Dedicated readers of President Trumps Twitter feed were treated this July to a new theme, former Vice President Joe Bidens supposed desire to abolish suburbs.

Trump has warned the suburban housewives of America that Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. The tweets are dog whistles aimed at reviving a failing presidential campaign. But formally speaking, these are allusions to the administrations plan to withdraw the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule.

On July 29, Trump tweeted that, thanks to him, suburbanites will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood. He claimed this initiative to make housing less affordable will guarantee that crime will go down.

At an event in Midland, Texas, later that same day, Trump further elaborated that under his watch there will be no more low-income housing forced into the suburbs.

Its been going on for years, Trump said. Ive seen conflict for years. Its been hell for suburbia.

Narrowly, this is a fight about an Obama administration rule with few practical consequences. But its also about one of the most important issues in American politics, which is the systematic underproduction of housing due to excessive regulatory barriers. Trumps campaign to rally suburbanites against the cause of increasing housing stock is important because it could shape how an influential voting bloc thinks about these issues.

Somewhat ironically, the Trump administration itself had been on the other side of this fight until this summer. Most conservative economists think the Obama administrations instincts on land use regulation were broadly correct. But then, Trump decided to turn a bit of regulatory quibbling into a culture war hammer. And conversely, many Democrats eager to jump on the presidents tweets and accuse him of racist dog whistling have yet to confront the reality that policy in their home states is often uncomfortably Trump-like in reality.

An interesting lacuna to Americas mostly market-oriented economy is building houses. Most of the population lives in places where this activity is subject to a comprehensive regime of central planning, which states and which parcels of land can have houses built on them, what the minimum size of a parcel is, how many dwellings can be built on a given parcel (typically just one), how tall the building can be, how much yard space and parking there needs to be, etc.

Some of the regulation of house-building is about safety electricity needs to be up to code and sewage needs to be able to be disposed of in a responsible way. But most of it isnt. Theres nothing unsafe about a 12-unit, four-floor apartment building its just illegal to build one in most places. Building rows of houses that share exterior walls is a space-efficient and cost-effective means of creating single-family homes, but its illegal to build them in most places. Big, shiny condo towers only make sense in places where land is very expensive, but there are some parcels of very expensive land where its illegal to build them.

These rules profoundly shape the built environment in almost every American metropolitan area. But they are particularly significant for metro areas where land is in short supply due to a coastal location, proximity to mountains, or both.

The basic problem is that land use regulatory decisions are made at a localized community level, which as William Fischel observes in his book, Zoning Rules! The Economics of Land Use Regulation leads to a kind of systematic undervaluing of the value of building more houses. Any new construction causes localized nuisances (more noise, more traffic, less parking) but the benefits of more abundant housing are fairly diffuse. In their recent book Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and Americas Housing Crisis, Katherine Levine Einstein, David Glick, and Maxwell Palmer show this is exacerbated by the tendency of community meetings to empower a self-selected group that is whiter and richer than the population as a whole.

The fundamental dynamic exists essentially everywhere, but its especially severe in big coastal metro areas that are also very politically liberal. While traditionally, criticism of this dynamic has come largely from right-of-center economists (the kind of people who love to complain about regulation), as Conor Dougherty details in his recent book Golden Gates: Fighting for housing in America, a new generation of progressive activists in West Coast cities have been fighting for change.

A subset of the problems with American land use policy relates to race and segregation. Back in 1917 long before the main era of civil rights victories in federal courts the Supreme Court held in Buchanan v. Warley that cities and towns could not establish explicit racial segregation rules on their land use policies. As Christopher Silver explores in his article The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities, this simply created a situation in which cities hired prominent planning professionals to fashion legally defensible racial zoning plans.

In other words, zoning schemes were drawn up with the intention of de facto upholding patterns of racial segregation. As Jessica Trounstine explores in her book, Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities, neither the Civil Rights Act nor the subsequent Fair Housing Act really ever accomplished much to alter the pattern of de facto housing segregation in part because the systems that generated segregated living patterns were formally race-neutral dating all the way back to the 1920s.

The Obama administration tried, in a modest way, to improve the situation.

The Obama administration clearly took the view that regulatory barriers to creating new housing supply were an economic problem. His Council of Economic Advisers put out a report about this, and Chair Jason Furman gave a speech on the topic and repeatedly highlighted it as an issue. In September 2016, the council introduced a housing development toolkit a set of best practices for jurisdictions looking to reduce barriers. They also offered some technical assistance to local communities that wanted to rezone for more housing supply.

In 2015, the council promulgated a new regulation the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule that essentially required local governments to try harder to comply with Fair Housing Act objectives. That meant, in practice, requiring local governments to identify rules that could contribute to patterns of racial segregation and develop plans to undo them.

This was always controversial in conservative circles, but the controversy essentially took two forms.

One, exemplified in this 2018 article by the Cato Institutes Vanessa Brown Calder, was essentially technical. She wrote, If policymakers are interested in determining the cause of racial segregation in cities, they dont have to collect data and guess at it. A major cause of racial segregation is already known: zoning regulation. Zoning regulation segregates by race because race is frequently correlated with income. She believed we should reduce zoning barriers, not create a new checkbox compliance process.

The other, exemplified in this 2015 National Review article by Stanley Kurtz, took a culture war approach and darkly warned that the regulation amounts to back-door annexation, a way of turning Americas suburbs into tributaries of nearby cities.

As far as critiques go, Brown Calders is much closer to the mark. As historian Tom Sugrue argued on July 29, the reality was that AFFH, the Obama fair housing rule, was having a marginal impact at best and scrapping it would not change much in practice.

