MinnPost Picks: On ballparks, concert halls, and retelling Cinderella

“Everyone Agrees California Has a Housing Crisis. Trying to Fix It Has Become a Battle,” Mother Jones Last week, California lawmakers decided to shelve a controversial bill that aims to alleviate the state's housing shortage by increasing density near busy transit corridors, job centers and schools — even in areas now exclusively for single-family homes. Some housing-rights activists argue the legislation does not go far enough to address the real root of the state's housing crunch: affordability, or some homeowners do not want new multifamily housing near their single-family lots. Meanwhile, supporters say the change in local zoning could spur new development to house more people. This piece by Mother Jones, which features the author of the bill, gets deep into the rationale of each side. — Jessica Lee, local government reporter “Looking at the changing America city through it's ballparks,” Curbed Patrick Sisson at Curbed looks at the new book by architecture critic Paul Goldberger called "Ballpark: Baseball in the American City." In it, Goldberger examines how ballparks tell the story of the way America looked at cities — for better or worse — over the century-plus that the current stadiums were built. — Peter Callaghan, state government reporter “Rebecca Solnit on Love, Purposeful Work, and the Meaning of Liberty: An Empowered Retelling of Cinderella,” Brain Pickings Recently, Rebecca Solnit released a retelling of Cinderella called "Cinderella Liberator." I bought it immediately. I loved hearing it and I loved watching my daughter hear it. We've never been very big on princess stories but they're around sometimes anyway, and the kind of twists Solnit puts into this one about liberation and love and gender and work were unexpected and powerful. In this piece, Maria Popova reviews the book with some photos of its illustrations, which date back to 1919. — Jonathan Stegall, user experience engineer “14 Outstanding Concert Halls: A Perfect Match Between Acoustics and Aesthetics,” Arch Daily The Arch Daily architecture website has made a listicle on steroids of 14 spectacular music venues, from the Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall in Los Angeles to National Sawdust in New York, the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, an iceberg perched on an old brick warehouse, to China’s Harbin Opera House, a snow-capped mountain in a wetlands. Harbin designer Ma Yanson was mentored by Zaha Hadid. (And Herzog & de Meuron designed the rock-‘em, sock-‘em robot addition to our own Walker Art Center.) A few suggestions for navigating this piece: Scroll through it, then decide which one(s) you want to explore further. Every header is a hotlink (approach it from the left, not the right) that leads to dozens of really good photos. No cellphone snaps here. — Pamela Espeland, Artscape columnist

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MinnPost Picks: On ballparks, concert halls, and retelling Cinderella

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MinnPost Picks: On ballparks, concert halls, and retelling Cinderella