Grant Ennis

BBC Audio | How They Made Us Doubt Everything | Welcome to How They Made Us Doubt Everything: The Tobacco Playbook From climate change to smoking, this is the story of how doubt has been manufactured.

“From climate change to smoking & cancer, this is the story of how doubt has been manufactured. This 10 part series will explore how powerful interests & sharp PR managers engineered doubt about the connection between smoking & cancer & how similar tactics were used to make us doubt climate change.”

SROs & Boarding Houses Are More Than Hype | YIMBYtown 2024 They might be the key to ending homelessness

"Every $100 increase in Houston’s rents equates to a 9% increase in the local homeless population." Single Room Occupancies and Boarding Houses may be the answer.

@brenttoderian.bsky.social @tomflood.bsky.social Was banning SROs the "Single-family zoning", or "red lining," moment for the de-housing underpaid workers?

How States and Cities Decimated Americans’ Lowest-Cost Housing Option Low-cost micro-units, often called single-room occupancies, or SROs, were once a reliable form of housing for the United States’ poorest residents of, and newcomers to, New York, Chicago, San Francisc...

"A million residential hotel rooms were destroyed from 1970 to 1980 ... As the nation’s least expensive source of housing disappeared, homelessness soared."

www.pew.org/en/research-... @brenttoderian.bsky.social @tomflood.bsky.social

This is such a critical point, and it’s something I’ve tried to highlight in my reporting.

The right-wing groups and operatives who politicized COVID have also been pushing anti-trans shit. Moms for Liberty is a classic example.

It’s helped create new GOP voters/activists.

Graphic showing a ca congestion-filled road, with three cigarette packs in front referencing car dependency, one titled gas, the second titled hybrid and the third titled EV. The main text says “TASTE THE FREEDOM.“ The bottom has the logo of the urban truth collective.

Cigarette companies tried to sell us “better” cigarettes that were “light,” in the hopes that we would stay addicted & end up buying MORE cigarettes. But the right public policy answer was less/NO smoking.

And OBVIOUSLY smoking wasn’t going to be allowed EVERYWHERE.

Same with cars.

#UrbanTruth

Do You Know Where Your Children Are? Is That Always A Good Thing? Decades ago, kids were encouraged to play outside and explore the outdoors. Nowadays, protective parents have reined in their children, leading to strictly structured (and supervised) playtime. The ki...

Vicky said her son was ‘driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride his bike and can roam no more than 300 yards from home.’ Basically, he stays on the block…he prefers the family yard to the street outside. ‘He doesn't tend to go out because the other children don't.’

"When great-grandpa turned 8 in 1919, he was allowed to walk six miles. In 1950, the grandfather turned 8 he was allowed to go a mile. In 1979, when the mom turned 8 her zone of play was a half-mile wide. In 2007 the son can roam no more than 300 yards from home.""

www.npr.org/sections/kru...

Me standing at the front of a room with a graphic on screen highlighting what kids have sacrificed for drivers

This is from last week at a talk I gave desperately trying to tell whoever is willing to listen (thanks queens university in this case) what our kids have given up for drivers and our car first culture

"Dark Money" Funds Climate Change Denial Effort A Drexel University study finds that a large slice of donations to organizations that deny global warming are funneled through third-party pass-through organizations that conceal the original funder

“The largest, most-consistent money fueling the climate denial movement are a number of well-funded conservative foundations built with so-called ‘dark money,’ or concealed donations, according to an analysis released Friday afternoon.”

We’ve known it for a long time. #DarkMoney #UrbanTruth

Image of busy urban Street with shops and people walking. Text says “Wait, we’re afraid of walkable distances now?“ via Urban Truth Collective.

“Wait, we’re afraid of walkable distances now?”*

*best response ever to the manufactured conspiracy theories about “15-Minute Cities” and the simple idea of having more things we need nearby. #UrbanTruth

Graphic of busy car-filled road and text stressing that car dependency is the opposite of freedom. Mobility freedom comes from mobility choices. Graphic by the Urban Truth Collective.

Gas price hikes & shortages “fuel” controversy, especially when they’re “driven” by an illegal war. But let’s not forget one of the most important discussions that should flow from such hikes — how they spotlight the difference between places with mobility choices, and places that are car-dependent.

Image of a car filled highway in congestion and gridlock, with three cigarette packs in front, one named gas, the second named hybrid, and the third named EV. The main text says “taste the freedom.“ At the bottom is the tagline for the Urban Truth Collective. Car dependency is the opposite of freedom.

Car dependency is a hell of a drug. #UrbanTruth

Associations between pharmaceutical industry interactions with physicians and chronic nonmalignant pain management prescribing practices: a systematic review - Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocati... Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation - Chronic nonmalignant pain (CNMP) is commonly treated with opioids and other analgesics, yet prescribing carries risks and substantial costs. Promotional...

