‘One city might have just cracked the housing crisis’
Binyamin Appelbaum at The New York Times
Vancouver is the “place that has failed most spectacularly in the basic work of building enough housing,” says Binyamin Appelbaum. But Canada has “returned 10 acres in the middle of Vancouver to the Squamish, the First Nation whose ancestors lived there” and “freed from Vancouver’s rules, the Squamish are providing the city’s residents with a chunk of the housing they so desperately need.” The area “will make a modest dent in Vancouver’s housing crisis,” but is a “rebuke to the surrounding city.”
‘Ocasio-Cortez appears to be recreating Obama’s multi-racial voter coalition’
Juan Williams at The Hill
Turnout is “key to this year’s midterm fight for control of Congress,” and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is “ringing the bell for people to rush the polls,” says Juan Williams. Ocasio-Cortez “looks to be intent on recreating the energy of the last Democrat to build a multi-racial coalition of Democratic voters,” as she “echoed Barack Obama’s 2004 appeal to Democrats.” The Democratic Party is “listening to a promising Latin beat mixing with the Black gospel thanks to Ocasio-Cortez.”
‘America’s charitable food system is missing a key ingredient’
Daniel Leckie at Newsweek
Many households have “turned to the charitable food system for assistance,” says Daniel Leckie. But “protein is missing,” and “many families receive diets built primarily around shelf-stable carbohydrates, which are cheaper.” This “should concern us all: As nutrition insecurity deepens, it fuels a parallel crisis in chronic disease.” As the “need for charitable food support grows, the system will have to evolve if it’s to provide the nutrient most essential for satiety, muscle development, metabolic stability and healthy aging.”
‘AI schools like Alpha promise efficiency, but can’t replicate the messy process that helps kids learn’
W. Ian O’Byrne at The Conversation
AI-powered “educational programs like Alpha School, a growing private network of schools, replace much of the school day with adaptive software that adjusts lessons to each student’s pace and abilities,” says W. Ian O’Byrne, the director of the Initiative for Literacy in a Digital Age. The “pitch is personalized learning” but the “deeper you look at how children learn, the clearer it becomes that this growing brand of alternative schools might remove the discomfort that often comes with learning — taking away what matters most as kids develop.”
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
