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The BBC Proms, the last night of which is on 11 September, are on their way to achieving the near impossible: an almost complete season, with live audiences, despite the pandemic. Londons Royal Albert Hall may have been quieter than usual, but it has still welcomed audience members who are double-vaccinated, or have tested negative, by the thousands into its expansive auditorium. In the meantime, millions have listened to the broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, or watched the concerts on iPlayer or on television.

Beneath the smooth surface, there have been many last-minute programme changes and artist swaps, as conductors and soloists booked to travel from overseas have encountered obstacles. On a number of occasions, UK-based artists have stepped in to fill the breach. In fact, the whole season, if one were so minded, might be seen as a tribute to the excellence of British orchestras, which with the exception of the Berlin-headquartered Mahler Chamber Orchestra have been the mainstay of this years season. That not only goes for the BBC orchestras, which always provide the concerts backbone, but also smaller, younger ensembles, such as Chineke! and the Manchester Collective.

In fact, the 2021 BBC Proms could be seen as a legitimate excuse for a modicum of national pride, though with an acknowledgment that, in normal years, it is the festivals gathering together of the very best musicians from across the world that makes it the substantial event that it is. Even this year, the festival has been immeasurably enriched, indeed made possible, by visiting artists. In 2020, though, when the Proms were much reduced and performed without live audiences, any such potential pride was brushed aside by an ugly attack on the BBC from the right, after it was reported that Land of Hope and Glory and other Last Night of the Proms favourites would probably be performed without words. The BBC said that this was an artistic decision with no one in the audience, it made no sense to attempt works in a form reliant on a mass singalong. The BBC was, however, suspected of taking the opportunity to suppress in the summer of Black Lives Matter protests some of the uglier lyrics of Rule, Britannia! (which would have anyway been an honourable position to take). The prime minister sensed an excellent opportunity to cast the corporation as a woke stronghold. Then the new BBC director general commanded a U-turn. The words were sung, a touch awkwardly, by the BBC Singers.

It was an unedifying episode. Looking back on it a year later, it seems even more futile and absurd. The Last Night of the Proms is a cultural flashpoint, despite the fact that its timeless traditions were largely invented after the second world war by the conductor Malcolm Sargent, years after the Proms were founded in 1895. What is sad about such episodes is that they leave a long shadow, a kind of stain. No doubt that is exactly what some on the right intend. But at least such attacks can be seen, with some perspective, for what they are: one-sided skirmishes in the Tories empty culture wars. And, fundamentally, nothing much to do with the Proms.

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The Guardian view on the Proms: British artists to the rescue - The Guardian

In my latest column, motivated by the California recall, I pointed out that the Golden States left turn on policy hasnt produced the economic collapse that conservatives predicted. On the contrary, the states economy has boomed, even as it keeps getting trash-talked by the business press: Between the election of Jerry Brown and the Covid-19 pandemic, both output and employment grew about as fast in California as they did in Texas.

It has, however, been a peculiar kind of boom, one in which more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in.

Economists trying to understand the rise and fall of regions within a country often rely on some form of economic base analysis. The idea is that a regions overall growth is determined by the performance of its export industries that is, industries that sell mainly to customers outside the region, such as the technology firms of Silicon Valley and the Los Angeles entertainment complex (or, here in New York, the financial industry). Growth in these industries, however, generates a lot of growth in other sectors, from health care to retail trade, driven by the local spending of the base industries companies and employees.

But base analysis suggests that when a state has a booming export sector, as California does, it should be seeing growth in more or less everything. Instead, what we see in California is that while highly educated workers are moving in to serve the tech boom, less educated workers are moving out:

Theres no great mystery about why this is happening: Its because of housing. California is very much a NIMBY state, maybe even a banana (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone) state. The failure to add housing, no matter how high the demand, has collided with the tech boom, causing soaring home prices, even adjusted for inflation:

And these soaring prices are driving less affluent families out of the state.

One way to think about this is to say that California as a whole is suffering from gentrification. That is, its like a newly fashionable neighborhood where affluent newcomers are moving in and driving working-class families out. In a way, California is Brooklyn Heights writ large.

