David A. Banks is the Director of Globalization Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY and the author of the forthcoming book The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America published by University of California Press. He is also a delegate to the Troy Area Labor Council and the co-host of the podcast Ironweeds."We have to change how we connect to land. Who gets to control it? Who owns it? Who gets to build on it? There are tons of government subsidies that make it possible for anyone to  possibly own a piece of land in the way that most people inhabit the land and own it. We need to change that because there are some things called flood zones. And what we called hundred-year floods are now like 10-year floods. You need to be able to make concrete, specific mitigation, or some sort of change to that land. Right now we're pretty stuck in many places where no authority can say, 'We need to change the city in XYZ ways in order to avoid future catastrophe and flood zones.' "www.davidabanks.orgwww.e-flux.com/architecture/software/337954/where-do-you-live/ https://reallifemag.com/true-ish-grit/ www.reallifemag.com/new-haunts/ The attention economy of authentic cities https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2021.1882947https://ironweeds.podbean.com