urban planning

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Multicultural Cities: Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles by Mohammed Abdul Qadeer

affirmative action, business cycle, call centre, David Brooks, deindustrialization, desegregation, edge city, en.wikipedia.org, Frank Gehry, game design, gentrification, ghettoisation, global village, immigration reform, industrial cluster, Jane Jacobs, knowledge economy, market bubble, McMansion, megaproject, new economy, New Urbanism, place-making, Richard Florida, risk tolerance, Silicon Valley, Skype, telemarketer, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, urban planning, urban renewal, working-age population, young professional

The equity for an individual is only realizable if a group is treated equitably. Thus, cultural differences in urban planning largely are expressed in group facilities and services. This observation brings up the question of how ethno-racial equity is incorporated in urban planning programs and policies. This question calls for examining both the theories and practice of planning. Multicultural Practice and Planning Theory There are two distinct views of how urban planning responds to the demands of diversity and equality. Planning theory, by and large, views urban planning as relatively unresponsive to people’s rights to differences, and the recognition of their cultural needs thereby overlooks their entitlement to equality.8 Planning practice points, as proof of its responsiveness, to the vibrant multiculturalism of North American cities, a Urban Planning for Cultural Diversity 219 thriving ethno-racial diversity in both public and private spheres, and accommodations of socio-cultural differences in policies and programs.

What has been happening in practice in multicultural cities to incorporate diversity is the test of the responsiveness of urban planning. The Planning System and Multiculturalism Contemporary urban planning, particularly in the United States, has been influenced by the long struggle of American Blacks for fair housing, community control, equitable services, and citizen participation in decision making. Paul Davidoff’s seminal article “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning” transformed the conception of urban planning.23 Appearing in the midst of the civil rights movement, it presented a Urban Planning for Cultural Diversity 221 planning model that acknowledged the diversity of community interests.

Through pronouncements, strategic policies, and regulations, municipal governments lead the way in developing a multicultural ethos in the public as well as private sectors. Chapter Ten Urban Planning for Cultural Diversity The Basis of Multicultural Planning Urban planning is a professional activity meant to guide and manage the development of cities. It is a primary instrument of policymaking and management in cities. A great variety of urban issues, be those of land use, physical design, housing, community services, economic development, environment, transportation, and infrastructure, are addressed through urban planning. The solutions to these issues are meant to be based on public values such as efficiency, equity, safety, health, welfare, sustainability, and beauty.1 Ethno-racial diversity injects elements of cultural difference and social differentiation into the conception of problems and the interpretation of these values.


pages: 769 words: 169,096

Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities by Alain Bertaud

autonomous vehicles, call centre, colonial rule, congestion charging, congestion pricing, creative destruction, cross-subsidies, Deng Xiaoping, discounted cash flows, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, extreme commuting, garden city movement, gentrification, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, Jane Jacobs, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, land tenure, manufacturing employment, market design, market fragmentation, megacity, microapartment, new economy, New Urbanism, openstreetmap, Pearl River Delta, price mechanism, rent control, Right to Buy, Ronald Coase, self-driving car, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special economic zone, the built environment, trade route, transaction costs, transit-oriented development, trickle-down economics, urban planning, urban sprawl, zero-sum game

The main objective of this book is to improve operational urban planning, as practiced in municipal planning departments, by applying urban economists’ knowledge (and models) to the design and planning of regulations and infrastructure. Urban economists understand the functioning of markets, while planners are often baffled by them. Unfortunately, the very valuable knowledge that has accumulated in urban economics literature has not had much impact on operational urban planning. My aim is not to develop a new urban theory but to introduce already existing urban economics knowledge into urban planning practices. Urban Planning versus Urban Economics Urban planning is a craft learned through practice.

It is there that I experienced firsthand the urgency of developing a street network in advance of urbanization. I had been sent by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to work for the Government of Yemen as an “urban planning adviser.” There had never been an urban planning department in the history of Yemen before my arrival. My direct bosses were the minister of Public Works and his deputy. To form the embryo of an Urban Planning Department in the ministry, I was asked to hire a staff among high school graduates. The civil war that gave rise to the Yemen Arab Republic had ended just 2 years before my arrival. During those 2 years, the country had begun to open to the outside world for the first time in its history, triggering a massive urbanization process.