However, while the Trump administrations Housing and Urban Development Department has always been critical of AFFH, this summer Trump has gotten personally involved with the issue hes switched the administrations stance from Brown Calders technical critique to Kurtzs demagogic one.

Housing policy has not been much of a topic of public debate in the Trump years. But in its official statements, Trumps HUD under Ben Carson has essentially agreed with the Obama administrations diagnosis: Excessive regulatory barriers to housing construction are an economic problem for the country.

In the fall of 2018, Carson vowed to look at increasing the supply of affordable housing by reducing onerous zoning regulations.

A year later, Trumps Council of Economic Advisers diagnosed excessively strict zoning rules as a major contributor to rising homelessness, writing that President Trump signed an executive order that will seek to remove regulatory barriers in the housing market, which would reduce the price of homes and reduce homelessness.

Like Obamas actions on this front, Trumps actions did not amount to very much. The federal government is a marginal player in land use politics and will continue to be one unless Congress enacts new legislation empowering more serious changes.

Conceptually, Trump and Obamas economic teams were reading from the same playbook rules should be changed to allow denser development on expensive land, especially in the highest-priced metro areas. Joe Bidens housing plan, unlike Trumps or Obamas, could actually make this a reality by calling for Congress to create a program that would link HUD and Department of Transportation grant money to zoning changes. Doing so and forcing jurisdictions to allow denser housing types would not, in the real world, abolish the suburbs. Most people would keep living in single-family homes under pretty much any regulatory scheme. But conceivably, Americas expensive suburbs could come to be dotted with sporadic clusters of townhouses or mid-rise apartments, increasing affordability and reducing segregation.

Trump is now promising to save the suburban housewives of America from that fate.

Democrats denounce this as racism or worse with Sen. Chris Murphy (CT) calling Trump a proud, vocal segregationist.

But realistically, just as Obama wasnt abolishing the suburbs, Trump isnt creating segregation. Hes simply saying that he will let Americas local governments maintain the land use regimes they have regimes that have created incredibly segregated patterns of dwelling in places like Murphys home state of Connecticut. Nothing that Trump says or does is preventing Connecticuts Democratic state legislature and Democratic governor from tearing down those barriers. But they remain in place as do comparable barriers throughout the suburban Northeast because voters and elected officials have chosen to leave them there.

Given the marginal federal role in land use issues, the biggest question going forward may be less whether Trump demagoguery convinces suburbanites to vote for him than whether it convinces blue state suburbanites that the land use status quo Trump is defending genuinely reflects his values rather than theirs. On a conceptual level, after all, MAGA anti-immigration politics and progressive anti-development activists rallying cry of defending neighborhood character really do have a lot in common, and a lot of good could be accomplished if blue states decide that's a reason to embrace diversity and change practical land use policy in theory and rhetoric.

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Trumps tweets about the Suburban Lifestyle Dream and US housing law, explained - Vox.com

Oh long may it wave, Oer the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

Francis Scott Key

On Sept. 13, 1814, a few weeks after the British attacked Washington, D.C. and burned the president's house and the capital, the British began the bombarding of Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor. Throughout the night, American lawyer Francis Scott Key watched the British annihilate Boston with rockets and explosives. Key felt there was no way America could beat the British.

Key felt hopeless as darkness arrived and all through the night the sky was blood red. But as the smoke cleared to "dawn's early light," the American flag, not the Union Jack, flew high, announcing Americas victory! Tattered and torn, sailing in the wind, it sent a message to the British:

We fight with a purpose, and fight we must and this be our motto: In God is our trust.

Francis Scott Key

Baltimore was a key American shipping port and the British blasted the former colonies with their entire arsenal. Key, trapped aboard his vessel during the battle, had penned his thoughts during the night. But it was not until the next day in his hotel room that he scribed his notes into cadence with an English folk song. And this humble effort gave birth to our anthem, The Star Spangled Banner.

Keys brother-in-law distributed his song under the name "Defense of Fort M'Henry," and soon the Baltimore Patriot printed it, naming it "The Star-Spangled Banner." Within weeks, every newspaper in the nation featured it. Little did Key know, his one act to patronize those brave Americans who fought in the Battle of Baltimore in his own words would forever pay the highest tribute to the flag of his great nation.

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Francis Scott Key

The Star-Spangled Banner was always the national anthem for most Americans and our military. When the U.S. entered World War I, it was played daily around the nation. But it was not until 1919, when radio engineer Frank Conrad broadcasted it, that President Woodrow Wilson designated it as Americas national anthem. In March of 1931, Congress passed the official act and Hoover signed it into law.

During the first game of the 1918 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the rival Chicago Cubs, the band began to play The Star-Spangled Banner. The fans rose from their seats and put their hands over their hearts and began to sing. The players followed, placing their caps over their hearts. They turned toward the centerfield flagpole and sang with them. Following a thunderous applause, the band played it again and they have never stopped playing it for the last 150 years.

Singing The Star-Spangled Banner that day showed Americas deep respect for our nation. Red Sox owner Harry Frazee was so proud he began each game playing Americas song. Soon, every team played it before every game. It became such a hit, after the war ended, the song was played at all baseball games. In 1942 during World War II, with so many brave players fighting for world freedom, the National Football League joined baseball by playing the anthem to show support for our troops.

No patriots ever thought our national anthem would be used to de-unify our nation. Yet today, our anthem is a protest platform with NFL players. When Nike hired NFL protester Colin Kaepernick for their Just Do It" campaign, many retailers pulled their shoes off the shelves. And that ignited the current trend criticizing the 150-year connection between our anthem and sports.

