Wendy Waters comments on my Atlantic post on the Tucson shootings and the culture of honor.

I went to grad school in Tucson. Loved the city and region in so many ways. Gun violence perpetrated by the mentally ill was something that this Canadian found hard to get used to.

Although last week’s incident had more human victims, my sense from living there was that it wasn’t unusual to have someone suffering from a mental-illness issue wandering public places with a loaded gun.

One incident at the U of Arizona while I was there involved an individual walking into the grad student computer lab (at a time when I was usually there, but thankfully wasn’t this time), opening fire, missing all the people but destroying two computers, and then wandering down the main campus waving his gun before police grabbed him. It was never clear why he did this (hearing voices, maybe). Subsequent investigation revealed he had long been in treatment from mental illness, but that this did not prevent him from purchasing the firearm legally the previous week because mental health records cannot be used in background checks.

Yes this story is anecdotal but maybe the answer to why certain people in certain places commit these mass murders is a combination of less help for the mentally ill combined with slightly easier access to weapons.

The Florida Report is an eight-part video series from The Atlantic featuring Richard Florida.

The eighth and final installment in The Florida Report is titled “The Burden of Home Ownership.” Richard argues that Americans need to get over their obsession with home ownership.

To view the other videos in this series, please click here.

The Florida Report is an eight-part video series from The Atlantic featuring Richard Florida.

The seventh installment in The Florida Report is titled “Why Detroit Needs to Go Back to Its Roots.” Richard argues that planned shrinkage isn’t the best way to save Motown.

To view the other videos in this series, please click here.

The Florida Report is an eight-part video series from The Atlantic featuring Richard Florida.

The sixth installment in The Florida Report is titled “Will Phoenix Rise from the Flames?” Richard reflects on whether or not the Sunbelt can make a comeback.

The Florida Report is an eight-part video series from The Atlantic featuring Richard Florida.

The fifth installment in The Florida Report is titled “Beyond Wall Street.” Richard explains how the financial crisis might help New York find a new sense of balance.

The Florida Report is an eight-part video series from The Atlantic featuring Richard Florida.

The fourth installment in The Florida Report is titled “Megaregions of the Future.” Richard describes the shift from suburbs to enormous metropolitan regions.

The Florida Report is an eight-part video series from The Atlantic featuring Richard Florida.

The third installment in The Florida Report is titled “Why Cities Are Idea Factories.” Richard discusses the forces that give rise to innovation in urban areas.

The Florida Report is an eight-part video series from The Atlantic featuring Richard Florida.

The second installment in The Florida Report is titled “Moving to the Suburbs.” Richard explains why long commutes used to make sense… and why they no longer do.

The Florida Report is an eight-part video series from The Atlantic featuring Richard Florida.

“The Birth of Urban America” is the first installment in The Florida Report. Richard talks to Don Peck, deputy managing editor of The Atlantic, about how the great American cities rose out of the Industrial Revolution.

The Next American City’s Josh Leon reacts to my March Atlantic essay on cities and the crisis:

[N]ot everyone can afford to move and the poorest are left behind amidst urban blight and neglect. What do we do about the immobile? What do we do with cities that are net losers of the “creative class”? For this so-called creative brand of capitalism, the uncreative are someone else’s problem …There is an inherent inhumanity in leaving people and their cities in the dust. Besides, the cost of finding ways to get so-called obsolete classes of workers gainfully employed where they live is looking preferable to the social costs of managing huge ghost cities and permanent spatial inequality.

All sentiments I share. The first step – and the main point of my essay – is to elevate the issue of growing geographic inequality and bring it into the ongoing conversation about the crisis and recovery.

But what can be done? How to create whole new industries and jobs in declining places? Protecting old industries or baling out uncompetitive firms – two preferred solutions – make little economic sense. So what’s left?

We can confer subsidies on places to improve their infrastructure, universities, and core institutions, or quality of life. But this still is unlikely to stem the tide of the talented and the mobile, at least in the short-run. We can take a longer-term approach and help them gradually shift away from declining industries and build around their remaining assets organically and over time.

At the end of the day, people – not industries or even places – should be our biggest concern. We can best help those who are hardest-hit by the crisis, by providing a generous social safety, investing in their skills, and when necessary helping them become mobile and move to where the opportunities are.