Issues

The White House says that the ‘golden age’ of American rail is here. So why can’t the US find a new boss for Amtrak?

It’s easy to poke fun at slow, unreliable US passenger rail from the cab of a TGV Lyria or, indeed, an Etihad Rail train. But things are looking up for Amtrak, the national rail carrier that launched in 1971 as private lines went bankrupt.

In 2021 the Biden administration signed off on legislation allocating a record $22bn (€20bn) to the publicly owned company and a further $44bn (€39bn) for improvements to infrastructure. The Trump administration has been happy to take credit. The White House has celebrated last year’s upgrade to the high-speed service between Boston and Washington, as well as new routes such as the Mardi Gras Service along the Gulf Coast. The proposed Build America 250 Act that would inject more money into rail has rare bipartisan support in Congress. In August the US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, declared a new “golden age of rail”.

So why doesn’t anyone want to be the US conductor in chief? Amtrak is on its sixth leader since 2016. “The average tenure for a US corporate CEO is less than eight years,” says Frank Wilner, the author of Amtrak: Past, Present, Future. “Only two Amtrak CEOs have exceeded that average.”

The ideal candidate combines “someone who understands railroading with the political instincts to stand up to Congress”, says Sean Jeans-Gail, the vice-president of policy at the non-profit Rail Passengers Association. Amtrak’s interim president, Byl Herrmann, who has been at the company for almost 30 years, could be that person. “Herrmann has learnt the Sturm und Drang of the often-incompatible relationships involving Amtrak, its politically appointed board, a divided Congress and the often unfriendly freight railroads,” says Wilner.

Herrmann declined to declare his candidacy for the job in an interview with Monocle in September. If he gets the nod, he will have a platform based on international standards after recently leading US delegations to Austria and Spain to study best practices. And, fresh from attending Berlin’s Innotrans trade fair, he has a vision for at least five years of capital improvements. That, he believes, will give US rail the edge – and those TGV and Etihad Rail passengers will finally stop sniggering.

‘Lengthy, challenging but doable’: Mobility developer Nox rethinks what sleeper trains could bring to the future of corporate travel

On an industrial site outside Berlin, Thibault Constant, the chief marketing officer and co-founder of Nox, is putting the finishing touches to a key element of his passion project: the reinvention of the sleeper train. He shows Monocle the first mocked-up carriage, a refitted former Deutsche Bahn coach. With lots of wood, warm colours and comfortable seats, it’s a world away from the plain Nightjet trains of Austria’s ÖBB – the biggest night-train operator in Germany. “We want to make overnight trains attractive enough that normal travellers will ditch flights,” says Constant.

A 30-year-old railway blogger, Constant has spent more than 400 nights on the rails. After speaking to fellow travellers, he learnt that many see night trains as uncomfortable, expensive and unpunctual. This frustrated Constant so much that he decided to co-found Nox with Janek Smalla, a former project manager at Flixtrain, and Artur Hasselbach, now the company’s chief financial officer. The company has raised €2m in pre-seed funding, led by IBB Ventures. This pays for a team of 10 and the first carriage refit. Nox will be the brand that passengers see but TRI Train Rental will supply the locomotive, drivers and safety staff.

Sleeper trains have long been a niche category with a focus on leisure travellers. Many routes depend on state subsidies. Constant says that the fault lies with a “lack of investment because night trains were never seen as the future of transportation.” However, he believes that they can compete for the business crowd at distances between 500km and 1,500km. This demographic of travellers, he argues, would appreciate catching a 21.00 train so that they can “finish their day, go to the gym, have an evening with their family, then step on board”. They would arrive in time for a first meeting well rested after a full night’s sleep.

Nox’s show coach displays two layouts. The open-plan Nox Suites, set to launch next year, have seats that fold out into two-metre-long beds. Nox Rooms will follow in 2028 at the earliest and feature 24 closed, two-level cabins. Inside, a traveller will be able to sit and work on the lower level, then climb a ladder to sleep on the bed above. “I can close my door, finish my work, have a glass of wine and sleep for eight hours,” says Constant.