Men may argue ingeniously against our faith, but what can they say in defense of their own?

Francis Scott Key

On Aug. 14, 2016, when Kaepernick first chose to remain seated during the national anthem at an NFL game, the liberal media started a campaign to discredit those who did not support him. But the fans claimed his behavior was disrespectful to the nation and the military and continued to criticize him. While Kaepernick contends this was a protest against racial injustice, most fans still disagree.

After speaking with former U.S. Army Green Beret Nate Boyer, Kaepernick amended his protest, opting to instead take a knee to emphasize he was not disrespecting the military, yet many in the military disagreed. Like cancer, this spread to other sports and has fueled disrespect for our flag and America by violent protesters around the nation who see this as way to get what they want.

Since Kaepernick and others are role models for our youth, the result of their on-field antics create a false perception among thousands of gullible Americans; it is cool to emulate these high profile athletes and disrespect the national anthem also. And this misbehavior leads to violent unpatriotic assaults against innocent citizens and horrific illegal acts against government and our leaders.

The new left claims these players have a right to do this under the First Amendment. They say it is political, not unpatriotic. Yet protesters are using our anthem to defame America for anything they dislike. Most Americans consider this disrespecting the flag, police and military. They claim they have no right to do this when they pay their salaries and franchise owners make the rules for work.

I do not believe there are any new objections to be discovered to the truth.

Francis Scott Key

Under pressure from fans who threatened to boycott sporting events, on May 23, 2018, the league clarified their policy requiring all players to stand during the anthem, or remain in the locker rooms during its performance. Owners sided with their fans and their 150 year history of singing The Star Spangled Banner at all events, which has been a tradition since first played during World War I in 1918.

Although the NFL agreement was reached unanimously by the league owners, the players union cried the blues. Commissioner Roger Goodell replied, We want players to respect the national anthem. Weve been sensitive giving them choices, but we expect them to stand and show respect for us.

No business finances any employee to participate in political protests while they should be working. And no employers would tolerate any who tried to do this. And those who imprudently did would be fired in a New York City minute!

Employers dont pay people to express their emotions.

Simon Sinek

The moment these prima donnas enter the playing field they are on company time. Since the fans are the stock holders and pay the bills, and team owners write the work rules to maintain the fan base, these players are obligated to do what the owners want while on the field. They have no right to carry on personal protests while on the job. Any other person who acted like this would be given a pink slip. Thats why no other American pro football team will give Colin Kaepernick a job today.

Francis Scott Key wanted to honor the men who fought for his country. His only motive was to pay tribute to our nation and our troops. Keys patriotic rendering still stands today as the benchmark of respect for our nation and its troops. It has nothing to do with politics. Its not just a tradition; it is an obligation we must respect our anthem.

Then in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

Frances Scott Key

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Op-Ed: The national anthem is more than a sports tradition - The Center Square

Harming dogs is a criminal act in Ontario, but shooting wolves is a sport. And while animal welfare legislation was recently strengthened, protection for Algonquin wolves could soon be set back if the government invokes changes made last year to the Endangered Species Act.

When Ontario shut down in March, resources rightly focused on public health. By then, however, the government was already far behind on its obligation to protect and recover the Algonquin wolf. Listed as threatened on June 15, 2016, the law at the timerequired immediate protection and mandated a formal Algonquin wolf recovery plan within two years.

The previous Liberal government protected hotspots, but exempted areas in between. Then in January 2018, they posted a draft recovery strategy for public comment, followed by a request for more time to review feedback. While we waited, Ontario elected a new Conservative premier.

A year later, the new government passed Bill 108, the More Homes, More Choice Act into law, revising the Endangered Species Act with amendments that impede wildlife conservation.

Read more: Doug Ford is clear-cutting Ontario's environmental laws

The changes privilege development over habitat protection, extend the timeline for a government response to listing recommendations to up to five years, undermine the expertise of scientists and allow the environment minister to bypass legal protection for species and their habitat when its convenient.

For Algonquin wolves, the ongoing government delay allows hunting and trapping to continue and raises concerns that the government could ignore science-based recommendations in favour of organizations that lobby against wolf hunting bans. There is precedent.

In August 2019, the government proposed easing restrictions on grey wolf and coyote hunting in Northern Ontario to protect moose. The move was based on recommendations from a government-appointed Big Game Management Advisory Committee made up of hunters, trappers and commercial outfitters.

The proposal ignores the work of research scientists who say this will do little to improve moose numbers, and disregards issues of habitat, disease and climate change. Notably, the previous government rejected the same proposal due to lack of scientific evidence.

Algonquin wolves face an uncertain future primarily because they can be legally shot and trapped in many parts of Ontario. In most unprotected corridors, certified hunters can shoot two wolves between September 15 and March 31 with a small game license and a wolf tag. In others, it is open season all year. No tags required.

This harsh truth often comes as a shock to many. Especially since fewer than 1,000 mature Algonquin wolves remain and half are in Ontario. Most are within central Ontarios provincial parks, including Algonquin and Killarney. Beyond that, protected areas are patchy and separated by swaths of land where wolves often meet their demise at the hands of humans.

As a case in point, when captive wolves escaped from the Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre into an unprotected corridor on New Years Day in 2013, the outcome was quick and predictable. Within 24 hours someone shot two of the four and left them to die. The fate of the others remains unknown, but their chances were slim. A wealth of research shows that beyond protected areas more wolves die from hunting and trapping than from all other causes combined.

