Category: issues

“A new museum crammed with jewels of non-Western art and culture in the center of the reunified capital seemed a good idea: It would show Germany as confident and open to the world. … But the Humboldt Forum has upset a lot of people. … One protester bellowed into a microphone, saying that, no matter what the founders had intended, the museum would forever be associated with the blood of empire.”

Such urban neighborhoods appeal to money-strapped younger people as well as empty-nesters who enjoy city life and don’t want to depend on a car. And dense neighborhoods work for low-income earners if jobs are accessible by mass transit. The growing market for such neighborhoods—the classic gentrification magnet—is colliding with the reality that there are not enough of them in cities around the country.

With chants like “Save our sails” and “Our house is not for sale,” the crowd booed and jeered at the promotional images for a horse race that were projected onto the steep white roofs of the building. Some protesters even aimed lights at the Opera House in order to mar the display.

Waleed Aly: “This week happened because a deep anxiety about the health of our society was triggered. A vein was opened, but it was the build-up of ages that came gushing forth. The notion of public space is at the very heart of this.”

Located in “the sixth borough” (and the one that gets the least respect), across the Hudson from Lower Manhattan, “the Nimbus Arts Center at the Lively will feature a 150-seat black box theater, studio and rehearsal space for [Nimbus Dance Works] and [its] school, and company administrative offices. The arts facility, which is expected to open in December 2019, will reside on the ground floors of the building, with apartments above.”

“According to the immigration proposals, announced earlier this month, there will be no preferential treatment for European Union workers, who will have to apply for specific category visas to come and work in the UK, as is the case for workers from the rest of the world. The visas will be restricted to applicants who have a confirmed job offer and earn a minimum of £30,000 a year pro-rata, with the potential for it to rise to £50,000, a situation that leading figures have warned is not fit for purpose.”

Since the 1990s, Berlin has served as a magnet for artists drawn by cheap rents, large empty buildings, a vibrant subculture and a hip, liberal atmosphere. It ranks as the most important centre for art production in the world after New York. Olafur Eliasson, Ai Weiwei and Alicja Kwade are among the prominent artists with studios here. But for the past ten years, the city has been in the grip of a property boom, with spiralling price increases threatening its allure for artists. In 2017, Berlin had the fastest-growing real estate prices in the world, up 20.5% in a year, according to the property consultancy Knight Frank.

Inkoo Kang, responding to Wesley Morris’s essay “The Morality Wars”: “Whoever they are — lefty tweeters, emerging critics, the thinkpiece industry, or millennials and Gen Z at large — I’m probably a member. But I don’t recognize the collapse of nuanced debate that Morris presents. In part that’s because the generational shift Morris posits feels simplistic, given its lack of generosity toward these rabble-rousers.”

“It’s been a seeping, decentralized thing; to call it a takeover would be hyperbole. But the assertive Nigerian global influence today cannot be denied, whether it’s in literature, music, fashion, or art, with new talents appearing at a relentless pace. Many hold court in London, … [and] others are in the United States, where middle-class immigrants have flourished in places like Houston and Atlanta. But all of them feed off the scene in Nigeria itself — and in its megacity, Lagos, a frenetic engine of creativity.”