From March, the start-up will be testing its concept on a single route. The train will leave Hamburg at 21.22 and reach Munich at 08.14. Nox will launch with just five coaches; if there’s sufficient demand, hubs will follow in cities such as Berlin, Copenhagen, Zürich and Milan. By 2035, the start-up wants to serve 100 cities.

Rolling out the network will require far more than the €2m raised so far. “It’s hard to give a precise figure regarding the next financing round,” says Constant. “We will gauge the interest of investors and prepare for any scenario.” Starting a new operator in Europe, he adds, will be “lengthy, challenging but doable”.

Can the German auto industry survive? What Volkswagen’s crisis means for the country’s soft power

The German car industry is almost as old as the country. Fourteen years after unification in 1871, engineer Carl Benz unveiled his Patent-Motorwagen, widely regarded as the first practical automobile. Since then, the fates of Germany and its automotive sector have been closely intertwined. With the industry in deep trouble, however, this relationship could be a problem. Carmaking is so intrinsic to the country’s economic model and international reputation that its decline could diminish Germany’s influence across the globe.

Overtaken by Chinese competition, squeezed by US tariffs and left behind by electrification, the fate of the iconic Volkswagen (VW) brand is particularly revealing. Measured by revenue, the VW Group is still the world’s largest car company and yet it’s looking to cut about 100,000 jobs, close production sites and halve its current number of models by 2030.

We have yet to see what impact the painful structural reforms enacted by the group’s chief, Oliver Blume, might have. But what’s already clear is that this is no ordinary dip in the company’s fortunes. The recovery plan is deemed the most extensive restructuring in VW’s 89-year history. On the political side, the crisis is fuelling the rise of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD), which blames the government for the decline of this automotive icon. On the economic side, in September, VW was ejected from Euro Stoxx 50, the Eurozone’s most important blue-chip stock index, showing how little confidence there is in the group. In the medium and long term, what will the decline of Germany’s most iconic industry do to its global soft power? For well over a century, the country’s car industry was emblematic of its adaptability, resilience and self-confidence. VW is a perfect example. What began as a project that sprang from Adolf Hitler’s ambition to create a true “people’s car” became the durable and popular VW Beetle after the Second World War. The British victors, in whose occupation zone Hitler’s car plant ended up, started series production.

The Beetle, once a product of the most destructive dictator in human history, reinvented itself as a symbol of postwar prosperity and peace. West Germany’s recovery, dubbed the “Wirtschaftswunder” (economic miracle), went hand in hand with VW becoming a popular global brand and the Beetle becoming the bestselling car of a single platform in history. Its transformation helped to restore Germany’s good name in the world.

Today, Germany remains the third-largest economy in the world, with about 6 per cent of its GDP still generated by carmaking. Its perceived political, diplomatic and economic might is underpinned by its image as a well-functioning, productive and purpose-driven nation that bounced back from the world’s greatest crisis.

By selling quality cars that symbolised exactly those values and attributes, the country reinforced this reputation at all levels, from investors and decision-makers to the ordinary man and woman buying a VW for its reliability or an Audi, BMW, Mercedes or Porsche for its design, performance and prestige. Approximately three-quarters of German-produced cars are exported.

For the first time, however, we’re seeing that confidence go into free fall. In 2013 a BBC opinion poll found that Germany was “the most popular country in the world”. Now surveys rank it low: from it being deemed one of the worst countries to move to by expats, to foreign investment in Germany plunging to long-term lows. It’s impossible to prove a direct connection between the two but the uncertain future of an industry that had once seemed an unshakable pillar of German self-confidence is bound to have played a role.

The fate of the German automotive industry will therefore shape more than its own economic outlook. After more than a century of cars helping to define Germany’s reputation for quality, reliability and resilience, the sector’s decline risks becoming a symbol of the country struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

Can US political network Braver Angels cool America’s divide and bring the left and right together?

On a balmy evening in Long Beach, California, Monocle grabs a spot in a beer garden, as a big TV screens an American football game and patrons enjoy happy hour. At one table, 10 people are deep in conversation. The topic moves to migration. “People on the right love immigrants,” says one woman. “They just want a process.” A man nods in apparent agreement. With the US midterm elections looming, it’s a civic-minded discussion.