See also Mumbai China compared to, 59–60, 339, 346 government in, 25–26, 241, 288 informal settlements in, 238f policy in, 383n5, 385n3 urban economics in, 17, 237–239, 238f, 308–309 urban planning in, 77–78, 77f, 236 Indicators blinking light indicators, 355–358, 357f data for, 354–355 impact indicators, 358–361, 360f, 364–365 Input indicators, 362–365 in low-income housing, 366–367 monitoring of, 352–353 outcome indicators, 361–362, 364–365 output indicators, 362, 364–365 for policy, 363 for transport, 361 for urban planning, 361–365 Indonesia affordability in, 288–292, 291f China compared to, 288 economics of, 47 government in, 300 Kampungs in, 288–292, 291f KIP in, 267–268, 290–292, 291f road networks in, 292 urban planning in, 128–129, 129f Informal housing, 235–236, 256–260, 258f Informal sector, 125–130, 127f, 129f Informal settlements, 6, 16, 125 in China, 230–231, 230f GDP and, 290 government and, 288, 290 in India, 238f poverty in, 257 theory of, 128–130, 129f, 288 urban planning for, 236–239, 238f Informal subdivisions, 235–236 Infrastructure, 137–138, 260, 290–292, 291f Input indicators, 362–365 Integration policy, 292 Internet, 383n2 Investments, in transit, 362–363 Jacobs, Jane, 22, 383n4 Japan growth in, 376–378, 378f Russia compared to, 373 Toyama in, 373, 376–379, 378f Jeanneret, Charles-Édouard.


Data Action: Using Data for Public Good by Sarah Williams

affirmative action, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Andrei Shleifer, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Brexit referendum, Cambridge Analytica, Charles Babbage, City Beautiful movement, commoditize, coronavirus, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, data acquisition, data is the new oil, data philanthropy, data science, digital divide, digital twin, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, fake news, four colour theorem, global village, Google Earth, informal economy, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, John Snow's cholera map, Kibera, Lewis Mumford, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, mass incarceration, megacity, military-industrial complex, Minecraft, neoliberal agenda, New Urbanism, Norbert Wiener, nowcasting, oil shale / tar sands, openstreetmap, place-making, precautionary principle, RAND corporation, ride hailing / ride sharing, selection bias, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, Sidewalk Labs, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, Steven Levy, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, transatlantic slave trade, Uber for X, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, Works Progress Administration

Longley, “The Geography of Twitter Topics in London,” Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 58 (2016): 85–96; Bernd Resch et al., “Citizen-Centric Urban Planning through Extracting Emotion Information from Twitter in an Interdisciplinary Space-Time-Linguistics Algorithm,” Urban Planning 1, no. 2 (2016): 114–127, https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v1i2.617. 42 Anna Kovacs-Gyori et al., “#London2012: Towards Citizen-Contributed Urban Planning Through Sentiment Analysis of Twitter Data,” Urban Planning 3, no. 1 (2018): 75–99, https://doi.org/10.17645/up.v3i1.1287; Ayelet Gal-Tzur et al., “The Potential of Social Media in Delivering Transport Policy Goals,” Transport Policy 32 (2014): 115–123, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2014.01.007. 43 Gary W.

III” showing locations of juvenile delinquents 26 map of “Gilded Age” in 23 Million Dollar Blocks project 162 Million Dollar Blocks project and 159 “Chicago School” of sociology 22, 30 Chile earthquake of 2010, 82 China 56, 61, 217 air pollution in 56, 113 government of 57, 61, 60, 63–65, 66, 68, 96, 111–112, 113, 217 Housing Provident Fund 97 housing vacancies in 96–97, 134 urban planning decisions and 108 China, government of 61, 60, 68, 111–112, 217 car restrictions to lower CO levels 63–65 censorship and 113 control of data 96 factories closed to improve air quality before Olympics 57 removing cars from roadway to improve CO levels 66 China Academy of Urban Planning and Design 108 Chinatown, San Francisco, maps highlighting gambling, drugs, and prostitution 20, 21 Cisco 48 “Smart and Connected Communities” program 47 Cities 32, 156. See also Urban planners; Urban planning; autonomous vehicles (AVs) and 195–196 big data and xiii–xiv creation of buzz 114–120 crowdsourced data and 77–78, 127 Getty Images data and 114–120 social media and 120–129 Citizens, data from 78–79 Citizen Sense project 68 City Digits math curriculum 167 CityNext program (Microsoft) 47 City of New York Board of Estimate and Apportionment, Use District Map 1916, 31 City planners.

