I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why architects continue to have one of the lowest rates of unionization in the professions. My book tackles the question from a class perspective, exploring the ways that architects have “over-identified” as creative individuals, and how these ideologies prevent them from organizing themselves through an understanding of their labor power. This myth continues to hold architects and other designers hostage in their attempts to improve their conditions. But I think there’s something else holding them back: their expertise.

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Strengths and weaknesses

I had a professor in grad school who taught through the idea that our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. It might sound cliche at first, but I found the idea profound. That is that the things we are inherently good at also hold us back from confronting our weaknesses. It also helped that this professor was a keen observer of the design process in students. I’ll use my own “design sensibilities” as an example.

In my first semester, my professor noticed that I was really good at solving problems. Give me a studio prompt and I could quickly come up with a rational, thoughtful solution. But this tendency to jump to an answer meant I was too quick to eliminate problems. In other words, by solving the prompt so quickly I had the tendency to eliminate the difficult but rich terrain of creative discovery. While problem-solving an important skill in any design practice, as a professor now I believe that in design school it’s essential to not only learn content, but learn how you learn. During this formative time, directly confronting the areas that you are uncomfortable with is the way you will learn the most.

So what does this have to do with expertise? It means that architects have been trained too well, and for so long, with so much abuse, that they often think they have the best solution for any given problem. Another way of putting it is they know enough to be dangerous. Or maybe ineffective.

There’s power in the union

For me, unionization is the clearest path towards solving our industry’s problems. Not only have I spent a lot of time researching and organizing around this topic, but the evidence is clear: industries with high union density are better for workers in every way. And more unions lead to better conditions for all workers. Without them, inequality increases. For a profession struggling with long hours, low pay, barriers towards advancement, and general recognition, it’s crystal clear that unions would solve a lot of the problems we’ve all been complaining about. So why aren’t architects doing it?

I’ve heard every excuse in the book: “the work is hard”, “it just doesn’t work in our industry”, “there are other ways to organize”, “we won’t be profitable” etc. etc. The general thread is that unionization just won’t work in architecture. Let alone the fact that this is a logical fallacy because it’s never been tried, and hence an unprovable proposition, the claim is really wrapped up in something deeper.

While at first it might appear to be defeatism, or general apathy, I think this common response has more to do with the fact that architects generally like to think they already have the best solutions to a given problem.

Conversations generally go something like this: “Sure we have a few issues in the office, but we solve difficult problems every day. Why should we resort to something that desperate workers use? Surely we can figure it out on our own.” Appeals from bosses to find a “third way” or come to terms like a family often win out in unionization efforts. By the time a long campaign has gone on for months, workers are typically ready to solve the problems “on their own.” Momentary solidarity returns to apathetic individualism.

Our problems aren’t our own

The problem is conditions continue to get worse, and not just for architecture. In a recent post, political analyst wrote about a New Yorker article called “How I Became a Subaru Socialist.” Disclaimer: I both am a Socialist and own a Subaru. But because I don’t have a subscription to the New Yorker, I’m relying on Quartz’s thoughtful take (anyone want to send me a gift post??). In her article, Quartz mentioned the general trend of degradation across the professional world:

Kang rightly points out that many of the fields that attract college-educated millennials—“academia, the arts, the entertainment industry, even advertising…have far less stability than they once did.” For many of us, and I’ve experienced this firsthand, it feels like a broken social contract. I’ve been embedded in social circles where everyone has fancy degrees and professional credentials from the highest levels of our institutions, but experience regular periods of layoffs, poor pay, and unemployment. And yet, for some, as Kang admits happened to him, the bargain eventually does deliver some version of an upper-middle-class life. Which keeps the rest of us hanging on.

If they were to look around, architects would realize that their problems don’t look so unique. But this is the inherent hubris buried within expertise. That is, the general tendency to believe that it’s possible to solve long-term structural problems through individualized, specialized means.

