Reducing Waste. Eliminating Fraud. Promoting Civic Responsibility. At least that’s what the city bureaucrats said.
Reducing car dependence: benefits, strategies, unintended consequences, and future directions of post-car urban transitions
This paper presents the state of the art of post-car urban transitions. It begins with an overview of the impact of automobility on planetary and human well-being. The benefits of post-car cities a...
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You Have the Right to Think
Epistemic Status: Public service announcement. We will then return to regularly scheduled programming. Written partly as a response to (Robin Hanson): Why be Contrarian, responding to the book Inad…
Grow like Trees: An Organic Approach to Societal Regrowth
2026 is the year that system breakdown became impossible to deny. Democratic norms, societal norms, rule of law, the fabric of the social contract tearing as we watch. Or hide, unwilling or unable to face the unravelling. The hopeful among us see opportunity through the dark. Tentatively or boldly we
Opinion: Losing the Local Journalism Initiative leaves communities in the dark
With more outlets vying for federal funding, why are national outlets opening up new bureaus in communities with healthy media ecosystems?
The Four Factors for Organizations - Future Mending Radio
When I pick an organization for the podcast or the map at Futuremending.com, I’m not just picking businesses out of a hat – I have a system for evaluating orgs which I call the Four Factors for Organizations. The Four Factors are Multi-solving, Sharing, Sufficiency and Transparency.This episode is in two parts. The opening minutes are a bit of an emotional check-in to see how people are processing the unprecedented political turmoil in the United States. The second part of the podcast discusses the Four Factors for Organizations and why seeking out certain vectors of change makes more sense than trying to lay out a detailed plan for a better future. Read about the Four Factors: https://www.futuremending.com/whatMatt’s Blue Sky account: https://bsky.app/profile/mattliepaehlke.bsky.socialWired Magazine coverage of the crisis in the U.S. : https://www.wired.com/tag/elon-musk/Rebecca Solnit’s newsletter: https://meditations-in-an-emergency.ghost.io/welcome-to-meditations-in-an-emergency/ Google's AI Policy: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/05/google-owner-drops-promise-not-to-use-ai-for-weapons Future Mending Map: https://www.futuremending.com/toronto Music Credits:'Epilogue' by The Slow Motions. Used with permission of the artist.‘Fashion’ by Alex Productions. Creative Commons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV1miCgT7J4‘Miss you’ by Middle Child. Creative Commons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dayIKHEIYqY‘Opening’ by Phillip Glass. Arr. by Karl Michelson. Performed by The Union Guitar Trio. Used with permission of the artists.Union Guitar Trio on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/track/2E0NidLjIzBAO7t0BBPFUDUnion Guitar Trio on Apple Music - https://music.apple.com/us/artist/the-union-guitar-trio/1592543833Sound Effects:BBC News November 9th, 1989: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjNz1lvXgzUwood hit low glass bowl 3.mp3 by ascap -- https://freesound.org/s/242388/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0Brightness by sonically_sound -- https://freesound.org/s/632762/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
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Howtown
CivicPulse
CivicPulse is a nonpartisan nonprofit seeking to promote more effective local and state governance through improved access to reliable data and research.
The i-frame and the s-frame: How focusing on individual-level solutions has led behavioral public policy astray
An influential line of thinking in behavioral science, to which the two authors have long subscribed, is that many of society's most pressing problems can be addressed cheaply and effectively at the level of the individual, without modifying the system in which the individual operates. We now believe this was a mistake, along with, we suspect, many colleagues in both the academic and policy communities. Results from such interventions have been disappointingly modest. But more importantly, they have guided many (though by no means all) behavioral scientists to frame policy problems in individual, not systemic, terms: To adopt what we call the “i-frame,” rather than the “s-frame.” The difference may be more consequential than i-frame advocates have realized, by deflecting attention and support away from s-frame policies. Indeed, highlighting the i-frame is a long-established objective of corporate opponents of concerted systemic action such as regulation and taxation. We illustrate our argument briefly for six policy problems, and in depth with the examples of climate change, obesity, retirement savings, and pollution from plastic waste. We argue that the most important way in which behavioral scientists can contribute to public policy is by employing their skills to develop and implement value-creating system-level change.
We Found The Radical Solution That Could End Corporate Monopolies
The Times are Urgent: Let’s Slow Down • Writings – Bayo Akomolafe
An Open Letter to CONCORD-DEEEP, CIVICUS, GCAP, Civic Society Organizations and Activists Working for a ‘Better’ World. This article is co-authored by Bayo Akomolafe and Marta Benavides. With deep gratitude for the stories of transformation now emerging across the planet, and for the renewed hope we share for a different kind of world, we greet you from our hearts.
Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Thinking
A core component of making great decisions is understanding previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got “here,” we run the risk of making things much worse.
Valuing What Counts: Framework to Progress Beyond Gross Domestic Product: Our Common Agenda Policy Brief 4
We will discuss this paper in the civic participation journal club. Cannot wait to read it at lunchtime tomorrow🍎
Brihi Joshi
Reasoning about the "why" behind user behavior can improve LLM personas! ✨🧠📈 📝Excited to share our new work: Improving LLM Personas via Rationalization with Psychological Scaffolds 🔗 arxiv.org/abs/2504.17993 🧵 (1/n)
Keep coming back to the idea that—ideally—the Atmosphere ultimately wants to become something like a public utility. But obviously not an American public utility. But also not a European one, nor one belonging to any conventional state. A new type of thing entirely—a global public utility.