Despite that failure, the bureau performed the data analytics necessary to secure important grant funding and turned to more policy-driven questions, unlike some of the models developed by enthusiasts of cybernetics.82 Cybernetics, championed at MIT by Norbert Wiener, is an interdisci-plinary approach to examining how humans and machines communicate with and control each other. Its use for urban planning provided the ability to perform computational analysis that included theories of the city as a biological system and machine.83 Jay Forrester, a researcher and professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, applied cybernetics theory to modeling the dynamics of industry, including supply chains and resource flows.84 After a chance meeting with John F. Collins, a former mayor of Boston, Forrester, who had no background in urban planning, set his sights on applying these ideas to cities, creating the Urban Systems Laboratory at MIT.


pages: 532 words: 155,470

One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility by Zack Furness, Zachary Mooradian Furness

active transport: walking or cycling, affirmative action, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, An Inconvenient Truth, back-to-the-land, bike sharing, Build a better mousetrap, Burning Man, car-free, carbon footprint, classic study, clean water, colonial rule, conceptual framework, critique of consumerism, DIY culture, dumpster diving, Enrique Peñalosa, European colonialism, feminist movement, fixed-gear, food desert, Ford Model T, General Motors Futurama, ghettoisation, Golden Gate Park, independent contractor, interchangeable parts, intermodal, Internet Archive, Jane Jacobs, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, market fundamentalism, means of production, messenger bag, Murray Bookchin, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, peak oil, place-making, post scarcity, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, safety bicycle, Silicon Valley, sustainable-tourism, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Thomas L Friedman, Thorstein Veblen, urban planning, vertical integration, Whole Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Review, work culture , working poor, Yom Kippur War

The choice is clear and urgent: Does the city exist for people, or for motorcars?31 Jane Jacobs brought a similar set of questions to bear on the issue of transportation, but unlike Mumford, she did not see cars as the primary impediment to sound urban planning or a more orderly public sphere. rather, she posed the problem in terms of the urban planning paradigm itself, specifically the assumption that cities could, or should, be designed in accordance with a grand plan or master narrative: automobiles are often conveniently tagged as the villains responsible for the ills of cities and the disappointments and futilities of city planning.

For better or worse, the aT movement directed attention to issues of scale, specifically the correlation between the size of technological systems and their effects on societies, which Schumacher describes as inversely proportional, hence smaller being beautiful. This line of inquiry is significant because it closely paralleled critiques of urban planning and transportation in the same general period. Jane Jacobs was among those who challenged not only the size and scale implicit to orthodox urban planning but also the spatial tensions between the needs of pedestrians and those required of automobiles. ivan illich similarly bemoaned modern transportation, though his critique dealt less with the size and scale of auto-mobility than its high energy demands and its speed: “a true choice among practical policies and of desirable social relations is possible only where speed is restrained. participatory democracy demands low-energy technology, and free people must travel the road to productive social relations at the speed of a bicycle.”97 Schumacher, Jacobs, and illich formed something of a holy trinity for bicycle advocates who used their theories to create a more philosophically informed analysis of cycling in the 1970s. illich’s ideas understandably took on a prominent role because he mapped an entire politics of technology around the bicycle itself, writing in Energy and Equity: Bicycles let people move with greater speed without taking up significant amounts of scarce space, energy, or time.

