5 Years Since COVID, Disappearing Seoul, My New Celeb Colleague, & More
Around the College Towns: Links and commentary related to urbanism and higher ed for the week of March 7 - March 14
Note: This is my weekly links round-up article, where I provide commentary and links from things I am reading. There is a lot of higher ed stuff happening right now. But I am not really focused on the big stories with these posts. If you want a breakdown of the Trump admin, head over to my friends at the Chronicle or Inside Higher Ed—they’ve got you covered. I’m doing stories that are a little different, local, or those that may have fallen through the cracks.
COVID 5th Anniversary
Five years ago from this week, the NBA canceled the OKC-Utah game and halted its entire season, marking what many consider the real start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. While other countries were already dealing with it by then, the US was mostly going about business as usual. That NBA cancellation was like our Pearl Harbor—pulling all of us in right then and there.
When I first saw it was the fifth anniversary, I figured I would for sure write a full reflection article covering all the changes to education, society, and the broader world. But after thinking more on it, I just couldn’t muster anything beyond this short commentary. There is a story to tell—about generations, growing up, getting old, going crazy—and I will tell it one day. But you may have to wait for the ten year.
Higher Ed News
Texas Tech Dorm Update
Last week I covered the dorm right next to the Texas Tech campus that was being protested. Update: The city council just approved the development. The hilariously sad part of it is that the compromise with the locals is the developer will add another 100+ parking spaces. Again the complaints were about how dangerous the road between campus and the apartment will be, and the solution is adding more parking spots. It is hard for me to take these complaints seriously.
More Higher Ed News
University of Wisconsin–Madison plans to demolish an old post-war building (read: ugly) that has $70 million in deferred maintenance. The replacement will also include housing. Win-win!
At Berkeley, 11 girls share one seven-bedroom, three-bath house. This is what happens when college towns don’t build enough housing.
UConn can no longer keep its housing guarantee for students, angering students and parents.
In reverse news, students at Texas State protest policy that requires freshmen to live on campus.
Chinese students are flocking to Japanese arts colleges.
Old retired Chinese are turning to study abroad for their twilight years. “People aged 50 and above accounted for 20 percent of study tour participants, up from just 3 percent in 2019.” Wow!
The Economists reports that young people have been getting happier after a sharp decline a few years ago.
A professor colleague of mine writes a critical reflection on academia and what it will take to save it. Here are his main points (what do you think?):
Hire more conservatives.
Abolish the grant system.
Do tenure audits.
Plan beyond DOGE and reflect.
Given all the job cuts, someone started a public job board for Education Data, Research, and Policy Positions.
Urbanism News
Seoul is Losing Old Fashion (and Cheap) Restaurants
Old-fashioned restaurants in Seoul are going extinct. These baekbanjips serve cheap, home-style food that has traditionally attracted students and other local patrons alike. It seems that high prices and changing tastes are leaving these places with fewer customers, forcing them to shut down.
It hurts my heart to know that they are dying off. When I taught English in Korea and later in grad school these places were a staple of my diet. I would probably eat at a local baekbanjip at least once or twice a week for the three years I lived in Korea. It is truly sad to see these places disappearing.
Other Countries Teaching American Cities Urbanism
A Nashville man who moved to China wants the Chinese city of Shenyang to help build a subway system in the Tennessee city. He argues that the subway has greatly benefited the smaller (relative to China) city of Shenyang, and Nashville should have one, too. I get it, I was radicalized by the urbanism I saw when I went abroad once upon a time.
But don’t laugh at the guy from Nashville—learning from another country is maybe not such a crazy thought. The Dutch Embassy just released an article on how they are helping Austin become more like Amsterdam through bike infrastructure. I’d love to see more of this.
Other Urbanism News
Some are calling this new metro station in Paris “the most beautiful in the world.” Honestly, I think it’s kind of ugly. Sorry. Give me the classics.
Brompton has a new foldable e-bike that is gorgeous. The price… is… well… it is an electric foldable Brompton bike after all.
California set to launch a Bike Highway Pilot Program. Awesome! Perhaps I will get to ride it in 2077 when it might be completed (that was a joke, there is no planned completion date as of yet).
But there is some beautiful biking infrastructure going in Santa Monica here in Southern California. We need more of this everywhere.
Speaking of LA, its Metro system has seen robust growth for 26 consecutive months. Celebrate the small wins.
Around Substack
Note: I also think it’s important to shout out some fellow Substackers who I am reading here this week. Here are a few:
at discusses the disaster that is California high-speed rail. Living here, it’s such a bummer to hear about what could have been if not for the terrible politics of the state.
at the reports on new research that seems to find boys are graded harder than their girl counterparts.SNCF’s plan would skip over the cities in the San Joaquin Valley and the high desert. But it would make for a faster and more direct route between San Francisco and LA, with far fewer potential property disputes and complex track structures along the way. This concept was more likely to be profitable than the state’s plan, SNCF believed. But once it became clear that California would not deviate from its initial route map, SNCF packed up and left.1 Instead, the company ended up building a high-speed rail line in Morocco that opened in 2018.
at Substack writes on one my favorite hobbies: complaining about modern architecture.boys outperform girls when grades are blind, but the opposite is true when teachers assess their own pupils: girls’ average score at the beginning of grade 6 is 0.147 points lower than boys when the score is blind, but it is 0.170 points higher when the score is non-blind.
Modern architecture threw away significant accumulated knowledge and insight into the human condition. Traditional architectural vernaculars emerged over thousands of years. The rich heritage of Iranian architecture is an excellent example, illustrating that these questions go far beyond Western intellectual and political quarrels.
Finally… Welcome Steph Curry to Higher Ed Administration!
