Articles by David Roberts
David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.
All Articles
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The Mustache and GM, again
A few days ago I noted that GM had responded to Thomas Friedman's attack. Today, Friedman responds to the response, and continues to beat GM around the head and shoulders.
Sadly, all this takes place behind the dread NYT Select wall, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
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Help Grist and Gristmill improve
On Wednesday and Thursday, the Grist editorial team will be at a retreat in our top-secret mountaintop redoubt, plotting world domination. As a result, there will be no Daily Grist and blogging will be light.
We're discussing the next steps for this little web magazine of ours, which is growing so fast and has so much potential.
So, what would you like to see for Grist? Or more particularly, for my own selfish purposes, what would you like to see for Gristmill?
Where do you want Gristmill to go? What do you want from it? More posts? Fewer? More guest authors? Fewer? Different subject matter? (Less energy, more wilderness? Less global warming, more population?) More avenues for reader participation? More avenues for activism and organizing? An email subscription option? A print-this-post option? Anonymous commenting? A pony?
Think big. Think small. Just think, and let me know what Gristmill would become if you were emperor.
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What should I ask Anthony Flint?
On Thursday, I'm going to be chatting with Anthony Flint, author of This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America.
Despite a modest revival in city living, Americans are spreading out more than ever -- into exurbs and boomburbs miles from anywhere, in big houses in big subdivisions. We cling to the notion of safer neighborhoods and better schools, but what we get, argues Anthony Flint, is long commutes, crushing gas prices and higher taxes -- and a landscape of strip malls and office parks badly in need of a makeover.
This Land tells the untold story of development in America -- how the landscape is shaped by a furious clash of political, economic and cultural forces. It is the story of burgeoning anti-sprawl movement, a 1960s-style revolution of New Urbanism, smart growth, and green building. And it is the story of landowners fighting back on the basis of property rights, with free-market libertarians, homebuilders, road pavers, financial institutions, and even the lawn-care industry right alongside them.Flint is a longtime journalist and author on the subjects of urban planning, density, sprawl, land use, and related matters about which I am highly interested but woefully ignorant. Hopefully I'll learn something.
What should I ask him?
