Wright Chat

[SDR]

I wasn't. In my city, long-time businesses large and small are making way for new commercial space and housing---an incredible and seemingly
insupportable amount of housing, only a minor percentage of it "affordable." So, though everyone acknowledges that we have a housing shortage, the
idea wasn't necessarily to provide luxury residences for the hi-tech set, at the expense of everyone else.

This week we learned that our long-time supplier of hardwoods and sheet materials is closing next month; a warehouse leased by Amazon will occupy
the site. One of the last mid-town independent bookshops is gone; a legacy supplier of tires and batteries, just a block from the Civic Center, will close
by the end of the year.

Is this happening in all of our large cities ? I realize that change is inevitable . . . but what I see is eerily confirmative of the abstraction, as we are told
of the growing split between the haves and the have-nots, in this wealthiest of nations.

S

[Matt2]

What I see happening is a free market system that is no longer benefiting everyone. Much of this has to do with our technological revolution which is displacing many of the factory and distribution high-wage medium-skill jobs of the industrial revolution.

[SDR]

We have known for a long time that the rate of change has been accelerating---in any sphere of human development you care to name. A relatively recent
manifestation is the rate at which computation speeds are doubling. A valid concern is that the pace of change will outstrip the individual's, and society's,
ability to react and respond . . .

S

[Rood]

During the historic flood of 2009 in Metro-Fargo, it was people cooperating with their neighbors which greatly reduced flood damage. This news story and accompanying photos describe some of their experiences.

https://www.inforum.com/news/weather/983496-Tens-years-on-flood-of-09-remembered-as-a-victory-paid-for-with-sweat-tears?

[DavidC]

A Home in the Tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright


David