What remains to be seen is whether it’s a marker on the road to the meritocracy’s demise.įrom the beginning meritocratic culture and standardized testing have been inextricably intertwined. But we think by the end of this episode you’ll see why Chuck named One Billion Americans one of the best books he read in 2020.The rapid abandonment of the SAT and ACT as requirements for college admissions, to the point where more than 80 percent of four-year colleges didn’t require a standardized test for admission in the coming fall, is a milestone in the history of the modern meritocracy. Part 2 of the interview will run next week.

stronger-not just at the international level but as a “community of communities.” They also discuss why the idea of one billion Americans is actually a centrist one, how it can be done well, and why it doesn’t have to be an environmental disaster. In this episode, he talks with Strong Towns founder and president Chuck Marohn about why population growth would make the U.S. (It’s our first podcast of 2021, and the first of a two-part interview.) Yglesias is the host of The Weeds podcast and cofounder of Vox Media, and he recently launched the blog and newsletter Slow Boring. Matthew Yglesias is the special guest on this week’s episode of the Strong Towns podcast. And there are compelling domestic reasons for growing the population too. And virtually all of our thriving cities easily have room to grow and accommodate more people.” As things stand now, he says, the United States is “staring down the barrel of inevitable relative decline.” The economies of China and India are growing quickly and threaten America’s position as the world’s leading power. “Many of its iconic cities-including not just famous cases of collapse like Detroit but also Philadelphia and Chicago and dozens of smaller cities like Rochester and Erie-actually have fewer residents than they had decades ago. is not “full,” he writes in the book’s introduction. In his new bestselling book, One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger, Yglesias makes the case for tripling the American population. And journalist Matthew Yglesias has an even more provocative answer. Does the United States have too few people? It’s a provocative question-but one perhaps not asked often enough.

Matt yglesias book