These debaters are members of Braver Angels, which David Blankenhorn, Bill Doherty and David Lapp founded shortly after the 2016 US presidential election. Originally named Better Angels (after Abraham Lincoln’s plea to the “better angels of our nature”), it has since grown into a network of more than 100 local alliances that are active in almost every US state. The tenets are simple: red (conservative) and blue (liberal) participants are represented in equal numbers at every level of leadership, with the aim of challenging what researchers have labelled “affective polarisation” – the tendency to sort people into hostile camps. Conversations cover divisive issues from abortion to election integrity and taxation.

Susan Rico, who is 63 years old, organised tonight’s event. She became involved in Braver Angels after realising that she was having trouble connecting with friends and family members. When another of tonight’s conversations turns to the future of energy, she makes her case for nuclear; two guests insist that renewables alone can wean the country off fossil fuels. They eventually agree that change is needed – the left seeking solutions for the sake of the climate and the right for energy independence. “Conversations are watched by a trained moderator,” Rico tells Monocle. “It’s not often that things get sticky because members have agreed to our code.” Braver Angels encourages participants to “get curious, not furious”.

Tonight’s crowd is mostly aged 40 and above, and are from across the political spectrum. Michael Maxsenti is 76 years old and from Orange County; he recently rejoined the Republican Party after years away. He has attended Braver Angels events on and off for the past decade and says that it has helped him to mend some bridges, though not all – his godson stopped speaking to him on the day that he reaffirmed his GOP allegiances.

Nearby sits 46-year-old liberal Chris Cantrell. Fresh from watching the NFL game, he offers an analogy. “Imagine you’re watching the end of a close football game,” he says. “Fans in red are certain that the referee made the wrong call but fans in blue are certain that he got it right. You have the same replay but opposite verdicts. If your facts start changing based on your team, that’s a problem.”

It’s why Braver Angels exists: to turn down the political temperature in the US. As happy hour comes to an end, Cantrell reminds the group of the end of Lincoln’s speech. “I think it goes, ‘We are not enemies but friends,’” he says. “‘We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.’” Lincoln’s plea was not heeded at the time: civil war broke out shortly afterwards. Despite this, it’s impossible not to feel a little lighter as members shake hands and trade hugs – Americans of different political persuasions, determined to work together on solutions.
braverangels.org

Inside Klim Type Foundry, the Wellington typeface studio behind the world’s biggest brands

The work of a good type designer is often easy to overlook. “It’s like I’m a brickmaker and graphic designers are architects,” says Kris Sowersby, the founder of Wellington-based Klim Type Foundry. “I supply materials for them to make stuff out of.” Those materials are used by significant brands and organisations, from The Frick Collection in New York to instrument maker Fender; you’ve probably seen the foundry’s work in PayPal’s user interfaces, on Transavia airlines billboards, on drinks labels, on book covers and more. Monocle uses his typefaces Domaine, National and Söhne for our commercial collaborations.

Klim operates out of the Font Bunker, a studio at the bottom of a long, steep driveway near Wellington International Airport. In the compact space, a wall holds hundreds of typography books, including rare catalogues and antique type specimens.

Sowersby consults this resource while developing designs such as the sharp serif Signifier, which he describes as “a brutalist response to 17th-century typefaces”. His process can take four to 10 years, from beginning to end. “The gap between what’s in my head and what comes out is often pretty big. I have come to accept that fonts find their own way. At a certain point, a typeface develops its own voice.”

But the wait is usually worth it, especially since letterforms help to shape the way in which a piece of writing is received. A rounded sans serif might feel friendly while Helvetica could convey Swiss precision. Typefaces can also reflect authority and convey brand identities. Sowersby’s current project with Maori artist and designer Johnson Witehira asks a simple question: what might New Zealand’s letterforms look like if they had emerged from Maori culture? The duo studied traditional tattoos, wood carving, weaving and early handwriting, and Sowersby translated these visual cues into type. The results include chevrons in the crossbars of the letters A and H, plus ligatured digraphs (a pair of letters fused together). “A student could use it instead of Times New Roman and feel that their work is from New Zealand,” says Sowersby.