Charles Haar and Jerold Kayden (Washington, DC: american planning association press, 1989), 101–121; Marsha ritzdorf, “Family values, Municipal Zoning, and african american Family life,” in Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows, ed. June M. Thomas and Marsha ritzdorf (Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage publications, 1997), 75–92; Marsha ritzdorf, “locked Out of paradise: Contemporary Exclusionary Zoning, the Supreme Court, and african americans, 1970 to the present,” in Urban Planning and the African American Community, 43–57. June Manning Thomas’s bibliography and research agenda compiled in 1997 is also a fantastic resource for relevant literature on the subject.


pages: 293 words: 90,714

Copenhagenize: The Definitive Guide to Global Bicycle Urbanism by Mikael Colville-Andersen

active transport: walking or cycling, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, autonomous vehicles, bike sharing, business cycle, car-free, congestion charging, corporate social responsibility, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Enrique Peñalosa, functional fixedness, gamification, if you build it, they will come, Induced demand, intermodal, Jane Jacobs, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kickstarter, Mahatma Gandhi, megaproject, meta-analysis, neurotypical, out of africa, place-making, Ralph Waldo Emerson, safety bicycle, self-driving car, sharing economy, smart cities, starchitect, transcontinental railway, urban planning, urban sprawl, Yogi Berra

Reaching for the sky. Breaking world records. Monuments to engineering and, quite possibly, phallic symbols for the male-dominated industries that design and build them. Roads and motorways have to be longer, wider, go farther. More capacity, improved flow, reduced congestion. It’s one of the saddest ironies of urban planning that the only thing we have learned from a hundred years of traffic engineering is this: if you make more space for cars, more cars come. It’s sad if you think about all the kabillions of dollars we’ve thrown at this for the past century. Lulu-Sophia in Copenhagen in 2011. Megaprojects are all the rage.

Placemaking is a self-described movement that claims its goal is to change the world. What could possibly have more impact across all aspects of urbanism than the bicycle? One thing is moody academics pondering paving tile designs and bench aesthetics in creatively cluttered NoHo offices, another is “starchitects” who suddenly stick their noses into urban planning. Yes, you, Norman Foster. A couple of years ago, a fanciful idea came out of the British architect’s office. It was originally a student’s idea, and Norman dusted it off and thrust it rudely onto the Internet. He suggested that London build cycle tracks atop the city’s many elevated railways—he called it SkyCycle.

All this in a city that is so far behind in reestablishing cycling as transport that it’s embarrassing. With most of the population already whining about bicycles on streets, sticking them up in the air, out of the way, is hardly going to help us to return bicycles to the urban fabric of the city. Now more than ever before, when urban planning is heading back to the future—back to when cities were life-sized places with rational and practical solutions for moving people around—ideas like SkyCycle stand out like a sore thumb. As Canadian author Chris Turner, whose book The Geography of Hope is a must-read, responded on Twitter when I criticized the idea: “You say that as if Foster and the starchitect league have ever attempted to understand how streets work in general.”


pages: 230 words: 71,834

Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality by Melissa Bruntlett, Chris Bruntlett

"World Economic Forum" Davos, active transport: walking or cycling, ASML, autonomous vehicles, bike sharing, car-free, crowdsourcing, en.wikipedia.org, fixed-gear, Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao, intermodal, Jones Act, Loma Prieta earthquake, megacity, new economy, oil shale / tar sands, safety bicycle, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, starchitect, Stop de Kindermoord, the built environment, the High Line, transit-oriented development, urban planning, urban renewal, wikimedia commons

The 15-minute film has since been viewed almost half a million times, including once by Tel Aviv native Lior Steinberg, who, at the time, was completing his master’s degree in urban planning at Stockholm University. On the strength of Eckerson’s inspiring images, Steinberg chose to complete his four-month work term in Groningen, eventually settling there after graduation. He cofounded the Velotropolis and LVBLcity blogs—a pair of websites and social media accounts dedicated to sharing Groningen’s success story with the world—as well as his own urban-planning firm Street Makers, which, among other projects, was instrumental in designing the “Creative Crosswalk” on Rotterdam’s Westblaak.

Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Keywords: Amsterdam, Atlanta, Austin, bakfiets, bicycle, bicycle lane, bicycle parking, bicycle superhighway, Boston, cargo bicycle, Eindhoven, Groningen, Green Lane Project, New York City, Philadelphia, Portland, Rotterdam, safety bicycle, San Francisco, Seattle, transit, urban design, urban planning, Utrecht, Vancouver, Vision Zero TO CORALIE AND ETIENNE the best adventurers any parents could ask for. You are our constant inspiration, and the reason we keep riding along on this crazy journey! CONTENTS Preface Introduction: A Nation of Fietsers 01 Streets Aren’t Set in Stone 02 Not Sport.

Rather than share the road with cars, Rotterdammers would trade in their pedals for shiny new motor vehicles. “The story in Rotterdam is, only a few days after the bombing, the planners had the first renewal plan ready, as if they were waiting for the moment to turn it in a very modern city,” claims Jeroen Laven, partner at the Rotterdam-based urban planning firm STIPO. “They were saying, ‘Now we have the opportunity to prepare for this modern age with more cars, and solve a lot of the problems of the old city.’” As in New York, and countless other places enthralled with Robert Moses’ unsympathetic vision of the future, the old streets and canals were paved over with wide, multi-lane boulevards and long blocks.


pages: 607 words: 185,487

Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott

agricultural Revolution, Boeing 747, business cycle, classic study, clean water, colonial rule, commoditize, company town, deskilling, facts on the ground, germ theory of disease, Great Leap Forward, informal economy, invention of writing, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, land tenure, Lewis Mumford, Louis Pasteur, megaproject, new economy, New Urbanism, post-Fordism, Potemkin village, price mechanism, profit maximization, Recombinant DNA, road to serfdom, scientific management, Silicon Valley, stochastic process, Suez canal 1869, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, Thorstein Veblen, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, vertical integration, working poor

If we persist in the present methods by which the two functions [arrangement and furnishing versus construction; circulation versus structure] are mingled and interdependent, then we will remain petrified in the same immobility"" Outside the apartment block, the city itself was an exercise in planned functional segregation-an exercise that became standard urban-planning doctrine until the late 1960s. There would be separate zones for workplaces, residences, shopping and entertainment centers, and monuments and government buildings. Where possible, work zones were to be further subdivided into office buildings and factories. Le Corbusier's insistence on an urban plan in which each district had one and only one function was evident in his first act after taking over the planning of Chandigarh, his only built city.

The Case Against High-Modernist Urbanism: Jane Jacobs Jane Jacobs's book The Death and Life of Great American Cities was written in 1961 against a high tide of modernist, functional urban planning. Hers was by no means the first criticism of high-modernist urbanism, but it was, I believe, the most carefully observed and intellectually grounded critique.76 As the most comprehensive challenge to contemporary doctrines of urban planning, it sparked a debate, the reverberations of which are still being felt. The result, some three decades later, has been that many of Jacobs's views have been incorporated into the working assumptions of today's urban planners.

Jane Jacobs was writing against the major figures still dominating the urban planning landscape of her day: Ebenezer Howard and Le Corbusier. To some of her critics she has seemed a rather conservative figure, extolling the virtues of community in poor neighborhoods that many were anxious to leave and ignoring the degree to which the city was already being "planned," not by popular initiative or by the state but by developers and financiers with political connections. There is some justice to these points of view. For our purposes, however, there is little doubt that she has put her finger on the central flaws of hubris in high-modernist urban planning. The first flaw is the presumption that planners can safely make most of the predictions about the future that their schemes require.