Yet it didnt have to be this way. I sometimes run into Californians asserting that theres no room for more housing they point out that San Francisco is on a peninsula, Los Angeles ringed by mountains. But theres plenty of scope for building up.

If we look at population-weighted density the population density of the neighborhood in which the average person lives we find that greater New York is two and a half times as dense as the San Francisco and Los Angeles metro areas, with more than 30,000 people per square mile in New York and only around 12,000 in both California metros. This doesnt mean that every New Yorker lives in a high-rise (the metro area includes plenty of leafy green suburbs), it only means that those who choose to live in multistory apartment buildings can do so. If California were willing to offer that choice, it wouldnt have its housing crisis.

Personal aside: My New York apartment is in a neighborhood that, according to census data, has 60,000 residents per square mile, with many 10-plus-story buildings. Its not a teeming sea of humanity; its surprisingly quiet and genteel!

The thing is, Californias housing problem, while especially extreme, isnt unique.

Since the 1980s America has experienced growing regional divergence. We have become a knowledge economy driven by industries that rely on a highly educated work force, and firms in those industries, it turns out, want to be located in places where there are a lot of highly educated workers already places like the Bay Area.

Unfortunately, most of these rising knowledge-industry hubs also severely limit housing construction; this is true even of greater New York, which is much denser than any other U.S. metropolitan area but could and should be even denser. As a result, housing prices in these metros have soared, and working-class families, instead of sharing in regional success, are being driven out.

The result is that there are now, in effect, two Americas: the America of high-tech, high-income enclaves that are unaffordable for the less affluent, and the rest of the country.

And this economic divergence goes along with political divergence, mainly because education has become a prime driver of political affiliation.

It may seem hard to believe now, but as recently as the early 2000s college graduates leaned Republican. Since then, however, highly educated voters who have presumably been turned off by the G.O.P.s embrace of culture wars and its growing anti-intellectualism have become overwhelmingly Democratic, while non-college-educated whites have gone the other way.

As a result, the two Americas created by the collision of the knowledge economy and NIMBYism correspond fairly closely to the blue-red division: Democratic-voting districts have seen a big rise in incomes, while G.O.P. districts have been left behind:

Again, this didnt have to happen, at least not to this extent. True, the growing concentration of knowledge industries in a few metropolitan areas reflects deep economic forces that are hard to fight. But not building enough housing to accommodate this concentration and share its benefits is a policy choice, one that is deepening our national divisions.

There are hints of movement toward less restrictive housing policy; Californias legislature has just passed a bill that would, in essence, force suburbs to accept some two-unit buildings alongside single-family homes. Even this modest measure would make it possible to add around 700,000 housing units roughly the same number added in the whole state between 2010 and 2019.

We need much more of this. Restrictive housing policy doesnt get nearly as much attention in national debates as it deserves. It is, in fact, a major force pulling our nation apart.

Read more:
Opinion | The Gentrification of Blue America - The New York Times

Aug 26th 2021

by Kori Schake

This By-invitation commentary is part of a series by global thinkers on the future of American powerexamining the forces shaping the countrys global standing, from the rise of China to the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Read more here.

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MY FAVOURITE expression of Americas dynamism comes from the countrys former poet laureate, Robert Pinsky: American culture, he observed, seems so much in process, so brilliantly and sometimes brutally in motion, that standard models for it fail to apply. What pessimists about American power overlook is the protean regeneration that is the countrys essential nature.

The United States has a government created by people who distrusted government, and is a great power whose people would prefer to remain uninvolved in the world. Those anomalies make it difficult to sustain international commitments, especially involving countries not constituted along similar domestic lines. And yet America is the architect of a durable political, economic and security order that has made it and others safer and more prosperous.

The debacle in Afghanistan will require demonstrations of greater commitment elsewhere, but it doesnt call into question the order itself. In fact, that America and its allies persevered in Afghanistan for 20 years despite very slow progress may even deter some challengers.