Conditions in architecture aren’t degrading because our culture is off, or because we just need a slight values-based realignment. It’s happening because general economic conditions are eroding the quality of life for all workers. Importantly, Quartz identifies that such problems also require a shared knowledge to both diagnose and solve them:

The strangeness of the times—the existential nature of the climate crisis, the impending AI revolution—all make a compelling case for quick, radical change. But we should be wary of trading one set of hope and change for another. Building something more durable will require admitting one of democracy’s thorny but necessary foundations: knowledge is complex, it’s dispersed, and it’s dangerous when monopolized.

In other words, no group, profession, or identity can rely on their own understanding alone to address their deepest problems. It takes an act of solidarity that can brings various perspectives and ideologies together. In an age of polarization and division, unions are one of the few remaining institutions that can do just that.

Disabling expertise?

I want to be clear: this is not a rant against the general idea of expertise.

In Ivan Illich’s notorious book Disabling Professions, the philosopher and his compatriots argue that the idea of expertise expressed through professionalism has been a net-negative for society, and that “Professionals assert secrete knowledge about human nature, knowledge which only they have the right to dispense.” Gatekeeping is indeed a problem in architecture. There are far too many barriers in the form of education and exams that limit the possible number of participants in the industry.

But at the same time, specialized knowledge in this form takes a long time to develop, and we need expertise when it comes to things like designing buildings with complex systems. Through their education, architects learn to practice the fine arts through drawing and model making. They also have to learn all the creative software of other industries on top of their own. By the time they graduate, they have one of the most well-rounded educations of any discipline.

Further, architects have a unique skill set within the building industry that allows them to see the whole of any given projects. Through this they make connections between trades while others are better focused at solving specific issues. And I genuinely believe that the United States would be much better off if more architects were involved with more everyday building design. This is a long way of saying that architects know a lot about a little.

The problem becomes when expertise built on a breadth of knowledge is viewed as sufficient. When it comes to labor, this self-confidence limits the potential of such professionals to view themselves as part of a larger working class and act on those shared problems.

The last essay in Disabling Professions, “Craftsman into Babysitter” by Harley Shaiken (the best in my opinion), cuts directly to this issue, in the sense that the problem isn’t expertise per se, but the small number of people who dictate how we use our expertise:

The degradation of work is rooted in industrial society itself. In order to make work a creative and meaningful part of life it is necessary to create a society in which people control the productive process democratically by deciding what, how, when and for what purpose production takes place.

This Bravermanesque insight is key: that without bringing democracy to our workplaces, we’ll never bring democracy to our society, even in the sense of bringing architecture to all. Or, as Shaiken puts it, “People will only begin to fully realize their ‘creative potential’ when work ceases to be a separate and compartmentalized part of life.” But maintaining the status quo - relying on our own institutionalized forms of expertise - will never achieve those goals, let alone seriously improve working conditions.

In this sense, for architects, the greatest strength of our specialized knowledge is also the very thing holding us back. The profession has gone through radical periods of change before. With all that’s going on around us, it’s hard to argue we’re not in a similar period right now. As the great labor organizer Eugene Debs said, “Progress is born of agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.”

No doubt architects have stagnated, but it’s never too late to agitate.

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For the first time in a long time, this summer I found myself without full-time work. This was an active choice on my part having retired early from professional architectural practice in order to teach, organize, and write more. But within this space I found myself thinking about the cost and opportunity of spare time.

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It started when a friend of mine asked me to come to his daughter’s Pre-k class to talk to them about being an architect. I was mortified. While a big part of my life is teaching, it’s at the college level, and even there I struggle with the immaturity of freshman. What was I going to talk to four year olds about?

As much as I struggle with my profession, I settled on reading Iggy Peck architect, and I won’t lie - it was a hit. I couldn’t believe how many questions and thoughts these future architects had about buildings. They asked about fire escapes, building materials, and shared their own designs they had been working on. Even the teachers were in on it. I left the school buzzing and laughed at how nervous I was before I went.