Thats why the draft Algonquin wolf recovery strategy recommends connecting protected areas across central Ontario to create an Algonquin Wolf Recovery Zone. But the process remains, inexplicably, in limbo.

Algonquin wolves are unique to Canada because they have a distinctive genetic signature. Why is that important? Think of it like saving money for a rainy day, except the wolves currency is genetic variation and the rainy day is climate change. Species depend on genetic variation to protect them against unexpected upheavals in their environment. Fewer animals means less variation and higher risk of extinction.

The Algonquin wolf has at its core a unique North American wolf genome (the eastern Canadian wolf), with some genetic signal from coyotes and, to a lesser extent, grey wolves.

Their evolutionary history places them alongside coyotes, solely within North America. Grey wolves, on the other hand, migrated to North America from Eurasia thousands of years ago.

In 2018, a team of international researchers analyzed the largest dataset to date on Algonquin wolves. The conclusion? Algonquin wolves unique genomic composition and their fragmented protection in central Ontario make them a conservation priority.

A significant challenge, however, is a common misunderstanding of how science defines species. Some people protest that Algonquin wolves are just hybrids a made-up species that doesnt warrant conservation. By that logic, humans must also be a fiction because we have bits of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in our genome.

Advances in genome sequencing have revolutionized our understanding of how species interact and evolve. Interbreeding between closely related species creates mixed genomes in a wide array of plants and animals. Hybrid origins is the new normal.

We need wolves. They help maintain the natural order of ecosystems. Their presence improves the health of deer populations by weeding out the old and sick, and prevents the widespread destruction of plant life that sustains the biodiversity we rely on for goods (such as medicine) and services (such as tourism).

At the same time, wolves like dogs nurture our spirit and improve our well-being simply by being there. They represent and protect what environmentalists, First Nations, conservation scientists and hunters alike may value most: untamed and untouched wilderness.

Yet Ontarios hunting and trapping organizations continue to lobby for relaxed wolf harvest regulations and seek to discredit recommendations of the recovery strategy.

Read more: Killing sharks, wolves and other top predators won't solve conflicts

But researchers first flagged Algonquin wolves as distinct just 20 years ago, at which point hunting, wolf culls and bounties had already taken their toll. Beyond reducing numbers, intensive hunting exacerbates hybridisation with coyotes and the current population size equates to dangerously low levels of genetic potential.

Many people including many hunters question wolf hunting on ethical grounds. Wolves are not food, so researchers Chris Darimont and Paul Paquet from the University of Victoria argue that wolf hunting regulations in this country are embarrassingly out of step with societal values. They suggest that attempts to legitimize trophy and sport hunting use a smokescreen of scientific wildlife management. Public opinion polls in British Columbia support that claim.

After a 2007 update, Ontarios Endangered Species Act was one of the strongest pieces of legislation in North America. It has since been diluted for convenience and short-sighted economic gains, first by the Liberal government in 2013 and again in 2019 by the current Conservative government.

Premier Doug Fords response to the COVID-19 pandemic was impressive in large part because it relied on independent research and was resolutely non-partisan. Its this type of foresight and resolve that will be needed to save Algonquin wolves. In the end, all voices need to be heard, but science should prevail.

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The erosion of Ontarios Endangered Species Act threatens iconic Algonquin wolf - The Conversation CA

Micah Helle 18 works with herbs at the Square Roots farm campus in Brooklyn, New York.

Micah Helle 18 is helping to redefine what the future of urban agriculture looks like using controlled environment technology.

As a member of the yearlong Next-Gen Farmer Training Program at Square Roots, a mushroom farmer at Smallhold, and now a hydroponic farmer with Pillsbury United Communities, Helle is cultivating and increasing access to local, sustainably grown food. Their motivation to change ideas about farming and what a modern farmer looks like inspired them to work in urban agriculture.

I was worried about the future of local food and small-scale agriculture work. Thats what turned me to urban agriculture and working with Square Roots, Helle says. I was determined to find another way of getting good food to people everywhere, and year round.

Square Roots Next-Gen Farmer Training Program provided the perfect jumping-off point. Square Roots is a tech-enabled urban farming company that grows local, pesticide-free and non-GMO greens by developing human-centered farming technologies and empowering young farmers. As a Next-Gen Farmer, Helle participated in a one-year urban farming apprenticeship at the Square Roots Brooklyn farm campus in New York.

Seven other farmers and I were in charge of learning the ins and outs of hydroponic farming within our modular farms through hands-on training and a classroom-based curriculum, Helle says. We also introduced customers to our products and started meaningful dialogue around local food and the need for innovation within the industry.

Although Helle was not always sure what they wanted to do after college, they credit their experiences at St. Olaf with preparing them for a career in agriculture. It all started with their first visit to campus.

I stepped on campus and felt that everyone I met took an interest in me as a person and not just as a prospective student, Helle says. It was the personal notes and phone calls from students during the application process that made me feel welcome. I also chose St. Olaf because I felt that the liberal arts education would allow me to explore areas outside my biology major.

The support at St. Olaf helped Helle land summer internships that would nourish their love for food and agriculture. For two summers, Helle interned at the Liberty Prairie Foundation, a nonprofit in Illinois that supports ecological, local food enterprises. They served as communications intern the first summer and community food systems intern the next. As the community food systems intern, they led a food rescue program where they recruited teams of volunteers and taught them how to harvest, wash, and pack fresh produce in the field to be later delivered to local food pantries.

