Sam Bloch

The Garage Is the New Porch

"We’re getting older and I guess we’re becoming porch people," she said one night, as a neighbor walked by and said hello. "But since we don’t have a porch, this is the place where friends will drop by for a drink or to maybe watch sports with us when we bring our TV down."

The World's Longest and Most Frustrating Light Rail Is in L.A. | Connecting California The A Line Runs Through 60 Miles and Touches Most of My Life. I Hate It Anyway

"The A Line’s purpose is to get us out of our cars. But its stations’ designers can’t imagine a life without cars... Many stations are bordered or surrounded by large, empty parking lots, occupying too much space where new, transit-friendly development should be." @zocalopublicsquare.bsky.social

West Virginia ways of life: The neo-trailer style, in a time of late capitalism and climate change • West Virginia Watch If our Legislature were actually awake, maybe they would get the bright idea to populate West Virginia by improving the quality of life here.

"West Virginia is so poor, miserable, and misgoverned that it bans abortion and suicide in desperation to make people live here."

westvirginiawatch.com/2025/09/18/w...

Armed Federal Agents Patrol Downtown, Make Arrest At Millennium Park, Witnesses Say The federal troops were seen in Millennium Park, on the Magnificent Mile and in the Gold Coast — days after patrolling the Chicago River in a boat. "This is another brazen provocation from the Trump a...

masked men snatching a family off the street in Chicago -- your tax dollars at work blockclubchicago.org/2025/09/28/a...

The Exacting Magic of Film Restoration Each year, at a festival in Bologna, movies that were once lost or damaged come back to life.

“One of the blessings of Bologna, in northern Italy, is that it knows how to ride a heat wave. A tip for anyone designing a metropolis from scratch: start with a portico, and take it from there.”

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Can Pedestrian Pop-Ups Go Permanent in the U.S.? Scenes from the Philadelphia subscriber event

“Temporary street closures are great. But they miss out a number of quantifiable benefits of permanent pedestrianization.” Terrific Diana Lind column that explains why pilots aren’t good policy:

substack.com/home/post/p-...

Precious Shadows | Broadcast On shade's fragile mercy.

The sun man @billmckibben.bsky.social glimpses the dark side of a bright future. "As temperatures continue to rise, we have to do what we can to stay cool. Which means, among other things, shade, as a matter of survival and as a matter of justice."

pioneerworks.org/broadcast/pr...

Important story on the show this week about the dangerous meatpacking industry turning to refugees for cheap labor

Gig of the Week: 9/22/25 A lovely day in the park with Oneida, a mini fest of ’90s hardcore, a departed Swedish death-metal legend and more

Shteamer on Oneida in the park: "Avant-garde rock is as much homegrown New York folk music as a busker covering “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and it’s nice to see it being treated as such — showcased in a free, public setting, available to anyone who might happen upon it."

substack.com/home/post/p-...

Following Sludge Report, SKDK Says It’s Dropping Its Israel Contract The Democratic PR firm was under contract with Israel to build a social media bot program, but says it never worked on such a program.

Bravo to @davidrussellmoore.bsky.social and @donnydonny.bsky.social at @sludge.bsky.social for exposing Democratic PR firm SKDK's contract with the Israeli gov't to provide social media/propaganda bots.

One day later SKDK says it's cutting ties, ending the contract

readsludge.com/2025/09/17/f...

Good thing Obama is not a Washington Post columnist or talking head on MSNBC, or he’d be fired for saying this.

Joel Engardio concedes election: ‘We are on the right side of history’ District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio badly lost his recall vote. Mayor Daniel Lurie will appoint a new San Francisco supervisor.

Climate action is hard, and this isn't the first time a political leader has paid the price for courage. (Think of Ada Colau getting booted in Barcelona after the superblocks.) But Engardio is right: "We are on the right side of history."

missionlocal.org/2025/09/sf-j...

US citizen says he was briefly detained in latest Chicago-area ICE blitz An Elgin man who was born in Texas said he was handcuffed and placed in a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vehicle, as part of the latest Chicago-area ICE blitz.

Among those handcuffed in a video promoted by DHS Sec’y Kristi Noem on X is Joe Botello, an AMERICAN citizen. @chicagotribune.com photog @staceywescott.bsky.social was there and we spoke to him. He was later released and “blessed that I’m still alive." Story: www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/16/e...

