Works in Progress (@WorksInProgMag) / X

Works in Progress

2,533 posts

Works in Progress

@WorksInProgMag

Works in Progress is a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world. Subscribe to our new print edition now. We are proud to be part of @Stripe.

Joined January 2020

Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
Dec 17, 2024
Madrid’s metro was 71 miles long in 1995. That would be the world’s 51st longest today, reasonable considering Madrid is the 57th largest city by population. Yet over 12 years, the metro would ~3x in length at costs much lower than was thought possible. Here’s how they did it🧵
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Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
Feb 4, 2025
There exists a popular sentiment that we can’t build as well as we used to and our best days are behind us. But when we choose to, we can still build beautiful and interesting developments. Here’s a tour of 10 new projects that are creating a better built environment. 🧵
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Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
Apr 16, 2025
1760: 🇫🇷25 million people 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿5.5 million 2025 🇫🇷68 million 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿56 million If France’s population growth had kept pace with England’s, France would have 250 million people. What happened? 🧵
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What if a lack of housing is at the root of all of our problems? The housing theory of everything: worksinprogress.co/issue/the-hous…
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Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
Jul 15, 2024
There is a Moore's law for mining copper. In ancient Rome, it took 40 years of labor to make a tonne of copper. By 1800, it was down to 6 years. Today, it takes just 21 days.
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Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
May 8, 2024
The West has been below replacement level fertility before. By the 1920s, more than half of European nations had fertility rates below 2.1. But fertility recovered – often to far above replacement level – in the famous Baby Boom. How did we pull it off? (🧵)
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One principle makes nuclear power unaffordable. That’s Linear No Threshold: the theory that there is no safe level of radiation. It's wrong. But on Friday, the US President signed an executive order to reconsider it. 🧵 worksinprogress.co/issue/the-bad-…
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Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
Mar 10, 2025
Far UVC can cut airborne bacteria by 98.4 percent, and could do the same for viruses, preventing diseases spread in public spaces. But it is held back because it is unpatentable, which means it is unproven, unregulated, and untrusted. We can fix this.
Flipping the switch on far-UVC
From worksinprogress.news
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Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
Feb 19, 2025
Professor Donald Shoup died on February 6th. He has a strong claim on being the scholar who will have had the greatest impact on your day-to-day life by focusing on an impossibly boring problem that was completely neglected before him: where we park our cars. 🧵
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Airplanes today fly no faster than they did in the 1970s. In many countries, road speeds have decreased. Flying cars never showed up. In developed countries, the tallest buildings have only inched higher. Most rich countries produce less energy per capita than they did 20 years
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We can still build great things, at least in some places. Here’s a run down of 10 major new infrastructure projects that have happened recently.
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The UK’s grid is broken. There are 15-year queues for new connections. One substation fire shut Britain’s busiest airport. More than £1bn a year is spent to pay wind farms to NOT generate electricity. And the country came close to blackouts this winter. So what went wrong? 🧵
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The Baby Boom holds important lessons for boosting birth rates in today's demographic winter. The best way to improve fertility rates may be to make parenthood cheaper and easier through better technology, healthcare, and housing.
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Works in Progress
@WorksInProgMag
Dec 17, 2024
Replying to @WorksInProgMag
Madrid’s track record has left the city transformed. It has higher per resident ridership than London or NYC, with higher satisfaction rates. Madrid also has the largest area accessible by public transit within 30 minutes of its center of any American or Western European city.
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