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Classes on campus also helped Helle make connections between their studies and their career interests. In particular, a bioinformatics course that Helle took their senior year sparked their interest in the crossover between science and agriculture.

The class was a blend of computer science and a continuation of intermediate genetics, Helle says. It was also the hardest course Ive ever taken, but it was so rewarding.

And Helle was right about St. Olafs liberal arts approach: While they majored in biology and took many environmental studies courses, they were also able to take advantage of off-campus opportunities to study Spanish in Ecuador, classics in Rome, and sociology and anthropology in Thailand. Outside the classroom, they co-captained the womens varsity soccer team, played Ultimate Frisbee with St. Olaf Vortex, and served on the St. Olaf Athletic Advisory Board.

Helle completed the Next-Gen Farmer Training Program in 2019 and then worked as a mushroom farmer at Smallhold, an organic mushroom farm that grows their produce inside controlled environment minifarms in grocery stores and restaurants around New York City, through early 2020. Their job at Smallhold not only built off of their previous work with Square Roots, but also involved more technical aspects as well.

At Smallhold, I also troubleshooted HVAC, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and micro-controllers in the units with our small farm team, Helle explains. Like Square Roots, Smallhold is mission-aligned and wants to provide real, local food to people in urban areas.

Helles work at Smallhold helped them diversify their knowledge of crops and gain more experience in agricultural technology. I enjoyed the challenge of understanding different farm systems, because no two farms look the same, Helle says.

Having recently returned to Minnesota after several years in New York City, Helle is now working with Pillsbury United Communities, a community-building organization working to co-create societal change and justice, as their hydroponic farmer. As part of Pillsbury Uniteds urban agriculture and food security enterprise, Helle works at their shipping container hydroponic farm in North Minneapolis, which provides food that is distributed to grocery stores around the metro area.

Its a very holistic job and Im wearing a lot of hats, which is great, Helle says. Whereas Helle used to work on larger teams in New York, they now hold a more independent role at Pillsbury United as they work on maintenance, irrigation, commercial production, crop planning, and seed-to-shelf logistics. Its more responsibility than Ive had before. But it also comes at a time where I feel good about leading and teaching. Im happy to get back to my roots in the nonprofit space by focusing less on revenue and more on impact.

Working in Minnesota with Pillsbury United has brought things full circle for Helle. While hydroponics technology is growing in popularity on the East Coast, it still lacks support in the Midwest, and Helle wants to fill that gap. For me, to come back and be able to share this technology with the Midwest region that really needs year-round growing capabilities is huge, Helle says. But I would also personally love the opportunity to train people of color in these systems, because agtech can push to be more racially diverse. We have an opportunity to redefine what the future of this food system looks like, and we have a responsibility to make sure that is as inclusive as possible.

As Helle continues to pursue urban agriculture, they want to help take controlled-environment agriculture to new heights. I would love to become more involved in research and development in this space to help direct the commercialization of new products in the industry, says Helle. I am interested in pushing the limits on what types of food we can grow indoors with farmer-assisted technology. My goal is to preserve the farmers story and livelihood and to inspire the next generation of farmers to think outside the box.

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St. Olaf graduate is sowing the seeds of hydroponic farming - St. Olaf College News

To celebrate his 40th birthday last week, Adam Partington and his partner, Gemma Cann, took to the River Cam on new paddleboards with a goodies hamper strapped to the front.

After gliding past Cambridges ancient colleges, the couple stopped at Grantchester Meadows at the edge of the city for a picnic and celebratory glass of bubbly before paddling back to their starting point.

Its so liberating and refreshing, said Partington who has been working from home near Bingham, Nottinghamshire, since March of his new pursuit. It has its own pace. Weve had fewer options since lockdown, so Im not surprised so many people have taken it up.

The couple are among thousands who have taken to Britains inland waterways in the past few months. British Canoeing has seen a 40% rise in members since last year, with 19,000 people signing up in the past three months.

The Canal & River Trust, the Outdoor Swimming Society and the Angling Trust are all reporting a surge in interest.

Red Paddle Co, a paddleboard retailer, said it had seen an unprecedented 300% rise in sales and enquiries, making 2020 its busiest year and leaving stores short of stock.

The recent boom has been driven by the accessibility of the sport, gyms being closed for so long, the desire to do something socially with friends and the sun shining, said co-founder John Hibbard.

Jenny Spencer of British Canoeing said: Literally, from the day lockdown was eased a little bit and we were allowed outdoors, paddle sports just took off. People had spent a long time being cooped up indoors, and some were getting fed up with running and cycling.

A big proportion of new paddlers are families, and almost four in 10 are female. Growth has been mainly among those aged between 30 to 60, said Spencer.

Thousands of miles of waterways in the UK mean most of the population is within reach of a river or a canal. Its peaceful and calming. People like having a new perspective on their surroundings, she said.

And it helps that social distancing is built into paddle sports.

Its been a lot of fun exploring the waterways. Its exercise, relaxation and fresh air all rolled into one

Jonathan Sullivan, 40, had been toying with the idea for years but had never got round to venturing out on the Trent and numerous canals around his home in Long Eaton, Derbyshire.

Then lockdown happened. Sullivan and his wife, Michala, juggled working at home with caring for and home-schooling their two children, six-year-old William and Niamh, almost five.

We ran out of ways to entertain them. There wasnt much to do, or many places to visit, Sullivan said.

They invested in a three-person inflatable kayak and a paddleboard. Its been a lot of fun exploring the waterways. The family has gone wild swimming and taken picnics on paddling trips. Its a great way to spend time together.