With the ample time I had ahead of me, the next week I looked for other opportunities and settled on working with the Prospect Park Alliance. In addition to supporting the park in other ways, the organization pairs volunteers with basic projects around the park. For the rest of the summer, I spent Thursday mornings pulling weeds, painting lamp posts, and spreading mulch. Some of the work felt impactful, and some of it felt like the gardening equivalent of paper pushing. But after years of sitting at a desk and staring at a screen, it felt great regardless of what we were doing.

The best part though was meeting the other retirees, teachers, jobseekers, and new-New Yorkers. I met park service members new to the city who taught us about forest management in Utah, witnessed a lawyer find a job through a fellow volunteer at the park, and heard stories from a self-proclaimed socialist anti-Zionist who struggled with his own family’s deep affinities to Israel.

In multiple ways, it was a chance to confront the entrenched problems big and small around us. When weeding, we were getting rid of the invasive plants that were choking out the good ones while helping to maintain the infrastructure of the park. If you let these plants go, they not only make the park uglier, but they can easily destroy the things that look and feel permanent. It’s impressive what weeds can do to pavers and park benches if left unattended.

But we were also doing something that feels rarer these days: meeting people we didn’t know. Not only did this give us with spare time on our hands a chance to connect to our neighbors, but actual things came out of it. I assumed that when I no longer saw some of the unemployed folks, they had found a job. And like I mentioned, more than one of these came through volunteer connections.

In other words, when we were removed ourselves from the daily grind of things that appeared more important, we got a chance to look at things a little differently. I think this is something that in our overworked, over-digitized and too-isolated society we’re in desperate need of.

A lot of life is like this. We let problems that seem unimportant fester, until they aren’t. Take social media. What was promised as a utopian form of community has devolved into a cesspool of misinformation, body-shaming, and pointless consumption. Gen Z has higher rates of depression than many before them. Correlation doesn’t mean causation, but social media certainly isn’t solving any problems. The worst part is we all know something is off but continue to participate, hoping someone else will fix the problem. But the roots are deep now, and the task of cleaning up the mess is Herculean.

I think this is a crucial question for socialist politics. That is: how do we afford people more time to pursue projects of care? And how do we incentivize them to do so? I wrote about the idea of mandatory public service for Democracy at Work’s substack, which is one possible path. There are many other ideas. But first we need to collectively decide that material well-being includes not just economic security, but a politics of care and community.

In architecture, we’re taught to value new things above all else. This is fair in a lot of ways. But the line between necessity and vanity is blurred, and the reality is a lot of the economic activity that supports architectural practice today boils down to rich people tired of the way their kitchens look. And we often forget that the things we’re designing aren’t permanent, just like the benches in Prospect Park. What would architecture look like if it focused on maintenance and care?

Others have written about this, but I like the idea of a public office of architecture that residents could tap into for necessary repairs and renovations to their homes, for example. This would do two things: first, it would bring design expertise to people who typically can’t afford it, and second, it would force architects to interact with people and projects they don’t normally have the chance to. For a profession that has become cloistered to revel at projects for and by the wealthy and prop up its own self-referential culture, it’s a chance to make itself relevant and useful to the broader public once again.

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One of the questions I kept asking myself this summer was: why do we try to talk ourselves out of doing things that we know will be good for us? And others?

I’m no stranger to service having done AmeriCorps, but it’s easy to feel like I’ve checked the box and don’t need to do more. But nothing could be further from the truth. Every time I didn’t feel like heading to the park to volunteer for a few hours, I was reminded within minutes of why I kept coming back. It’s a psychological (and philosophical) question that keeps churning, but the reality is as humans we’re wired to chase comfort and minimize discomfort. Which is what makes contemporary issues like AI so dangerous, as it removes any of the resistance required for important things like real learning and dialogue. But it also incentivizes us to continually chase new shiny things while neglecting to care for the existing institutions around us.