The Maori typeface isn’t one of the 26 on sale at Klim’s website but you can find a trove of information there about his work, dissecting a practice that’s part historical study, part creative process. “Typefaces,” he says, “reflect a culture’s priorities and aspirations.”
klim.co.nz

The modernist dream: How a housing experiment in Vienna became a lasting community

When it was inaugurated in 1932, the Werkbund estate in western Vienna was surrounded by hills and open country, far from the centre of the Austrian capital. Though the city has since expanded, the area is still on its periphery by many measures, 40 minutes southwest by tram from the first district. In archival photographs, the estate looks like a toy town enlarged to full size. But the original idea behind it was far from playful: it was an attempt to foster a “new culture of living”, in the words of its chief planner, Josef Frank, the Austrian architect and designer who later fled to Sweden to work for textile company Svenskt Tenn.

As Vienna reeled from loss of empire and economic depression after the First World War, its authorities were desperate for new homes and ideas to create a sense of community. One notion was the city’s celebrated municipal-housing programme; there were also schemes such as the Werkbund estate. Sponsored by an eponymous association of craftspeople and industrialists, it was originally an exhibition to show off standardised single-family homes that could be reproduced elsewhere at scale. More than 30 Austrian and international architects took part.

“This is every Austrian’s dream: to own a house with a garden on all sides,” says architect and urban designer Silja Tillner, as she greets Monocle at her front door on the Werkbund estate. Tillner moved here in 2000, when she bought a section of a row house by Dutch modernist Gerrit Rietveld. Other contributors included Adolf Loos and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky – the latter was Austria’s first professional female architect and created the Frankfurt Kitchen, the progenitor of all modern kitchens.

Tillner wasn’t planning on becoming a Viennese homeowner – let alone here. After studying architecture at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts, she moved to Los Angeles to finish her training and gain work experience. It was a blissful time, she says, though money was scarce. At one point, Tillner found herself living in a pool house in Beverly Hills. “It had a bed, a shower and a toilet, and the owner – a rich lady – had made a little kitchenette for me,” she says. “I was happy: I could use the pool and it was an easy walk to UCLA, where I studied.”

Then opportunity knocked: Vienna’s urban-planning department was revamping the areas around the city’s ring road and the planning commissioner happened to be visiting California for benchmarking. Impressed by Tillner, he invited her to join the project. She agreed but, buoyed by her freewheeling American life, wasn’t keen on living in an apartment. She wanted space, greenery and community – the type of place where neighbours call in unannounced. Tillner was eyeing the Werkbund estate when she heard that a section in the Rietveld unit – more than 100 sq m spread across five half-levels – was for sale. “I made an offer without visiting, which was crazy,” she says. “Almost as crazy as the bank giving a mortgage to a young architect.”

The deal was that she would take the house as it was, which involved a massive clean-up operation. “All the rooms were full of junk, floor to ceiling,” says Tillner. “When I’d taken everything out, I saw what a disastrous state the house was in. Nothing had been done to it for decades.”

Years of renovation were required, including to the cellar floor – the original was little more than concrete poured onto bare soil. Still, Tillner pressed on, initially with the help of her husband, architect Helmut Richter, who died in 2014. Little by little, the Rietveld decor and colours – mustard yellow, blue and warm grey – re-emerged, complemented by the couple’s tastes.

Today, Tillner’s favourite part is the upper level, which contains her office and two terraces – one looks out onto two Loos houses across the street; the other onto a leafy back garden. “In this house, you just cannot be depressed – if only because you’re too busy climbing up and down the stairs,” she says, with a laugh.

Though all 70 units of the estate were meant for purchase, only 14 were originally sold. Prices were low – one Schütte-Lihotzky house was available for 25,000 Austrian schillings (about €116,000, adjusted for inflation). But they were still too expensive for the working-class buyers for whom they were designed and too small for middle-class people who had funds.

In 1938, most of the unsold houses passed into the possession of the City of Vienna, which currently owns 48 units. Rented on extended leases, when one becomes available, it tends to be snapped up fast: all four addresses listed as vacant in August now have tenants – including one property in a newly renovated building by Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann, another Viennese modernist star.

