If we think of cities as organisms, their DNA is the hodgepodge of rules that shape development. Urban planner Emily Talen talks about how city zoning, coding and laws got started, and how they need to be changed to help us build more livable cities.
Take a look at a visual archive of city plans.
David Wyatt has written a 9-11 memoir called “And the War Came.” He reads selections and talks with Anne Strainchamps about the effects of 9-ll on his family.
Corby Kummer tells Anne Strainchamps about French fleur de sel and it’s Portugese cousin flor de sal. They’re exotic and expensive gourmet sea salts that taste fabulous.
Historian Jill Lepore talks about her restless search for the long-lost manuscript, "The Oral History of Our Time." It ran some nine million words and was supposedly the work of a madman named Joe Gould, who believed he was the 20th century's most brilliant historian.
His job for the New York Times is to troll the internet for new and noteworthy words. What do these words tell us about the times we live in?
The best-selling Turkish novelist Elif Shafak was put on trial ten years ago for "insulting Turkishness". She says the political climate in Turkey is more polarized than ever today, and even riskier for writers. She also believes fiction can help heal divided cultures.
Daniel Libeskind is the architect whose design was chosen to the master-plan for the new World Trade Center site.
Blanche Barton is the former High Priestess of the Church of Satan. She tells Steve Paulson that Satanists are outsiders who do not worship Satan.
