A Story About Singapore’s Urban Development in Six Parts — Around lunchtime on any given weekday, the crowds of sharply-dressed office workers come cascading in waves from the shimmering towers of Singapore’s Central Business District. A good portion of these waves flow naturally to a low, octagonal tile-roofed building; a dwarf among the surrounding giants. But if you flow along…

As debates about SF’s housing crisis and high-density zoning rage on, let’s take a look back at how one viciously contentious development was approved in the early ‘60s. — Twin Peaks is, in some ways, like a small mountain town dropped right in the middle of San Francisco — the city’s equivalent of a flyover state (a tunnelunder state?). It’s basically nonexistent in online culture writing, because there’s no action up here. No storied music venues. No overhyped foodie…

The Promising and Precarious Future of SF’s Treasure Island. — This article originally appeared in the February 2022 issue of SFAA Magazine. The view! A parade of superlatives doesn’t do it justice: Both bridges are in full view as the skyline splays before you like Burt Reynolds on a bearskin rug. Today we’re exploring Yerba Buena Island [YBI] and Treasure…

A while back, someone asked me what exactly I meant by “nuanced”… — A while back on the internet, I mentioned that I liked Nick Jonas’ nuanced vocal delivery on “Jealous,” and someone asked me what exactly I meant by “nuanced.” This is a good question! Nuanced is kind of a slippery term — and of course, on the internet, no one knows…

Meet SF’s First-Wave Feminist Housing Mogul — One. Helen Grace Greenwood Yager stands up, cradling her three-month-old son Jackson. She’s 28, her patrician features brushed with the haze of new parenthood. She raises her right hand and swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help her god. It’s 1913. The whole…

Occasional dispatches from beyond the clouds — If I cue up my favorite mixtape and hit Play when I exit my apartment, the first song is still bopping when I reach the meandering path that winds its way up to the top of Twin Peaks. Half-split wooden posts bolted into the dirt, a staircase rising skyward. …

She became a film icon during the most chaotic years in Japan’s modern history. And then she walked away. —

Millionaire. Activist. Romantic. SOE Operative. — Note: Chinese names are written surname-first in this article. Locations are referred to by their English names from the period (e.g. Bombay, Ceylon, etc). Singapore in the 1930s was — as it had been for centuries — a bustling port city. Situated at the southern tip of the Malayan peninsula…