The global order should not be taken for granted. Its genius is that it benefits not just America and its allies but every country that plays by its rules. And it is especially beneficial to middle-sized and smaller powers. They would have little ability to protect their interests in an environment where the strongest werent constrained by rules and institutions. That makes the system more stable and cost-effective than those that other hegemons have established, such as French dominance of Europe in the Napoleonic era or even Spain with all its plunder from the New World. While the rules prevail, everyone prospers.

The world is confronted with a historic challenge. It is happening economically, diplomatically, militarily, technologically and more. But at its core, it is philosophical, contesting the Hegelian belief that as people grow wealthy, they demand more political rights. That idea seemed to explain how the worlds most sustainably prosperous countries were free societies. The rise of China, where there is economic well-being without an open society, calls that into question._______________

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Henry Kissinger on why America failed in Afghanistan Anne-Marie Slaughter on why Americas diversity is its strength Niall Ferguson on why the end of Americas empire wont be peaceful_______________

Yet it would be wrong to regard the tension as a great-power competition. Instead, it is a situation in which America and the vast majority of other countries are attempting to sustain a mutually beneficial order against a country that seeks to overturn it for its sole advantage. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea illustrates the distinction: China is a signatory, but routinely violates it; America has not ratified the convention yet not only abides by its terms, but also assists other countries in upholding it.

Although China benefits enormously from orderly global trade, it is still willing to abuse its terms to penalise Australia and Japan for pursuing foreign policies with which it disagrees. Russia may share Chinas ambition of an international order favouring authoritarianism, but it lacks the economic heft to create systemic change. If America cannot or will not uphold the international, rules-based system, the likeliest outcomes will be either a frayed, more chaotic world, or one dominated by China. Either outcome would be less peaceful and prosperous.

Certainly, American power has ebbed relative to the growing economies of the global south that Americas rules-based order helped bring about, as well as from the countrys own mistakes, such as the Iraq war and the chaotic departure from Afghanistan. Yet tales of American decline fail to capture the countrys capacity for reinvention and rejuvenation, from creating Silicon Valley to electing a black president. Critics underestimate how difficult it is for other countries to get right what America already has right.

The United States has both high- and low-skilled labour through immigration and social acceptance, university systems that generate technical and scientific innovation, deep and diverse capital pools for investment, reliable commercial law and recourse through the courts, and a political system responsive to public concerns. Washington is designed to be at a stalemate unless there is a broad political consensus. Its a regrettable byproduct of beneficial democratic features: congressional elections every two years that make the chamber closer to public attitudes, less centralised party control that provide wider avenues for newcomer participation (Donald Trump, for example), and a federal system that enables policy experimentation by the states.

Allies and enemies alike are right to question whether Americas capacity for regeneration is enough this time to fix its myriad problems. The country seems to luxuriate in performative politics. The culture wars have evolved into stark ideological divisions over everything from mask-wearing to army recruiting commercials to the integrity of the presidential election in 2020. Governing amid social diversity is difficult and social medias immediacy and pervasiveness complicates everything.

Yet such challenges have always typified the American experience, and are perhaps to be expected for a country so brilliantly and sometimes brutally in motion, in Mr Pinskys words. The Black Lives Matter protests illustrated injustices in America, but also showed the breadth of solidarity and demand for improvement. The protests inspired demands for changes around the worldfitting for a country that sees its values as universal.

The past three American presidents have argued for less international involvement, evoking the idea of nation-building at home. But it is not a binary choice; the aims are complementary not contradictory. America needs an international order that prevents trouble so that it can focus on domestic challenges, and strengthening the country domestically boosts its influence internationally. The alternatives to the rules-based order are costlier and more dangerous than sustaining what exists: shielding ourselves against a hostile or chaotic order would require more expense and effort. America should strengthen the current system. Three steps for this stand out.

First, close the strategy-resources gap. For the past 20 years, America has tolerated a chasm between its ambitions and the money it commits to achieve them: financing wars through debt and allowing dedicated social programmes to outpace funding. Its defence posture is predicated on an annual 3-5% increase in real spending that has not materialised. President Bidens defence budget doesnt even keep pace with inflation. Were tempting adversaries to test whether we can do what we say we will. It is past time to buy a wider margin of safety, either by increasing military spending (perhaps to 6% of GDP from 3.7% today) or giving the Defence Department latitude to spend differently (such as by eliminating non-defence elementslike cancer researchfrom its budget).