I think one thing we can all agree on is something needs to change, and soon. While it’s not a panacea, volunteering, service, and the work of care could go a long way to reorient us to not only things that matter, but things that make us feel good about each other.

We should absolutely keep fighting for the 4-day work week, universal healthcare, social housing, and the big policy goals that could transform American society. But at the same time, we better have some ideas about how to fill the time and opportunities that comes with these policies. Otherwise, we’ll be spending all our time weeding instead of building.

“You’d be hard-pressed not to like the new $450 million Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.” So begins the glowing review of Snohetta’s latest work written by perennial architectural optimist Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times. Unfortunately for him, it was quite easy for me to find many things not to like.

I’ll start with something I do like: the design is pleasing to the eyes. The curved rammed-earth walls and geometric wood ceiling are a nice play on the ecology of the area. And overall the building sits relatively modestly in the site, important given the low-lying expanse of this area of North Dakota.

If one remains there, that is looking at the building as an object, it is a success. I’m sure it will win awards. But buildings are much more than that, and today’s criticism is still trapped in the tendency to treat architecture like art instead of a complex web of ecology, economics, history, and labor.

This last point is especially important given the fact the firm responsible for the design of the building, Snohetta, is currently involved in hearings with the NLRB having been accused of firing employees who tried to form a union. No where is this mentioned by Kimmelman (even though it was reported on by his newspaper). Instead, we get yet another dose of the mythology of the creative genius. In particular, Kimmelman shares an anecdote about Craig Dykers, the principal of Snohetta, finding Zen-like inspiration in the vast empty (for now) plateau. What we don’t hear about is his employees - the ones who really made the project possible - simultaneously toiling away in the studio with an impending expiration date on their employment.

As far as the ecology claims, I’m skeptical to say the least. There are interesting components like the Native Plant Project which will help conservation efforts in the area. Surely building a massive building the size of a football stadium can’t help with this effort though. It may “reflect the landscape”, but I have a feeling leaving it alone would have been more helpful. I think Teddy might agree, as the approach of conservation was at the heart of the National Parks Movement. Or using even half of the $450 million for real conservation and restoration efforts could have helped. Probably a good idea given the state of the air quality in the region lately.

And yes, the walls are made of earth, and many are covered in green roofs, but an analysis of the carbon generated in the construction of this building would surely offset any of the other environmental claims. Shipping the building materials alone must have generated tons of carbon. Not to mention the thousands of new visitors the site will draw in their cars. The whole thing smells of greenwashing.

What about the economics? I can think of several other things that would $450 million dollars would be better spent on. Sure, it was mostly private donations, but the arrangement is just another sign of our sick dependence on philanthropy by the ultra-wealthy to build anything of significance in this country. It’s also problematic in the sense that major decisions like these are becoming less and less democratic, with those who have money buying access and influence. Ironic considering who this library is honoring.

Kimmelman, like many architectural critics, is not a trained architect. If he were his writing might be more like the late-great Michael Sorkin, who spared no words eviscerating his architectural contemporaries when they betrayed the spirit of the profession. But Kimmelman is a trained historian, and I would expect more here regarding the president for who this building was built.

While he touches a bit on the history, Kimmelman barely nods to Teddy Roosevelt’s past as a key figure in the progressive movement. What would Teddy have thought if his library had been designed by a firm credibly accused of union busting? Considering the focus of his administration, I think he would have had a few issues.

Theodore Roosevelt was a complicated figure to say the least, also known for his imperialist gallivanting and racist worldview. But central to Roosevelt’s emerging presidency in 1901 was the “Square Deal”, a pillar of progressive policies that sought to reign in rampant corporations that were degrading the quality of life for everyday people. While Roosevelt wasn’t the champion of working class causes like his distant cousin FDR, many of these policies paved the ground for what would be achieved later by the New Deal.

