Thursday morning news drop
What Private Equity Firms Are and How They Operate Private equity firms have grown substantially since the 1980s and now manage more than $6 trillion in assets in the United States. Their presence has affected industries from hospitals to fisheries. (Propublica)
The Tech That Tries to Tackle NIMBYs: City officials are using digital simulations and other online tools to ease contentious public debates over new development and street changes (Bloomberg)
When Cities Treated Cars as Dangerous Intruders: To many urban Americans in the 1920s, the car and its driver were tyrants that deprived others of their freedom. (MIT Press)
That Dinner Tab Has Soared. Here Are All the Reasons. At restaurants around the country, staff shortages, supply-chain logjams, the Ukraine war and other forces have driven up the price of nearly everything. (New York Times)
Economic Misconceptions of the Crypto World: It’s helpful to take a hard-nosed look at some of the economic stories that are floating around there in the crypto world. These stories are hard to pin down precisely, because — crypto being the decentralized enterprise that it is — there is no one authority that tells you what to think about Bitcoin or the Metaverse etc. Still, Cash isn’t savings, Scarcity doesn’t create value. (Noahpinion)
Blame Election Deniers for Faltering Consumer Sentiment Measures that track confidence in the economy are being skewed downward by politically disgruntled Americans. (Bloomberg)
The End of Manual Transmission: Stick shifts are dying. When they go, something bigger than driving will be lost. (The Atlantic)
Inside Canada’s first Ace Hotel Featuring local art, custom-made furnishings and rooms designed to feel like urban cabins (Toronto Life)
What I Learned as a Teenage Hip Hop Critic for Pitchfork At seventeen, I spread the gospel of underground rap to a wider audience. But BIPOC music journalists are no longer afforded opportunities like mine (Walrus)
The Most Surveilled Place in America In the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, Border Patrol spent billions on high-tech surveillance. All the drones, cameras, and manpower do little to deter migrants from trying to cross the border — it only makes the journey deadlier. (Verge)