Carmen Trifina, her husband, Florian, and their two sons, Finn and David, moved into their Rietveld unit in 2021. They are renting two doors away from Tillner –Trifina is also an architect. The family’s unit doesn’t have much original detailing remaining but she feels a close affinity with the idea behind the estate. “You develop a very personal connection to your house if you live here,” says Trifina, as she compares orderly 1932 catalogue photos of their living room with the present, including the challenge of having two children living in the space. “You don’t want to leave your house alone for long, it needs life,” she says.

Above all else, Trifina values the feeling of community: regular get-togethers; children running between largely unfenced gardens; an evening chat with a neighbour. “For me, there is no more beautiful place to live in all of Vienna,” she says. “I really cannot imagine moving back into a flat in the city.”

Plans to reproduce Werkbund estate buildings en masse never materialised. Its architects, who were predominantly Jewish, emigrated in the face of Nazism and the Second World War soon overshadowed all else. By the time that architectural experimentation and prosperity returned, the estate wasn’t so much something to be reproduced as an inspiration for what came next.

Estate of mind: A mini-guide to Werkbund

1.
Best streets and buildings
Woinovichgasse is the heart of the estate. Its middle section, made up of the Rietveld and Loos units, is sort of a town square.

2.
Best price for a three-bedroom property
Only 14 of 70 Werkbundsiedlung units are privately owned and they rarely come on the market. When they do, asking prices start at about €1m.

3.
Best estate agents
Alexandra Wagner at Anobis Immobilien recently sold a unit by celebrated Austrian-New Zealand architect Ernst Plischke. Most Vienna listings also appear on willhaben.at

4.
Best nearby schools
GTVS 13 on Steinlechnergasse is a great all-day municipal primary school, while the all-in-one Dominican school on Schlossberggasse is tough to beat.

5.
Best grocer, baker and chocolate-maker
On Altgasse in the nearby Alt-Hietzing area, you’ll find Nook for coffee and pastries, Waldemar Tagesbar for a hearty lunch, Trzesniewski for open sandwiches and Xocolat for something sweet.

6.
Best running route
Start at Veitingergasse, the outer border of the estate, before going west along Gemeindeberggasse. From there it’s straight on to the Lainzer Tiergarten, an expansive wildlife preserve.

Why mobility became the new battleground of geopolitics

We are seeing the systemic weaponisation of global mobility – a paradigm shift in which controlling, re-routing or severing vital transit arteries yields as much geopolitical leverage as capturing physical territory. Today’s international order relies on the uninterrupted flow of goods, services, people and information. Controlling access to the corridors that they pass through has become statecraft’s primary battleground.

Nowhere is this more acute than at the world’s critical maritime chokepoints. The past year has shown why the Strait of Hormuz remains a perpetual flashpoint. This 34km passage handles almost a fifth of daily global petroleum consumption and illustrates a stark reality: that a drone worth a few thousand dollars can temporarily erase billions of dollars in naval and commercial power. On the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, at the mouth of the Red Sea, low-cost anti-ship missiles and drones operated by the Houthis have repeatedly hijacked global supply chains, forcing container ships to take a 10-day detour around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

But reducing the mobility crisis to a matter of narrow maritime corridors misses the broader nature of the threat. Strategic chokepoints are increasingly digital, aerial and terrestrial. In the Baltic Sea, the sabotage of subsea fibre-optic cables and energy pipelines demonstrates that the movement of data and energy is just as vulnerable as that of cargo. Meanwhile, restricted airspace has severed transcontinental flight paths, forcing carriers onto routes that require more fuel, raising costs and emissions. On land, bottlenecks such as the Suwalki Gap demonstrate how narrow corridors can paralyse military deployment during a crisis. Compounding this, the changing climate has caused water shortages that, in places such as the Panama Canal, can throttle transit as effectively as a full naval blockade.

In response to this, states are redrawing trade maps. Rapid global heating has transformed the High North into a vital new mobility frontier; the Northern Sea Route offers a geographic short cut that slashes transit times for journeys from East Asia to Europe by as much as 40 per cent. But this has also introduced fresh tensions, as Russia asserts military control while China steadily expands its “Polar Silk Road” footprint across the Arctic theatre.