The Square Deal focused on three primary areas: corporate regulation, consumer protection, and conservation of natural resources. Through this program, Roosevelt attempted to strike a balance between the needs of corporations and people, a far cry from the bold program of the New Deal. But its tenets were certainly concerned with rebalancing power in the United States:

Treat each man according to his worth as a man. Don’t hold for or against him that he is either rich or poor. But if he is rich and crooked, hold it against him; if not rich but crooked, then hold it against him. But if he is a square man, stand by him.

Roosevelt embodied the best parts of this ethos when intervening on behalf of striking workers in the anthracite coal strike settlement of 1902, helping them to win a 10% wage increase and shorter working hours. It can also be seen in his administration’s willingness to tackle runaway capitalism through using government regulated railroad rates.

In the era of muckraking journalism and corporate reforms that followed Teddy’s presidency, many important steps were taken in protecting the rights of workers. Secretary of Commerce and Labor Charles Nagel had these issues at the top of his mind during an industrial safety conference in 1911 as he emphasized that when it comes to worker safety, “it takes the government to establish the rules of the game.”

On this front, Teddy would arguably be concerned with the claims of conservation by the new library. But he would undoubtedly have been troubled by its designers attempts to discourage their employees from claiming their rights to organize. Unions operate in the spirit of the Square Deal, seeking to balance the needs of management and workers. Companies tend to see them as threats, but the reality is at-will employment isn’t democracy, it’s dictatorship. Unfortunately, Snohetta’s record on this front leaves a permanent stain on the new space.

These are the questions I have for the discipline. Unfortunately, for what passes as acceptable discourse, topics like these will never be breached. As far back as the 1980s Sorkin echoed a similar sentiment in a review of a visit to Las Vegas and the surrounding military bases for the Village Voice:

Writing this column gets harder and hard for me. The reason, I think, is that so much architecture - especially in the city - has become like so much bomb design. Appreciating it formally demands that the terms of the discussion be totally hemmed, that the question of effects be trivialized.

When it comes to reviews of buildings, we smile, nod, pat firms like this and the billionaire donors who make it possible all on the back, and will probably hand out some awards too, all while data centers near and far suck water and energy from the landscape to power a holographic version of Teddy. We bury the inconvenient history, lauding the shiny objects in front of us without understanding their cost, both in terms of what is being used but what is being forgotten. And for the employees who lost their jobs while this building was being designed, it will be difficult for them to associate much positive with it.

It begs the question: what’s the point of criticism? I’m still waiting for the answer.

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You can read the article here.

While I’ve enjoyed writing quicker pieces on substack, this was a good reminder of the benefits of A) working with an established magazine/editor and B) doing the research necessary for a longer piece. I learned quite a bit along the way, I hope you do too.

I’ll be back next week with some writing for The Worst Architect.

I'm continuing the list of books I've read this year with part 2. Hard to believe we’re half way through the year. On another note, I'm going to be slowing down publication of articles a little bit for the rest of the summer to concentrate on some other writing projects. Stay tuned!

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I was recently asked by Archinect to suggest a book for their 2026 Summer Reading list. Without hesitation I chose Greg Grandin’s America, América. On this significant 4th of July, the book offers us lessons about our country’s complicated past and design’s equally complicated rel…

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I saw a recent news story that encapsulated everything wrong with technology today. On the surface it was funny, but beneath the headlines lies an inconvenient truth about technological progress.

In an Atlanta neighborhood that could be mistaken for anywhere in suburban America, residents encountered something quite unf…

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Every profession seems to be having a reckoning. For doctors, the concentration into hospitals is squeezing the altruism of their work to serve all. In tech, the guzzling up of code by AI is shrinking the sector as fast as it exploded. And in education at all levels, cost-cutting and budget squeezing have bled teachers dry.