National park to remove photo of enslaved man’s scars The Trump administration is ordering the removal of information on slavery at multiple national parks in an effort to scrub them of “corrosive ideology.”

donald trump and the white nationalists that run his government want you to think that slavery was just fine www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Interesting article about the demise of Berkeley's People's Park, basically suggesting that '60s ideals of free expression — made manifest in open spaces and parks — are no longer a progressive priority but a luxury

link.latimes.com/view/6520704...

New PEN America statement: “The firing and suspension of multiple journalists after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk should alarm anyone who cares about free speech and a free press. Taken together, these measures risk creating a chilling effect that extends beyond those directly targeted..."

A New Book on Shade by Sam Bloch This week marks the release of Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource, a new book by Sam Bloch that expands on an article published in Places in 2019.

@samkbloch.bsky.social has two events coming up, featuring his new book on shade!

SUN. 9/14: MIAMI, FL, in conversation w/ Germane Barnes

MON. 9/15: AUSTIN, TX, in conversation w/ Charles L. Davis II

Here’s more about the book, and how it emerged from an article Bloch wrote for Places in 2019:

How Trump’s Crime Crackdown Muted Other Parts of D.C. Life

"She and others repeatedly mentioned echoes of the pandemic: parents seeking virtual learning, restaurant staff needing car rides to avoid mass transit, would-be diners choosing instead to stay home."

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

If the federal show of force in Washington has had a deterrent effect on crime, it appears to have deterred entirely normal aspects of city life, too.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

Thanks for this context!

Did a Brooklyn Couple Kill a Neighbor’s Trees for a Better View in Maine?

Delicious story about jerks who (allegedly) kill their neighbors' trees to score better views. Come for the shade hate, stay for the zingers

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

And she got it done with only "limited/shared" control over the streets!

bsky.app/profile/sluc...

Happening this Sunday! For folks in the Miami area interested in the key role that shade plays in protecting human health, enhancing urban life, and protecting the planet — don’t miss this evening w/ @samkbloch.bsky.social and Germane Barnes. RSVP is free!

In MIAMI, FL, this SUN 9/14: Environmental journalist @samkbloch.bsky.social in conversation with architect/designer Germane Barnes @booksandbooks.bsky.social.

They’re talking Bloch’s new book, “Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource,” and the key role of shade in public space.

RSVP! ⬇️

The Heat Is Punishing. So Is Being Told You Can’t Work in It.

There are better fixes for food delivery riders, like having companies provide more secure contracts so riders are compensated even if they have to stop work. One of the companies has started hiring them as employees.

“Rents don’t go down when temperatures go up.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/w...

Author Event: Sam Bloch with Anjulie Rao | City Lit Books This cozy bookstore with staff-curated selections, book clubs, and other events.

Chicago folks: I'm talking shade with the inimitable Anjulie Rao tomorrow night at City Lit in Logan Square, would love to see you there!

www.citylitbooks.com/events/33125...

L.A. desperately needs more shade. So why were 77 palm trees planted near LACMA? Palm trees might be an expensive, messy problem for L.A. But that didn't stop new Mexican fan palms from being planted on Wilshire Boulevard near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Because palms aren't trees, and their slender trunks don't block anyone's view, and views are the most important thing to a starchitect. That's why there's not a single tree in front of Frank Gehry's cone-meltingly-hot Disney Concert Hall on Grand Avenue

www.latimes.com/lifestyle/st...

All the Things That You Need a Billion Dollars to Buy Are Bad One way to think about inequality.

"The war on science, on democracy, on constitutional norms, the war on immigrants—all of these things are branches of the class war, because losing the class war is what granted the bad people the power to pursue those things in such an unchecked manner."

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/all-the-th...

This is what the slow breakup of the United States could look like—not political violence or civil war, but blue states banding together to protect themselves from Trump's unchecked and unaccountable regime.

And meanwhile, states like Florida ban vaccine mandates. apnews.com/article/flor...

After six months in ICE custody, Charlotte woman chooses voluntary removal to Honduras A 20-year-old Honduran woman who has lived in the Charlotte area for more than a decade will soon be removed from the U.S.

She was brought to the US as an 8yo, worked hard, studied, earned a scholarship, planned to become a nurse.

ICE kidnapped her. Held her for 6 MONTHS in a detention facility with conditions so miserable that she finally agreed to voluntarily move to Honduras, which her family left at gunpoint.