Forward-thinking states are investing heavily to mitigate the effects of weaponised mobility and, where they can, bypass chokepoints. Major initiatives, such as the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, combine complex rail, port and road networks to create flexible overland-maritime hedges. Rather than relying on a single passage, these integrated logistical networks distribute risk across multiple transcontinental nodes, ensuring that a physical or geopolitical disruption won’t trigger economic paralysis.

For decades, Western defence strategy relied heavily on static naval point-defence – parking expensive warships at hot spots. That is no longer sufficient against modern asymmetric threats. What is needed is an integration of comprehensive seabed-to-space surveillance to protect subsea energy and data infrastructure, while building and safeguarding alternative transport corridors. States that master transit adaptability will define the future of international trade and security. Those anchored to single-point transit hubs will remain exposed to geopolitical coercion and severe economic disruption.

With the help of Red Bull, young Japanese track stars prepare for the Hakone Ekiden in Austria

On a lane in the town of Thalgau, a 25-minute drive from Salzburg, a group of runners whizzes by – then another and another. These elite athletes are students from Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. Amid this backdrop of mountains, cow-dotted meadows and babbling brooks, they are a curious sight. On a nearby street is a community swap shop with a jumble of prams and children’s bicycles outside. Further down the road is an undertaker’s office; in the distance, a church spire.

But these trappings of a sleepy idyll belie the town’s growing reputation as a hub for high-performance training and sports. Behind the swap shop is the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center, one of the two outposts of its kind operated by the Austrian energy-drinks giant. What was once Europe’s biggest zinc-oxide factory, supplying materials for kitchen fixtures and crockery, is now a facility that offers training, physical therapy and diagnostics for athletes from across the globe.

It also hosts training camps, one of which Monocle has been invited to try out. Earlier this year, Red Bull launched a partnership with Aoyama Gakuin University to bring a top Hakone Ekiden relay marathon team to Austria for the first time. Contested between universities, the race is one of Japan’s largest annual sporting events; its next edition, on 2 and 3 January, is expected to attract 50 million live viewers. Day one starts in central Tokyo and ends in resort town Hakone. On day two, runners complete the route in reverse. Teams comprise 10 runners; instead of a baton, the university’s tasuki (sash) is passed from athlete to athlete.

Today the team is completing 2km laps. Monocle is given a choice: join on foot or e-bike. Given that even the slowest team member can cover that distance in about five minutes, Monocle chooses the bicycle.

This is the first time that an Ekiden team has attended a training camp of this scale outside Japan. Such is its importance that a journalist from Nippon Television, the broadcaster that will provide the live coverage in January, follows the athletes everywhere they go. For many of the 26 students, who are between the ages of 18 and 22, this is their first time abroad.

During the bus ride to training, a sign along the village road advertising Japanese Wagyu burgers elicits a cheer. The soundtrack in the athletes’ earbuds is dominated by Japanese artists such as rock band Mrs Green Apple. “There isn’t much awareness about Austrian customs or culture in Japan,” says coach Yuta Shimoda, as team member Kenta Torii shows Monocle his playlists. “There has been a lot of learning.” One of the biggest differences has been the food. “They miss rice,” says the team’s liaison from Red Bull Japan, who is also acting as our translator. “It shows today. They are usually even faster.” A nutrition station by the finish line has both rice cakes and Austrian pretzels.

After training, the sweaty teammates gather in a circle and sing songs by Japanese pop-rock band Sakanaction, before a final wind-down jog along the shores of Lake Fuschl, near the Red Bull headquarters. The hope is that such camaraderie will help the team to secure another win in January.
hakone-ekiden.jp

K-Citymarket’s slow checkout lane is Finland’s successful reminder that not everything needs to be hurried

Supermarket checkouts can be stressful. “You’re in a rush to pack your items and suddenly it’s time to pay, and the next person in line is breathing down your neck,” says Finnish shop manager Toni Pokela. “Nobody wants to be the one who creates a hold-up.”

