Eye | Fast Food & Depression | Global Cool Neighborhoods | Liu Wen

GreenTracker

What Makes A Neighborhood Cool? Grist

Most AOC readers know that formerly gritty Brooklyn has become the capital of cool. Consider the reality that housing prices in Brooklyn, in particular, have exceeded those on Manhattan’s Upper East side. According to publications such The New York Times and the New York Observer, young people are migrating to the Upper East Sside, known as one of Manhattan’s ‘squarest’ neighborhoods. 

This week The Daily Beast endeavored to explain “Why the Upper East Side Is Now Cooler Than Brooklyn.” Writer Tom Teodorczuk’s reasons: the influx of trendy new bars and restaurants, a smattering of celebrity sightings, and relative affordability.

Unfortunately, Teodorczuk’s arguments show that he has no understanding of what most urban young people actually think is cool. What makes the Upper East Side appealing to bankers and unappealing to artists, and thus condemned to cultural mediocrity, is not a dearth of celebrities or fashionable eateries. The cool kids are attracted to diversity, dynamism, tolerant liberalism, and transit accessibility. The Upper East Side is uncool because it is mostly populated with rich white people, it is too expensive to live there as an aspiring artist or to open an experimental business there, and it is too hard to get to the happening neighborhoods from there. It is still appealing to some young people, the kind for whom street safety, snazzy interiors, and proximity to their office is more important than having diverse or cool neighbors. In most cities, where rich white people didn’t hold down an urban neighborhood, those people are typically found in suburbs or the quasi-suburban periphery: places like West Hartford, Conn., Arlington, Va., and Manayunk in Philadelphia.

Global Street Style Report: Mapping Out the 15 Coolest Neighborhoods in the World Vogue

HealthTracker

The New Habit Challenge: Meditate For 20 Minutes A Day Fast Company 

Harvard researchers believe meditation is great at improving our working memories. Scientists at Leiden University in the Netherland believe open monitoring meditation improves divergent thinking, while researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that just 20 minutes of meditation a day tempers anxiety while strengthening the part of the brain known for reasoning.  

Is fast food making us depressed? BBC Future

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Chantal Thomass, Red Wine Is More Sensual Than Coca-Cola Light

Chantal Thomass, Red Wine Is More Sensual Than Coca-Cola Light

However, one little distress signal that went off in my mind reading about Coke Light France’s new campaign with the svelte Chantal Thomass is the growing body of scientific evidence that Diet Coke works against our having slim bodies. (Read last year’s Is Marc Jacobs Defying Obesity Science Promoting Diety Coke?)

Bottom line I love Chantal Thomass, but raise my eyebrows over her statement about Coca-cola Light and sensuality, one that brings back a tirade I wrote a few years back, after Coke minis was all over my email account promising to deliver happiness in a can. It was read by the then Director of Innovation at Pepsi, who is now a buddy of mine.  (Read Coca Cola Does Not Deliver Big O Happiness in a Can.)

“I feel very honored that I have commissioned art director for Coca -Cola Light for Spring 2014. I can think of no better way to celebrate the codes of feminine glamour and sensuality present in my designs corsetry and lingerie, than with this iconic drink “ Chantal Thomass has commented in a press release .

Oh come on, Chantal, we Smart Sensuality women prefer a good glass of health-enhancing, red wine and you know it! ~ Anne