In architect…

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For those entering the job market this summer, the prospects are bleak. Some even think it’s worse than the 2008 recession, the market I entered when I graduated. Today it’s harder to get that entry level job that establishes a good career, and many are looking for any role they …

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It’s officially camping season. The days are warmer and longer, and for the nature-curious the weekends offer a reprieve from the grind of a long winter. For many, camping serves as an escape from the routine of everyday life, whether the long commute to the office or the unrelenting daily shift. The structures and objects that…

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If you’ve been designing anything as long as I have, you’ve noticed a steady decline of quality in digital software. The pattern follows the general explosion and slow degradation of the tech boom of the early aughts. Spaces like the internet were bastions of freedom and expression only to be slowly infiltrated by monied in…

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Gari Melchers, Woman Reading By A Window, 1895

As the semester winds down, this week I wanted to write a reflection on one of the central readings from my labor course: Making Space by Matrix. Although it’s about architecture, the critique comes from a perspective outside of the discipline through theories we don’t always read as designers. But it also s…

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In a piece I wrote last month for ’s substack, I got a lot of great feedback about the relationship between creativity and labor. My overall argument was that while it’s common to name certain kinds of labor “creative,” doing so both masks the fact that all labor is creative in some sense, and further …

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This week a few of us from Architectural Workers United spoke at the AIA Center for Architecture’s emerging architects committee. The topic of conversation was on “unions in architecture,” a timely as celebrated International Workers’ Day. For the discussion, each of us had a different perspective to share from our own experience organizing.

Lee Kuhn showed the various ways unions have been a part of his life since childhood, Danielle Tellez shared her powerful story regarding the effort at SHoP architects, and I focused on the broader economic challenges and opportunities of the profession.

During the Q&A portion though Lee mentioned an idea we’ve been thinking about, which is a desire for those workers with good working conditions to lead the way in our young but growing movement. It might sound counterintuitive, but in this profession, it makes a lot of sense.

In a recent organizing campaign, we were reminded of why this is a good strategy. Though the workers extended every opportunity for their boss to voluntarily recognize the union, and verify the cards through a card check neutrality agreement, all in the name of bettering the profession, he wasn’t having any of it. Taking the unionization effort as a personal affront to his business and livelihood, he pulled all the usual union busting tactics.

In the end the workers decided to suspend their petition. Though I believe they can win, right now the task of fighting their boss feels too daunting. In a field where firms are built as personal extension of design philosophies, owners at smaller offices like this who already demonstrate bad behavior will only grow more combative when their workers start to organize. Without many other offices joining the effort, sadly bad bosses feel they have more leeway to threaten and intimate their workers.

Most people think that this is where unionization efforts should put their focus: towards the bad workplaces. While we of course would love to see the come to fruition, the barriers are higher, especially in unorganized industries with smaller workplaces.

However, if more good workplaces were unionized, public pressure could go a long way to nudge recalcitrant owners in the right direction. Market forces would come into play too, with workers naturally preferring those firms where they are well-treated and have better benefits. In this way, a “low hanging fruit” strategy of organizing offices with already good working conditions could get the ball rolling for the more difficult workplaces.

So, for those workers who currently like their job, here are 10 reasons why you should unionize.

Protect the things you like

You might love everything about your workplace, but just like the weather, it can change without notice. Maybe the boss that you like will take a leave of absence or wake up one day and decide the current model doesn’t work. If you have things you like about your workplace, you should codify them in a contract.

Building solidarity with your co-workers is fun

So much of our day-to-day work involves sitting next to others but staring at a computer with our headphones on. I don’t blame anyone; I needed the distraction from phone calls that were happening in the office. But organizing gives you an opportunity to get to know your coworkers in a way that’s not only about the work. By creating your own spaces in and outside of the workplaces, you can humanize your job a little more and have fun while you do it.

Organizing is meaningful

I found the organizing work to be the most meaningful work I did as a practicing architect. While I’m extremely proud of the affordable housing project I spent nearly 7 years working on, I’m most proud of the work my colleagues and I did to change our workplace. When I sat at the bargaining table, I feel like I had a way to fully express my voice in the workplace for the first time. And with my colleagues at my side, I felt even more supported.