Second, smarten up diplomacy. American diplomats are typically generalists on whom the State Department spends a fortune for language training. Instead, the country needs to hire language speakers and put the emphasis on teaching strategy: the arts of nuclear deterrence, successful negotiation and diplomatic history. Moreover, creativity should be encouraged. For example, faced with a lack of transparency in China, the American embassy started tweeting Beijings air quality on an hourly basis, which pressed the government to take environmental policies more seriously.

Third, stop imperiling dollar supremacy. So much of the latitude America enjoys in order to run high deficits comes from issuing the global reserve currency. It has been lucky that, so far, the alternatives like the euro or yuan are inferior. But the rise of secondary sanctions (imposed on individuals and organisations outside a country under sanctions) creates incentives for the development of new payment mechanisms to skirt the dollar zonethe very system that keeps Americas debt affordable. A plan to end deficit spending and exercising restraint in using the financial system as a weapon when imposing sanctions needs to be a national-security priority.

Americans are experiencing a crisis of confidence over whether their democracy can handle its challenges, and they question the universality of their values. They are also questioning the use of military force after failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. However leaders like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping embrace no such introspection. They imprison political activists, build surveillance systems, suffocate dissent and constrain business.

It is true that many people would not want a society as brilliantly and brutally in motion as America, but they probably do wish for a government that is fair and accountable. America should not lose faith that the truths it holds to be self-evident genuinely are just that. Sustaining an international system is hard work. No dominant power has had as much voluntary co-operation from allies as America. With collaboration and creativity, the country may grow even stronger in the 21st century._____________

Kori Schake is the director of foreign and defence policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. She has previously held positions at the Defence Department and State Department, and on the National Security Council

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Kori Schake on why America should keep faith in the rules-based order - The Economist

I was safe among the stacks, and I didnt often feel safe growing up. Lanarkshire in the 1980s and 1990s was not a great place to be speccy and gay with a Catholic mum and Protestant dad. My library card was a passport to countless other worlds and an escape from this one. With my head in a book, I could forget Ravenscraig shutting, my dad losing his job, my parents divorcing, the meagre sum my mum got at the post office shrinking while our gas and electricity meters only got hungrier. The bullies who haunted me never dared cross the library threshold. It was magic. The radiators were always roasting, the lights never went out, nobody ever tried to hurt me.

Our libraries are a sanctuary open to all for the benefit of all and we forget this at our peril. Especially now. We dont like to think about all the ugly reasons why people might need a safe space - reasons that have only become more acute during Covid: more families falling into poverty, more children lagging behind, more of us struggling with mental and physical health. Since 2010, the UK government has chosen to close 800 libraries. Yes, chosen. Cuts dont just happen. If we allow our libraries to be the latest casualty in the ongoing culture wars, we will all suffer. More than a quarter of Scotland's libraries remain shut even after restrictions lifted. The very real fear is Covid will be a cover for more closures. This is not austerity, its stupidity. Even a writer can do the sums.

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Reading is a joy, but libraries are not a luxury. They more than pay for themselves: 6.95 is generated for every public 1 spent, according to a 2019 Economic Impact Analysis by the British Library Business and the Intellectual Property Centre National Network. We know reading is good for us, reducing stress and inspiring empathy. NHS Scotland estimate libraries saves them 3.2 million annually. Central government is forcing local government to make impossible choices between social services and libraries. This is a false binary because libraries are a frontline service. They improve literacy, champion wellbeing, tackle social isolation and bridge the digital divide. You might be reading this online but 1 in 7 Scots still struggle with data poverty and depend on library computers to get online. Libraries are our most used public service - they are as essential to the health and wealth of our communities as surgeries and schools. And the 1964 Public Libraries Act requires government to run them properly not into the ground.