Sullivan has also used paddling as a way to de-stress after long days at his computer. I go on my own in the evening. Its exercise, relaxation and fresh air all rolled into one.

A licence is required to paddle on waterways maintained by the Environment Agency and the Canal & River Trust, and the Norfolk Broads. In Scotland, there is a right to roam over land and water.

Some 95% of rivers in England are in private hands with limited access. Less than 2,000km out of 57,600 have a statutory public right of navigation and are open for people to go wild swimming or canoeing.

Two members of the House of Lords Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, the former Paralympian athlete, and Liberal Democrat peer Lord Addington have proposed amendments to the agriculture bill, currently going through parliament, to allow the public better rights of access to rivers.

Grey-Thompson said water activities helped peoples mental health and gave them a greater connection with nature. There is something very calming about being near water the sound of it, on a summers day, there is nothing that is more perfect, she said in a recent podcast.

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Up the creek with 19,000 paddles as UK takes to the water - The Guardian

Its not simply that suburban America is increasingly diverse, nor that a majority of Black Americans live in the suburbs, nor even that a majority of new immigrants settle in suburbs, not cities. Instead, its that Americas suburbs are ground zero for a major schism among white suburbanites one remaking the electoral map before our eyes, and revealing why that old suburban playbook just doesnt work anymore.

Were seeing a suburban political divide quite different from the one that played out after World War II, when well-to-do, middle-class and even some working-class whites living in suburbia found common ground by looking through their rearview mirrors with horror at the cities they were fleeing, says Sugrue.

In past decades, that commonality made appeals to suburbanites fears about those cities and the people of color they were fleeing a potent political weapon. Now, white stratification within the suburbs is changing that.

The whitest suburban places are often at the suburban-exurban fringes places where middle-class whites who are attempting to flee the growing racial diversity of cities and nearby suburbs are moving, says Sugrue. By contrast, many of the older suburbs, particularly those with late 19th-, early 20th-century charming housing and excellent schools, have been attracting well-to-do and highly educated whites.

Were seeing the results of that play out in elections. Trump supporters are more likely to be clustered in the outlying, more heavily white suburbs, and Democrats are making real inroads into the communities with more heterogeneity and better-off whites, says Sugrue. Thats a really big change.

But theres a whole lot more to the story. Just because certain suburbs are trending blue doesnt exactly mean theyre woke to the racial politics that have long plagued suburbia. White liberal suburbanites have played a critical role in the process of housing segregation and the resistance to low-income housing, says Sugrue. We cant just think about it as torch-bearing angry white supremacists. If they were the only obstacles to equality in suburban housing, we would have come a lot farther than we have.

To sort through all of this what we mean when we talk about the suburbs, how theyre changing and the implications that has for American life POLITICO spoke to Sugrue on Tuesday. A transcript of the conversation is below, edited for length and clarity.

Stanton: Recently, President Trump has been particularly vocal in his appeals to white suburbanites, tweeting that he is happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood. Theres a lot to unpack there. As someone who has spent decades researching issues of housing, race, cities and suburbs, whats your reaction when you hear something like that?

Sugrue: Well, there are a lot of different ways to react to the presidents tweet. Hes appealing to the hard-core racial sentiments of his base in particular, fears of African-Americans, Latinos and low-income residents moving into homogeneous, mostly white suburban communities. But hes evoking a suburbia from, in many respects, the past. This is not the land of Leave it to Beaver anymore. Suburbs are more diverse and heterogeneous. Today, a majority of African Americans live outside of central cities and in suburban places. Suburbs have become gateway communities for new Americans: A majority of new immigrants to the United States live in suburban places.

This is not the land of Leave It to Beaver anymore.

Thomas Sugrue

That said, while in the aggregate, suburbs are more diverse, the distribution of nonwhites isnt random. Metropolitan America is not a place of free housing choice. Its still very much shaped by deep patterns of racial inequality and a maldistribution of resources. A lot of the nonwhite newcomers to suburbia live in what I call secondhand suburbs places that have become increasingly unfashionable for whites, often older suburbs closer to central cities, with declining business districts and decaying housing stock.

And just as the distribution of minority groups across suburbia is not random, the distribution of whites across suburbia has really significant political implications. Were seeing a suburban political divide quite different from the one that played out after World War II, when well-to-do, middle-class and even some working-class whites living in suburbia found common ground by looking through their rearview mirrors with horror at the cities they were fleeing. By the early 2000s, you have growing divisions among white suburbanites. The whitest suburban places are often at the suburban-exurban fringes places where middle-class whites who are attempting to flee the growing racial diversity of cities and nearby suburbs are moving. By contrast, many of the older suburbs, particularly those with late 19th-, early 20th-century charming housing and excellent schools, have been attracting well-to-do and highly educated whites.

And I think were seeing that play out in elections both the 2018 midterms and in 2020, where Trump supporters are more likely to be clustered in the outlying, more heavily white suburbs, and Democrats are making real inroads into the communities with more heterogeneity and better-off whites. Thats a really big change.

Just as the distribution of minority groups across suburbia is not random, the distribution of whites across suburbia has really significant political implications.

Thomas Sugrue

The suburban lifestyle dream is really different depending on who you are. Theres not one single suburban lifestyle dream. For immigrants from Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador, its getting access to the plentiful service-sector jobs available in suburban places. For educated, well-to-do whites, its having a charming house in an older, walkable neighborhood with first-rate public schools. For middle-class whites alienated by the growing diversity of society, its having a place closer to open fields and farms, with brand-new housing stock and racially homogenous public schools. We have to talk about the diversity of suburban lifestyle dreams, and see that theres not just one. And thats where I think Trump has really misread the reality of todays suburbs.