Associations between pharmaceutical industry interactions with physicians and chronic nonmalignant pain management prescribing practices: a systematic review

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Mohammed Gharbia, Lydia Iladiva, @frankmoriarty.bsky.social, Tom Fahey & @jameslarkin13.bsky.social

Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous ‘Stop Cop City’ Protestor A court record reviewed by 404 Media shows privacy-focused email provider Proton Mail handed over payment data related to a Stop Cop City email account to the Swiss government, which handed it to the ...

New from 404 Media: Proton Mail, the privacy-focused email service, gave authorities data that let the FBI unmask an anonymous 'Stop Cop City' protester. It was payment data linked to the anonymous email account. From that, FBI ID'd them, then tracked their movements www.404media.co/proton-mail-...

Urban Truth Collective: Straight Talk About The Joy Of Cities In An Age Of Disinformation — Streetsblog USA The Three Tenors of Urbanism explain their latest effort: The Urban Truth Collective.

PLEASE HELP US SHARE THIS: “We’ve let the lies be far too successful, and that’s significantly hurt our cities. No more.”

It’s our blunt NEW @usa.streetsblog.org op-ed sharing why we’ve created @urbantruth.bsky.social. SPOILER: We need to call out the lies and tell the truth much more persuasively!

This post is absolutely essential reading.
What was present in many national governments – lies, denial of science, and hatred for humanists – is now coming to our cities. We must say no!
Let's read it and share it widely.
Now more than ever, our cities must uphold the values of humanist urbanism.

Calling for a more coherent policy response to driving harm Abstract. High rates of population-level driving are associated with multiple adverse health outcomes arising from road crashes, air and noise pollution, p

academic.oup.com/heapro/artic... @revkategray.bsky.social @felly500.bsky.social @brenttoderian.bsky.social @davidzipper.bsky.social @tomflood.bsky.social @thewaroncars.bsky.social @activetowns.bsky.social @urbantruth.bsky.social @brooklynspoke.bsky.social @reenamahajan.bsky.social

This is SO useful, and so affirming – restores clarity amid a constant sense of being gaslit.

Worried about the demise of reading? Come to France, where we’re up to our eyes in print | Alexander Hurst From hefty literary magazines to thriving book sales, the French publishing industry refuses to let printed matter die, says Paris-based writer Alexander Hurst

The solution to screen fatigue.

Billboard ad for public transit visible from a freeway filled with cars and congestion, that says “You are not stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic.”

One of the best of all time.

“You’re not stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic.”

Wish we had come up with that one. #UrbanTruth

100,000 Homes: Housing the homeless saves money? Giving apartments to the chronically homeless can save taxpayer dollars, advocates say

Anderson Cooper: “So it's more expensive to have a chronically homeless person living on the streets than it is to actually subsidize an apartment for them?”

Answer: “Yes, we’re paying more as taxpayers to walk past that person on the street and do nothing.” #HousingFirst #UrbanTruth

Addicted to the algorithm: how Big Tech lobbies to keep us hooked on social media | Corporate Europe Observatory As the EU prepares the Digital Fairness Act to tackle the addictive nature of social media design, big tech aggressively protects its business models. With Trumpists and far-right allies likely to joi...

The addictive design of social media is a major problem with serious impacts on public health and endangering democracy

Our new report reveals intense #lobbying by Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap to block or water down EU measures against social media addiction 🚨
corporateeurope.org/en/2026/02/a...

Each year, over $6 TRILLION flows to food, road, and fossil fuel industries whose products are associated with more than 5.5 MILLION preventable deaths...

How does industry manage to stay unregulated AND on top of the list for government handouts?

Read the full article: tinyurl.com/ypzn8f84

Thank you @grantennis.bsky.social for the eye opening stat - we cite your book, 'Dark PR' again in this piece. And thank you to @drayselsultan.bsky.social, @markpetticrew.bsky.social, @lisaangelica.bsky.social, and @foodactive.bsky.social. We also cite your work here. Your work informed ours!

Adding Up What Urban Highways Really Cost A new report maps the economic toll that downtown freeways exact on 142 US cities — and tallies up what that land could be worth if it was developed for other uses.

Another link to the Bloomberg Story on the Atlas of Inner City Highway Impacts: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

New York considers bill that would ban chatbots from giving legal, medical advice | StateScoop A bill under consideration in New York would provide a private right of action, allowing people to file lawsuits against chatbot owners who violate the law.

“A bill under consideration by the New York state legislature would prohibit artificial intelligence-powered chatbots from providing legal or medical advice, and it would allow users to sue chatbot owners who violate the ban.”

Most of the knowledge we need has been around for a long time.
1976: about the time when I rejected a driver's license. Inspired by what? I still don't know. But somehow I understood already then, that car society was heading the wrong way.

old.nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/11/18/t...