About

The Late City is an independent publication about the systems that decide things about people, and about the ideas we need in order to say whether those decisions were any good.

The name is a printer's term. The late city final was the last edition of the day, set after the markets closed and the night's news came in. It was the version that had the most time to be right. That is the posture: not first, but last. Not the announcement, but what the announcement turned out to mean.

The two desks

There are two sections, and the relationship between them is the whole publication. One reports on what is being built. The other works out what it means that we built it. Neither is decoration for the other, and a good edition should make you feel the pressure each puts on the other.

Technology asks what we are building. Contracts, substations, defaults and models, and the decisions that get made long before anyone thinks to vote on them.

Philosophy asks what it is doing to us. Attention, consent, responsibility and judgment, and the words you need when the thing going wrong is legal, efficient and working exactly as designed.

Subjects move between them. A story about data centres is Technology. A story about what it means to be scored by one is Philosophy. Topics such as AI, housing, labour and privacy run through both, and are recorded as topics rather than turned into further sections.

How to read us

Every story carries its section and its type. The type tells you what kind of claim is being made, and what standard to hold it to.

• Report. Fact-led, resting on documents and named sources. Every material claim is checkable, and we say what we could not get.
• Investigation. A report that took months, required records requests and met resistance. Subjects are put to the findings before publication.
• Analysis. Evidence that is already public, read closely. We tell you what we think it means and show the working.
• Essay. An extended argument, in the first person, for a position you are invited to reject.
• Argument. Shorter and more pointed than an essay. One claim, pressed as far as it will go.
• Notebook. Reported observation at shorter length. Fewer claims, more looking.

Our editorial standards set out how we source, correct and fund this work.

Who makes this

The Late City is written and edited by Sagar Sharma. It is a small publication and it does not pretend otherwise. Everything here is reported, written and checked by one person, which is a limit and is stated rather than hidden.

Pitches are welcome, particularly from people who have worked inside the systems we write about. Reach us at editor@thelatecity.com. If you need to send something sensitive, ask for the encrypted address first, and do not use a work device.