, an awful lot of overdose death. Journavx, the first non-opioid painkiller, may allow us to avoid an awful lot of this worksinprogress.news/p/the-first-no…
Now that the situation in D.C. has been monitored™️ we figured it’s the perfect time to host a @stripepress pop-up 📚 Join us this Saturday at Signal House from 1-4 for books, coffee and pastries, and some of my favorite merch to date \o/
Japan is famed for its flourishing urban life, with peerless infrastructure and vibrant urban density. The bewildering image below is Tokyo's rail map, the world's most extensive network, and one of the true wonders of the world. But it was not always so. Japan entered the…
About 35,000 hectares of Japanese urban land, or a third of the total, was replanned and upzoned by supermajority vote. This is how Japan builds urban roads, and builds support for upzoning (eg around train stations to fund transit). worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-r…
Catch up with this week's new issue of Works in Progress here. worksinprogress.news/p/issue-19-ame…
The FDA has a special fast-track for animal drugs, allowing drugs that are safe to go to market before their efficacy has been fully determined. If we did the same for human drugs, it could be a game-changer for speeding up access to lifesaving drugs. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-secr…
Across the world, cities struggle to build new infrastructure because property owners fight new development. There is one big exception: Japan. Read how Japan has managed to keep building new urban railways and more, and how we can learn from it. worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-r…
Lead poisoning causes 5.5 million premature deaths a year through heart disease alone - more than die from unsafe water and poor sanitation, and almost as many as die from air pollution. But eliminating lead poisoning might be simpler than you think. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-end-…
Cities all around the world have found a way to upgrade Victorian railway lines into something close to modern metros. In our lead article @carto_graph explains how they did this, and the opportunities it offers for cities across Britain. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-magi…