Growth comes out of conflict

Conflict is uncomfortable, especially for architects. We’re taught to receive criticism, and the values of the “gentleman’s profession” still linger. But real growth comes out of productive conflict. When you negotiate over things you don’t initially agree with, both sides come out better.

We should design our workplaces too

We spend all our time using our design skills working on projects, which is understandable. But what if we devoted those same critical thinking skills to our workplaces? In our first contract at Bernheimer, we did just that and designed a unique contract that met the needs of both our workplace and our industry.

We can always improve

Even the best businesses can become stagnant. A little agitation can go a long way to make space for everyone to look around and identify areas of improvement.

Speak up for others who can’t

Architecture is full of precarious workers. Those who are in abusive workplaces are often afraid to speak up (for good reason), and many are visa workers who fear retaliation against their job and living circumstances. For those workers who have good bosses and aren’t as worried about retaliation, you can stand up now so it’s easier for others down the road.

Normalize the movement

Right now, unionization in architecture isn’t the norm, which makes it easy to dismiss as a “radical” idea. But as Lee mentioned in our conversation, it’s amazing how quickly the idea of a union becomes normal in the workplace, even for those who are initially skeptical. Once the contract is in place, much of the work of maintaining it becomes routine, and it makes a lot of other things easier.

Put the pressure on bad bosses

I mentioned this above, but right now many bad bosses, who I do believe are the minority, know they can get away with abusive behavior because no one is holding them accountable. Forming unions at other workplaces allows those workers to indirectly challenge the things they don’t like within the profession at large.

Advocating for ourselves makes it easier to advocate to others

A question that came up is “how do we say no to exploitative clients?” It’s an important one, but I think the answer starts with us saying no to the things we don’t like in our own workplaces. This is usually the hardest step because of the proximity of our bosses, but when we stand up for our rights in the workplace, we become better at standing up to those outside of it. In other words, right now architects aren’t good at advocating for their industry because they don’t have practice advocating for themselves within it.

The common advice for career advancement in architecture is to hop around and leverage new jobs for higher pay and better opportunities. But what if instead of playing the game of the market, workers stayed and tried to make their current workplace a little better?

Architecture is still largely unorganized, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. At one point in time every industry was unorganized, but eventually workers decided that instead of trying to solve problems on their own, it was more effective to join together and tackle them collectively.

So, if you like your current workplace, why not make it a little better? You just might inspire others to do the same.

As I’ve walked around New York City lately, I’ve noticed something. Or rather, I haven’t noticed as much, at least when it comes to buildings.

Fewer are the objects that try their hardest to stand out from their neighbors. In their place buildings have arrived that are easy to miss, their newness less obvious.…

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For my guest post last week with Grace Blakeley’s substack, “The Myth of the Creative Class,” I wrote about the ways certain identities prevent others from forming that might help join us together. In this case, the focus was on the myth that separates “creative” workers from the struggle of all workers.

However, there’…

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At the end of last year I shared a list of all the books I read in 2025. This year, I’m doing the same, but sharing the list quarterly. Part of what I really like about substack is that it’s full of real authors (and readers). For now, it remains a genuine space on the internet. In the same vein I like seeing w…

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I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of the New Museum. In the ten years that I’ve lived in New York, I’ve gone once and have yet to return. While overall I’m pretty agnostic, it’s hard not to feel that SANAA’s design is bold but ultimately empty. Today the shifting boxes look like a not-so-well-aged gimmick, and the c…

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The great AI gold rush continues. While competing for market share, AI companies like Anthropic periodically release labor usage data. Part fact and part fiction (in order to generate real and false hype around the technology), these data sets reveal both actual usage and desired, or what they refer to as “theo…

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This week, I’m channeling my favorite nihilistic philosophers, Linkin Park.

The web of the Epstein files continues to expand, and to the surprise of no one, some of the biggest names in architecture have been ensnared. With the latest dump of incomplete fi…

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