Education of Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce Engagement, Bad Travel Advice, & More
Around the College Towns: Links and commentary related to urbanism and higher ed for the week of Aug. 24 - Aug. 30.
Note: Around the College Town is my weekly links roundup article on urbanism and education. These posts mostly cover news that may have fallen through the cracks rather than the big events (well, I break this rule this week; sorry).
Bad Travel Advice
This week, an author wrote about how much fun she had when she discovered motorcycle riding. Agnes Callard, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and prolific writer, wrote how riding motorcycles felt like flying:
It took me a while to figure out that the answer was something even better than flying. My motorcycle was beautiful and cool and fun, but what it offered me was, at most, adventurous experiences.
It is a fine article, part of a travel series called ‘Journeys’ at “about the trips that change us.” My problem with it: it was written by the very same author who wrote the infamous “The Case Against Travel” article in The New Yorker two summers ago.
In the travel article, Callard questioned why people travel at all, saying that it does not change anyone. “They may speak of their travel as though it were transformative, a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience,” she groans. “But will you be able to notice a difference in their behavior, their beliefs, their moral compass? Will there be any difference at all?”
When I first read the piece, I thought it was callous and obtuse. I myself do like to travel and think it is good for us. But I was more annoyed as someone who advocates for study abroad—often a hard sell for American students. Going abroad as a youngster is often very much life-changing, as I have noted in my own experience.
To Callard’s credit, she did concede later in a random Twitter X response, “the claims in the piece prob apply better to older travelers… than to young people, for whom I grant travel is more likely to be transformative.”
Even still, the author herself had traveled fairly extensively, as she mentioned in the article, “For example, a decade ago, when I was in Abu Dhabi,” “This is how it came to pass that, on my first trip to Paris.” The argument felt like travel for me but not for thee.
It turns out, this is exactly what it was, because in the newest motorcycle piece, she lauds travel on two wheels. She talks whimsically about riding to upstate New York, learning about the trials and tribulations of the road. These trips riding motorcycles changed her, and she laments that she did not do more of it:
When I faced the choice between driving it across the country and selling it. With a heavy heart, I placed survival over fun, and got rid of my Virago. I feel like I got rid of something else, too.
I am sure all of these things are true, because these are things that happen to us when we travel. Travel is new experiences, growth, and transformational, all the things the author says don’t happen but admits happened to her on her motorcycle trips.
So be careful of where you get advice. Go travel, whether on a motorcycle or any other method. Don’t overthink it.
Links I’m Reading This Week
Education
In an incredible college football story, a Japanese national came to the US with a dream of becoming a football player. Not knowing English, he started out at a small school in rural Ohio before moving to the University of Hawaii. This week he kicked a game-winner against Stanford in a huge upset. This is why so many love college football.
Now, for why people are starting to fall out of love with it. College football is big business… for video games. Last year’s NCAA game was the top-selling sports game of all time. Now, EA wants to make the game bigger.
Vanderbilt just signed a 99-year lease for a campus in Manhattan. This is what I call the Age of Conquest in Higher Education (more on that in the future).
A Japanese city proposes limiting minors’ smartphone screentime. While mostly ceremonial, I think we’ll see more of this across the world.
Urbanism-ish
Nature takes a look at the declining birthrate around the globe. It does remind readers about how wrong Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968) predictions were. So perhaps we can innovate our way out of nosediving birthrates, too (I plan to write on this in the future).
NIMBYs in San Diego have been fighting development for years, even hiring their own consultant, may have finally lost. They say their main concern is evacuation. Taking this at face value, if it is so dangerous to live there, they should all have to move.
Southern states, and Texas in particular, are dominating the rest of the country in terms of apartment construction.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott just signed a massive housing bill, too. California should be embarrassed that Texas is lapping us like this.
But this does not mean Texas is NIMBY free. There is now a zoning fight in Dallas, with the same excuse as anywhere. Will Texas and the rest continue building or will they succumb to the same ills plaguing California?
Around Substack
Note: I also think it’s important to stay connected to the growing Substack community. Here are a few I am reading this week:
aka The Transit Guy has a thoughtful post on things he has gotten wrong in the past regarding his advocacy. I think having honest introspection about our passion and work is important.
has a new piece on the Walk Score metric and his local town of Durham. I have my issues with Walk Score, but the metric can give some broad strokes of a place.It’s a systemic failure, not a personal choice. Our inability to build enough family-friendly housing in urban areas pushes people out, and then we write them off as “anti-urban,” which only deepens the divide between city and suburb.
The lesson: don’t assume people in the suburbs are “the opposition.”
Walk Score isn’t just a planning gimmick—it’s about quality of life and affordability. Car dependency is one of the most underappreciated costs in a household budget. According to Experian, the average new car payment is now $745, or $9,000 a year, and that’s before gas, insurance, and maintenance. While nearly all American households still need a car, a high Walk Score can be the difference between needing two cars and needing one.
Closing Time… The Education of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's Engagement
I joked this week about trying to think of some way to shoehorn in the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce engagement into my Substack somehow. I first thought that the only way to connect it to either education or urbanism was to shoehorn it in. But I was wrong!
There is a viral video going around showing a college professor announcing that he has to cancel class because of the engagement announcement. It caused quite a stir online. According to the discourse, the incident supposedly illustrates what’s wrong with college today. Have a look:
Hello class, as you know, we were supposed to have a biochem midterm today, but Taylor and Travis just got engaged. Due to this information, I can't focus. You all can't focus. Classes cancel. Get out of here. We gotta get out of here. We need time to process disinformation.
The only problem is that the announcement by the professor is not real. It was a skit that Matthew Pittman, associate professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, came up with to have some fun with his class. He is in the School of Advertising and Public Relations, so he certainly knows how to get attention!
In the very same vein, a teacher over on the r/Teacher subreddit posted a supposed critical take on the Taylor-Travis engagement: “Taylor calling herself and Travis ‘teachers’ is stolen valor.” This was in reference to the initial Instagram post from Swift saying, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”
Well, people also got mad at the r/Teacher subreddit user. The only problem, yep, you guessed, this was also not serious:
See the humor tag, yall? THIS IS A JOKE. But thanks for all the lectures about what "valor" means and how pathetic my life is for even thinking my joke was funny. This post was dead for like 8 hours and then got brigaded by nasty folks.
I, for one, welcome Taylor Swift to the educator profession. In fact, my first teaching job was as an English teacher. So I can personally grant her a free pass here, just to be safe.
For me, it’s quite clear that both of these were bits and not real. But people are quite gullible online. It almost seems that they want to be outraged. And this combined things together that were already heavy in the culture wars: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce plus schools, teachers, and universities. As Taylor Swift posted at the end of her announcement: 🧨.