Stanton: It seems like theres some question as to what we even mean when we say suburbia. Why do we have such a fixed idea of the suburbs the Leave It to Beaver image even as theyve changed drastically?

Sugrue: Well, suburbs occupy a distinct place in American popular culture. The way they were represented in films, novels, memoirs and by a whole generation of social scientists was as a place where well-to-do whites lived separate from each other in houses surrounded by green lawns. And that reflects a reality based in the extraordinary period of growth following the Second World War, when the suburbs expanded exponentially and largely followed a model of single-family detached housing and accessibility by car.

But suburbs didnt freeze in time circa 1950 or 1960; they continued to evolve and transform. And those transformations were largely overlooked by political commentators, journalists, social scientists, novelists and pop culture. You saw, for example, beginning in the 1960s and expanding in the 70s and 80s, the emergence of clusters of multifamily housing apartments, townhouses and condominiums in suburban places. And as the housing market opened, a lot of new immigrants chose suburban places as points of settlement because suburbs offered access to jobs. In the post-WWII period up to the present day, most American job growth has been in suburban places office parks, industrial parks, shopping malls, stores, restaurants, the construction industry, all sorts of service jobs. And those changes are crucial to understanding the remapping of metropolitan America. They capture a more complex reality than the post-WWII image of the suburbs.

Stanton: At recent telerallies, President Trump has said that under his administration, youre not going to have low-income housing built right next to you, which drives down your housing value, and a lot of crime comes in. What is the history hes drawing on?

Sugrue: Charles Tilly, one of the great sociologists of our time, coined a term: opportunity hoarding. His notion was that certain groups can accumulate all sorts of advantages that reinforce their political power or socioeconomic advantages. The post-WWII American suburb was a place where whites could opportunity hoard particularly by getting access to a well-funded, first-rate public education and during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, civil rights activists made the case that the way to move toward racial equality was by opening up housing opportunities in places that were exclusive. During the late 60s, the Department of Housing and Urban Development a Cabinet-level agency created by President Lyndon Johnson made it its task to build affordable housing in suburban places. Interestingly, it was Republican President Richard Nixon and his HUD Secretary, George Romney, who pushed aggressively to open suburban places to affordable housing. But that was extraordinarily controversial politically, and over the course of his first term, Nixon increasingly marginalized both HUD and Romney because of the high political costs of attempting to open up suburban places. We live in a world that hasnt changed [that policy] too much since Nixon began to withdraw HUD from the construction of affordable housing in suburbs. The federal government has put less and less energy over the last 4050 years in diversifying housing stock and opening up predominately suburban places, particularly white and well-off places, to low-income housing. Theres very little political will for it.

The federal role is largely invisible. But the federal government underwrote suburbia.

Thomas Sugrue

And this gets to another critical dimension of suburban history: The federal government played a major role in creating suburbia. It provided subsidies to homeowners through programs like the Veterans Administration, the Federal Housing Administration and its predecessor, the Homeowners Loan Corporation, which made possible the dramatic expansion of single-family housing. When you drive through new suburban housing developments, you dont see a sign that says, you know, Whispering Forest: Brought to you by the federal government. The federal role is largely invisible. But the federal government underwrote suburbia by providing significant funding for highway construction. It played a critical role in changing suburban economics by providing tax breaks particularly in the form of tax appreciation for new commercial developments in suburban places. It encouraged the decentralization of industry, particularly the defense industry, which was a boon for suburbia in places like Orange County, California; Suffolk County, Long Island; and suburban Phoenix.

The federal government played a critical role in the rise and growth and prosperity of suburbia. But it has not played a significant role in making the advantages of suburbia available to lower-income Americans. And thats critical: When Trump talks about the federal government inflicting low-income housing on communities that dont want it not messing with the suburban lifestyle dream hes invoking the aspirations of federal policy that were seldom actually put into practice.

The federal government played a critical role in the rise and growth and prosperity of suburbia. But it has not played a significant role in making the advantages of suburbia available to lower-income Americans.

Thomas Sugrue

Stanton: Whats the political effect of the governments role in the suburbs effectively being invisible?

Sugrue: For a long time, it meant that many white suburbanites who benefited hugely from these invisible programs attributed suburban homeownership simply to their own discipline and hard work. It meant that persistent, deeply entrenched housing segregation and discrimination were explained away as individuals expressing their own preferences, or freedom of choice to live where they want to live. It made it very hard for white Americans to interpret racial segregation or disinvestment from predominantly minority and largely urban neighborhoods as something that was the result of public policy that it was not the result of individual recklessness or irresponsibility, which is the way that it often got framed. Instead, homeownership equals good citizenship and responsibility. And then, when you see signs of disinvestment and decline and decay, it seems that those must be the result of irresponsibility and recklessness. And that rhetoric remains really deeply entrenched in American politics.

Stanton: Regarding rhetoric, my understanding is that during the Nixon era, there was a realization that politically and legally, you couldnt really defend racial segregation of housing. But you could defend economic segregation of neighborhoods. So when we talk about low-income housing, is that just a shorthand for talking about racial desegregation?

Sugrue: Its something of both. In modern American history, race and class have been fundamentally intertwined. Its impossible to understand economic inequality and how it plays out without understanding its racial dimensions. Race became, for many Americans, an easy marker for class, and class often became a way to obscure the racial dynamics at play in shaping housing markets. And along with that goes a rhetoric of colorblindness shared by many white Americans, regardless of their political orientation: I dont see people by the color of their skin, or I would have anybody be my neighbor red, white, black, yellow or purple. I cant tell you how many times I've heard that as a way of professing supposed indifference to race.