When Newarthill Library was threatened in 2016 I imagined wee me locked out. Where would he go? Closure was presented as a foregone conclusion by a cash-strapped council and most folk seemed resigned to losing yet another good thing. But not everybody. I spoke to locals who used the library computer to do their benefit applications - without these theyd be sanctioned, penalized with further penury. I met happy families at the Book Bug Club. I discussed Binchy, Dickens and the new Rebus with fervent borrowers. Communities elsewhere had resisted closure and they didnt even have the thrawn grit of Newarthillians. Together, we fought and won. But its not a fight anybody should be having.

Our libraries can help power a sustainable recovery from Covid and the inequalities it has revealed and exacerbated. Our libraries can save us. I know they can. We just have to save them first.

Damian Barr is a writer, broadcaster and host, whose works include Maggie & Me.

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'Our libraries can save us. I know they can. We just have to save them first' - Damian Barr - The Scotsman

Regarding Editorial: Our next goal in COVID vaccination? Reaching the reachable. Yes, they're out there. (Aug. 16): As the COVID-19 pandemic surges again, with infections increasing daily among mainly the unvaccinated, feelings of anger are surging among the vaccinated towards the unvaccinated. However, the unvaccinated are not one homogenous grouping. People have different reasons for their views. Some unfortunately do seem to be driven by political culture wars. Changing their minds appears to be most difficult unless they personally experience COVID. Others, however, may have real personal reasons for avoiding vaccination based on experience, circumstance, fear, cultural practices or strongly-held beliefs. These individuals are reachable and are prime candidates for vaccination. It is time to move beyond the conflicts and anger rampant on both sides of the vaccine debate. We are a society truly at war with COVID, a war we appear to be losing. The concerted, focused grassroots efforts called for in the Aug. 16 editorial are very much needed to change minds among the unvaccinated. Our path to victory over COVID is clearly paved with vaccinations and masks. It is a path we must follow together.

Grant Revell, Mechanicsville, Va.

The husband of a relative just died of COVID after being in intensive care for four weeks. He had not been vaccinated. Imagine the emotional cost to his family. Try to imagine the emotional cost to the medical staff who are tasked with caring for people who, by choice, refuse to get the vaccine. What will the cost be to people he may have infected? What will the ultimate financial cost be to the family, to insurance, to you and me? Intensive care aint free. And what is the continuing cost to the economy of those who refuse to get the shot and continue to spread the disease? Its no secret the economy is dependent on getting the pandemic under control.

This was totally avoidable. Stupidity is a choice. And if the cost impacted just the stupid, I could live with that. Unfortunately, the cost to you and me and society is not negligible.

Roger Vaught, Houston

Regarding Taliban vow to respect women, despite history of oppression, (Aug. 17): Its always the groups which have committed evils or disasters that want everyone to forget the terrible things theyve perpetrated in the past. The Talibans appeal for the world to ignore their history of violent repression, supposedly promising peace and freedom, rings hollow if one looks back at their beliefs and previous strategies. Its impossible to have freedom when the whole Taliban system is based on stamping it out.

Bob Gayle, Houston

Regarding Biden vows to evacuate all Americans -- and Afghan helpers, (Aug. 19): Last year, Biden said that he had many decades of experience with diplomacy, that he had great relationships with both our friends and our enemies, and that, unlike Trump, he would work with our allies. The media backed him up and this may have been partially why Biden was elected.

Recently, Biden said that Afghanistan would not collapse, that he had contingencies for every possible scenario, and that, after 20 years of war, we needed to leave; that it made no sense to be involved in someone elses civil war. He said there wouldnt be another Saigon evacuation. Afterward, he said chaos was inevitable. He said that the Afghanistan troops wouldnt fight. He said that he would protect the rights of women.

Do you believe that America will protect the human rights of Afghan women when they wont even protect our citizens? Do you believe we are stronger now than we were last year? Do you believe that Biden even knows whats going on? Do you believe the same would have happened if Trump was in office? Do you regret voting for Biden? I have been watching politics for over 50 years and have never been more embarrassed.

Pat Wetuski, Kingwood

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Opinion: We're at war with COVID. We shouldn't be at war with each other. - Houston Chronicle