Issue 21: The Great Downzoning

Works in Progress Issue 21 is out today.

Our lead piece is about the Great Downzoning: why, in the span of a few decades, ​​nearly every city in the Western world banned densification, and what the Downzoning can teach us about reversing it.

This is our inaugural print magazine. Subscribers received the full magazine this week. Some articles have already been released online, and the rest of the issue will be published on the website throughout the next few weeks. We have already published pieces on:

• Why the developing world needs wider streets;

• What bacteria can teach us about evolution;

• How the dishwasher changed the lives of women;

• The return of inflatable space stations.

The rest of this issue will contain pieces on:

• Why modern prose isn’t all about short sentences;

• The origins of the South Korean baby bust;

• How quartz almost killed Swiss watches;

• Whether classical statues were horribly painted;

• How to measure competition; and

• The use of genetics to develop drugs.

Subscribers also received features and columns exclusive to print, including Virginia Postrel’s inaugural column Nova Reperta. You can subscribe from the United States, United Kingdom, EU, Canada, and Australia. If you subscribe before December 18, you will receive Issue 21 and a new issue every two months after that. If you subscribe after that, you will receive Issue 22 as your first issue. If you live outside these countries and want to be notified as soon as subscriptions are live in your country, leave your details here.

The Great Downzoning is one of the most important events in economic history, writes Samuel Hughes. In a few decades, nearly every Western city went from a regime where it was legal to build almost anything, everywhere, to a regime where it is illegal to build most things in most places. Understanding why it happened is crucial to reversing it.

We need rotating space stations to create artificial gravity and live in space. Inflatable space stations are our best bet for creating something of that size, argues Angadh Nanjangud. We once abandoned them in our pursuit of the Moon, and eventually replaced them with rigid space Ikea programs like ISS. Now that Starship is available, it is possible to revive their promise – and make us a spacefaring civilization with technology and materials not far from