We cant just think about it as torch-bearing angry white supremacists. If they were the only obstacles to equality in suburban housing, we would have come a lot farther than we have.

Thomas Sugrue

Also, one thing thats important to consider are the ways in which white liberal suburbanites have played a critical role in the process of housing segregation and the resistance to low-income housing. In other words, we cant just think about it as torch-bearing angry white supremacists. If they were the only obstacles to equality in suburban housing, we would have come a lot farther than we have.

Stanton: Explain that. What have white liberals done?

Sugrue: So, one of area of really important bipartisan convergence is the politics of homeownership the notion that property values need to be protected and, in particular, the politics of NIMBY, or not in my backyard. And there are liberals who profess to be progressive on matters of race who profess and support the idea of a racially diverse society, who say that they would like their children to go to racially mixed schools but when it comes to the questions of changing the landscape of their neighborhoods or changing the color of their neighbors or their kids school classmates, these folks start to sound a lot like conservatives, even if theyre ostensibly liberals.

One of the consequences of that are the fierce battles over even modest or token efforts to bring diversity to predominantly white suburban school districts, and really significant opposition to the construction of multifamily housing. And its not even couched in the rhetoric of class. Its not, I dont want multifamily housing in my neighborhood because I dont want lower-class people living here. Instead, its, This is going to change the character of the neighborhood, or Its going to jeopardize my property values, or Its going to bring congestion.

Excerpt from:

Trump Doesnt Understand Todays SuburbsAnd Neither Do You - POLITICO

From High School Musical to Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, these are Zac Efron's best and worst roles, according to IMDb.

Zac Efrons career started in the early 2000s with a series of relatively unknown films before he shot to fame at the center of the High School Music franchise. At the same time, he took on a few well-loved roles before attempting to leave his career as a teen icon behind and move towards more serious acting.

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Now, he is one of the most famouspeople in the world, more well-known for his excellent talent than his time at the center of a childrens franchise.

Ifthere is oneZac Efron film which is about as far from High School Musical as is physically possible, thenit'sExtremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, one of Efron's most recent prominent roles.Efron ditches the schoolboy look in favor of a realistic portrayal of one of the most famous serial killers of all time. Of course, his natural good looks and charm help him form the misleadingly delightful side of Bundy, but the murderous side is a new direction for Efron.

Scoob! makes a lot of controversial decisions that harm the legacy ofScooby-Doo. Not only did the film replace Frank Welker as Fred (he has voiced Fred consistently for more than fifty years) with Efron himself, but it left behind the charm the animated series once had.

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There was a lot of hype surrounding this release, and then a whole lot of disappointment from fans whowere looking for a revival of big-budget Mystery Inc. adventures.

Period dramas are often a hit or miss genre, with their success determined by characterization.Me And Orson Wellesmanages to land a place in Zac Efrons top five, thanks to well throughout writing. He takes on the lead role of Richard Samuels, a teenager performing in the Orson Welles stage adaptation of Julius Caesar. Both Efron and Christian McKay were well-received.

Relatively fresh from High School Musical, Zac Efron landed a leading role in At Any Price back in 2012. While Roger Ebert enjoyed the film, critics and audiences were much more mixed in their reviews, citing melodramatic acting from across the cast and cliched moments as the films weakest points. Of which there were many.

While Efron doesnt take a major role in this film, he was put into a position that allows him to add a much more eccentric side to his personality than usual. He played Nat, a college student and friend of John Magaros Dean. The comedy-drama wasnt a big player at the box office but made a splash at film festivals.

Before High School Musical, Efron had already established himself an acting career, appearing in a variety of small pictures. One of those is 2005s The Derby Stallion, a film about Efrons character caring for a horse and eventually entering a race. The film hasn't been well-remembered by critics or audiences alike,who cite an uninteresting story and an abundance of cliches as reasons behind their negativity.

Just like Liberal Arts, Efron doesnt have a major role in The Disaster Artist. In fact, he appears in just one scene and his role is particularly interesting.

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His character, Dan Janjigian, portrayed Chris R in The Room, so the majority of the time Efron is on screen, he is playing someone who is playing someone else. Quitethe acting inception. He mirrors Janjigians performance just as well as everyone else in The Disaster Artist does, making this a subtle and well-used cameo.

If there was one thing no-one ever needed to be remade, it was Baywatch. Seth Gordon allowed Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron to team up and star in the fateful comedy which managed to perform well at the box office despite universally negative reviews. One particular accolade the film did land Efron was a Worst Actor nomination at the Golden Raspberry Awards in 2017; the filmas a whole was nominated for Worst Picture.

As a film, The Greatest Showman achieved an incredible amount of attention and made bucket loads of money. This was mostly down to some truly excellent songs and a few particularly strong performances (including Efron) but it was criticized for overuse of artistic license. On the whole, however,critics and audiences must have found a lot to love.It was nominated for the Musical/Comedy variant of the Best Motion Picture Golden Globe.

Whilecritics could argue that the previous twoHigh School Musicalare hard to call good examples of cinema,audiences and reviewers alike seem to view the conclusion to thetrilogy as mediocre and disappointing. It was brought into action after the previous installments became successful, but failed tomake the same impact on young fans, whose excitement trailed off. This film ends up with a 4.8 IMDb average and is Efron's worst-rated film role so far.

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Zac Efron: His 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Roles According To IMDb - Screen Rant