Pokela runs K-Citymarket in Espoo’s Iso Omena shopping centre, one of the few places to offer respite from such anxieties. Above a till at the far end of the shop hangs a sign that says, “Älä hättaile” (Finnish dialect for “Don’t hurry”). Shoppers lining up beneath it are encouraged to take as much time as they need.

As cashier Karoliina Chinsan opens the slow line on a weekday morning, Monocle watches a steady stream of regulars steer their trolleys towards her till. The clientele is skewed towards seniors but also includes families on grocery runs. Many of them pay with cash. Chinsan is happy to pack bags, exchange pleasantries and wait patiently for anyone fumbling for their wallet. “It’s nice for the cashier too,” she says. “You have more time to help the customers.”

The shop introduced the slow till in 2011 after Pokela was approached by a team from Aalto University that was exploring ways to aid life for disabled people. Its launch generated bemusement and scepticism but, 15 years later, it remains a fixture in Pokela’s shop and the idea has been adopted by other K-Markets, as well as by Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo.

“It’s a philosophical choice, rather than a practical one,” says Piia Lehesmaa as she packs groceries alongside her husband. “There’s simply no need to always be in a hurry.”
k-ruoka.fi

Meet the man schooling Parisians on the etiquette of city living with a dog

It’s 07.00 and Monocle is following Alain Lambert on a cargo bike along Paris’s Canal Saint-Martin as he makes his daily dog-park-hopping circuit. The founder of Le Chien du Citoyen (The Citizen’s Dog) has been teaching Parisians the etiquette of dog ownership since 1999. He’s currently supported by the French capital’s town hall and Maison de l’Animal en Ville, a municipal resource that promotes the coexistence of animals and humans in urban spaces.

Le Chien du Citoyen’s name neatly captures Lambert’s philosophy: dog ownership in Paris is not only a private matter but also one of civic responsibility. Lambert has dedicated himself to navigating a very real problem: how do two million residents and about 100,000 dogs share this congested landscape? An off-leash dog, an owner distracted by their phone or a small “present” left on the pavement can quickly escalate into a dispute.

“The problem with Paris is density,” says Lambert. “Whoever the mayor is, left or right, it’s always the same challenge.” He has become the town hall’s endorsed voice on canine concerns, with a team of pet-psychology specialists supporting his work behind the scenes. Today, Lambert wears a fluorescent yellow vest as he pedals ahead of Monocle. “Hideous,” he admits – but it’s somehow fitting attire for a man who’s more concerned with the mechanics of his role than looking stylish. Two dogs in his care for the day, Hermès and Igor, ride in his bike basket.

Lambert talks Monocle through his route. First up: Parc de la Villette, where Lambert also leads dog-training workshops, and Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, where bobos (bourgeois-bohemians) stroll with their mongrels. Towards Square Georges Cain and Square Nadar, the breeds become chicer: pomskies, labradoodles and cockapoos. At Parc Monceau and Jardin du Luxembourg, we meet pedigree dogs and their “rebellious bourgeois” owners who never put their pets on a lead. “The freedom of their dog comes first,” says Lambert, disapprovingly. “Doesn’t it bother you when he runs off like that?” he asks one owner. The next time that he sees her, he will bring it up again.

The clock strikes 12.00 as we meet the well-bred hunting dogs of the 16th arrondissement. The area might be wealthy, says Lambert, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into good manners. “Even more than 20 years after the motocrottes [the municipal scooters used to clean up dog mess] stopped operating, people still expect them to pick up after their dogs.” Today, one owner claims that they have run out of dog-mess bags. “Did you know that you can buy 1,000 for €10 on the internet?” replies Lambert.

He also collaborates with the town hall on the development of public canine spaces, advises owners on everything from vaccinations to where dogs can roam and visits schools and care centres to teach owners about living harmoniously alongside their pets. These workshops are funded by La Fondation Adrienne et Pierre Sommer, a non-profit that teaches domestic-animal ownership.

The new mayor of Paris put dogs at the centre of his election push, using a social-media campaign called “Hot Dogs with Emmanuel Grégoire” to share his canine policies, including extending access to parks for dogs on leads.

But solving the issues also requires someone on the ground. As Lambert puts it, “My job is to educate dog owners about respecting the rules of the city.”
chiencitoyen.com