The Works in Progress Newsletter

The Works in Progress Newsletter

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June 2025

Samuel Hughes on The Great Downzoning
Episode one of The Works in Progress Podcast is out now
 • 
Sam Bowman
, 
Ben Southwood
, and 
Samuel Hughes
2
1:09:31
The first non-opioid painkiller
Journavx was approved this year. Why did it take so long to develop?
 • 
Michelle Ma
8
How New Zealand invented inflation targeting
The political gamble that made modern central banking
 • 
Works in Progress
1
How to redraw a city
The planning trick that created Japan's famous urbanism
 • 
Works in Progress
The magic of through running
By weaving together existing railway lines, some cities can build the best transit in the world
 • 
Benedict Springbett
11
Issue 19: American S-Bahn
Plus: How to redraw cities with tangled property rights, the secret history of inflation targeting, and the end of lead pollution in the developing…
 • 
Works in Progress
3
Lenacapavir: can this drug end AIDS?
Hard Drugs: Episode one is out now.
 • 
Saloni Dattani
, 
Jacob Trefethen
, and 
Works in Progress
4:55:13
Gentrification as a housing problem
The root cause is inflexible supply
 • 
Works in Progress
4
How the world's first electric grid was built
When Britain actually made something
 • 
Alex Chalmers
4
Why child benefits should be front loaded
The timing of benefits matters to families, and doesn't change costs for governments
 • 
Peter Foreshaw Brookes
17
The beauty of concrete
Why are buildings today austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented?
 • 
Samuel Hughes
6
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