Josh Stephens

As the global economy has wobbled in the face of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, the California logistics industry has followed suit. The promise of jobs and economic development has pushed jurisdictions to embrace warehouses by the millions of square feet -- totaling over 1.17 billion square feet of warehouse space in southern Calfornia alone.

Seemingly since the invention of the elevator, critics of growth in California have warned of “Manhattanization,” as if the adoption of liberal zoning policies could instantly result in a thicket of high-density towers. Thus far, that fate has not befallen any cities. But due to a recent confluence of new laws and economic conditions, high-rises are being proposed, approved, and built in some unusual places.

Of the dozens of Grateful Dead songs that have been autoplaying in my head since the news of Bob Weir’s passing broke this Saturday, “Shakedown Street” has been in particularly heavy rotation. The  bassline helps, but so does its commentary about American urbanism.  The Dead’s landscapes rarely involved cities. Dead songs are vivid: fairy tales set in the real world, though its landscapes are more pastoral than urban. In “Truckin’,” we pass through the likes of Dallas, Houston, New Orleans,...