pages: 464 words: 127,283

Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia by Anthony M. Townsend

1960s counterculture, 4chan, A Pattern Language, Adam Curtis, air gap, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, anti-communist, Apple II, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Big Tech, bike sharing, Boeing 747, Burning Man, business process, call centre, carbon footprint, charter city, chief data officer, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, company town, computer age, congestion charging, congestion pricing, connected car, crack epidemic, crowdsourcing, DARPA: Urban Challenge, data acquisition, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, digital map, Donald Davies, East Village, Edward Glaeser, Evgeny Morozov, food desert, game design, garden city movement, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, George Gilder, ghettoisation, global supply chain, Grace Hopper, Haight Ashbury, Hedy Lamarr / George Antheil, Herman Kahn, hive mind, Howard Rheingold, interchangeable parts, Internet Archive, Internet of things, Jacquard loom, Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, jitney, John Snow's cholera map, Joi Ito, Khan Academy, Kibera, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Lewis Mumford, load shedding, lolcat, M-Pesa, machine readable, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, megaproject, messenger bag, mobile money, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, Norbert Wiener, Occupy movement, off grid, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), openstreetmap, packet switching, PalmPilot, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Parag Khanna, patent troll, Pearl River Delta, place-making, planetary scale, popular electronics, power law, RFC: Request For Comment, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, scientific management, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, SimCity, Skype, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, social graph, social software, social web, SpaceShipOne, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stuxnet, supply-chain management, technoutopianism, Ted Kaczynski, telepresence, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, too big to fail, trade route, Twitter Arab Spring, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, undersea cable, Upton Sinclair, uranium enrichment, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, Vannevar Bush, working poor, working-age population, X Prize, Y2K, zero day, Zipcar

“Situated software isn’t a technological strategy,” he writes, “so much as an attitude about closeness of fit between software and its group of users, and a refusal to embrace scale, generality or completeness as unqualified virtues.” The grassroots revolution that transformed urban planning in Jacobs’s era took on similar assumptions when it came to city design. It was a response to the excesses of urban planning’s own “Web School,” the large-scale reshaping of the city practiced by power brokers like Robert Moses with little regard for the street life of the city. But for all his enthusiasm, Shirky was deeply skeptical of situated software’s ability to scale beyond small social groups like his students.

., http://www.unglobalpulse.org/projects/global-snapshot-wellbeing-mobile-survey. 34Megan Lane, “As Asbo in 14th Century Britain,” BBC News Magazine, April 5, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12847529. 35Martin Daunton, “London’s ‘Great Stink’ and Victorian Urban Planning,” BBC History, November 4, 2004, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/social_conditions/ victorian_urban_planning_04.shtml. 36C. Creighton, A History of Epidemics in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1894), 858. 37While the official 2009 Kenya census tallied Kibera’s population at 170,070, two other estimates put the figure closer to 250,000.

The citizens of Seoul began rebuilding from near-total destruction. Between 1950 and 1975, the city’s population doubled approximately every nine years, growing from just over 1 million people in 1950 to almost 7 million people in 1975. But by the 1990s, according to a report by the Seoul Development Institute, the city’s urban-planning think tank, “one could say that Seoul was no longer an independent city but was rather the central city of a rapidly expanding metropolitan region of 20 million.” 17 To call Songdo a new “city” is ill conceived—it is merely Seoul’s newest and farthest-flung satellite town. As a test bed for digital technology, Seoul in the early twenty-first century is hard to beat, with over a decade of widespread experience with broadband Internet.


pages: 288 words: 83,690

How to Kill a City: The Real Story of Gentrification by Peter Moskowitz

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, affirmative action, Airbnb, back-to-the-city movement, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Blue Bottle Coffee, British Empire, clean water, collective bargaining, company town, David Brooks, deindustrialization, Detroit bankruptcy, do well by doing good, drive until you qualify, East Village, Edward Glaeser, fixed-gear, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, housing crisis, housing justice, income inequality, Jane Jacobs, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, land bank, late capitalism, messenger bag, mortgage tax deduction, Naomi Klein, new economy, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, private military company, profit motive, public intellectual, Quicken Loans, RAND corporation, rent control, rent gap, rent stabilization, restrictive zoning, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, school choice, Silicon Valley, starchitect, subprime mortgage crisis, tech worker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, trickle-down economics, urban planning, urban renewal, white flight, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional

No taxes need to be raised, no new roads need to be built, no new laws have to be passed—just a few tax cuts here, a few incentives there, a sprinkle of advertising and branding, and bam, your city’s a boomtown. That’s part of the reason Florida’s book has become required reading in many urban planning and economic development departments. The original edition sold 300,000 copies, an unheard-of number for an urban planning book. And while there are no official surveys to back this up, I’d bet that every single head of every economic development team in nearly every midsize city in America is familiar with the book. Downtown and Midtown Detroit are the crown jewels of Florida-led new-age urban revitalization models.

Part 1 New Orleans 1 Hanging On The first thing you need to know about New Orleans is that neighborhoods in New Orleans do not work like neighborhoods everywhere else. In other cities, the rich and poor live in completely different parts of town—highways, train tracks, and other vestiges of racist urban planning ensure that the rich and poor sections of cities hardly ever mix. Here, water from the Mississippi is a constant threat, so the rich live where the land is highest, and the poor live in the valleys. That has given New Orleans a chaotic topography of inequality. For decades, the high blocks with grand houses—St.

Pres Kabacoff is one of the city’s biggest developers—he’s the one who turned the St. Thomas housing projects into for-profit mixed-use housing. And he’s intimately tied in with city decision making. He chairs the city’s Housing Task Force Committee and is a member of the Urban Land Institute, a powerful national urban planning group. When Kabacoff talks, city officials listen. Kabacoff is a genial guy with some surprising views for a multimillionaire who makes money off private development. For example, he believes the federal government should spend way more on housing poor people, and he thinks the United States spends too much on war and not enough on things such as education.


pages: 441 words: 96,534

Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution by Janette Sadik-Khan

autonomous vehicles, bike sharing, Boris Johnson, business cycle, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, congestion charging, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, crowdsourcing, digital map, Donald Shoup, edge city, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, Enrique Peñalosa, fixed-gear, gentrification, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, Induced demand, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, Loma Prieta earthquake, Lyft, megaproject, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, place-making, self-driving car, sharing economy, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, transportation-network company, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, white flight, Works Progress Administration, Zipcar

The bridge, known as the Bridge of the People, was designed to carry trains for Portland’s light rail MAX system, streetcars, buses, bikes, pedestrians, ambulances, and fire trucks, but no private cars. In other American cities, by contrast, urban planning is often absent from agendas. Houston, Texas, is renowned for having no long-term plan or even a unified zoning code that spells out what kinds of buildings can be built where. The result, predictably, is that Houston’s population of 2.2 million is sprawled over more than 625 square miles, or about one tenth of the people in Mexico City spread throughout a slightly smaller area. Comprehensive urban planning is a productive exercise in itself. PlaNYC reframed the idea of the city and repudiated the idea that cities (not just New York) are environmental, social, and economic lost causes.

., 4. 6,300 miles of streets . . . 22 million: “About DOT,” New York City Department of Transportation, accessed August 4, 2015, www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/about.shtml. 25 percent of the city’s landmass: New York City Department of Transportation, Street Design Manual (New York, 2009), 21.5 around 4,500 employees: “About DOT.” “to implement, divine”: Jerold S. Kayden, “What’s the Mission of Harvard’s Urban Planning Program?,” Harvard Design Magazine 22 (2005), accessed August 5, 2015, www.gsd.harvard.edu/images/content/5/3/538187/Kayden-Mission-Urban-Planning.pdf. INTRODUCTION: A NEW STREET CODE 1.24 million traffic deaths: World Health Organization, Global Status Report on Road Safety 2013: Supporting a Decade of Action (Geneva, Switzerland, 2013), v. 22 million miles of road worldwide: Central Intelligence Agency, “Country Comparison: Roadways,” World Factbook, accessed August 5, 2015, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2085rank.html.

More than policy or ideas themselves, the most valuable lessons for any city involve the on-the-ground, practical experience of connecting vision to plans and then executing projects that produce positive change. Pinned above my desk during my six and a half years as commissioner was an adage from Harvard urban planning and design professor Jerold Kayden: “To plan is human, to implement, divine.” Based on real-world practice, not ivory-tower idealism, this book deconstructs, reassembles, and reinvents the street. We invite you to view something you experience every day in ways that you might never have imagined.


pages: 351 words: 94,104

White City, Black City: Architecture and War in Tel Aviv and Jaffa by Sharon Rotbard

British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, continuation of politics by other means, European colonialism, gentrification, global village, Great Leap Forward, housing crisis, illegal immigration, megastructure, New Urbanism, Pearl River Delta, Peter Eisenman, The future is already here, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal

Ghassan Kanafani, ‘Jaffa, Land of Oranges’, in Al Ahram: 1948–1998: Special Pages commemorating 50 Years of Arab Dispossession since the Creation of the State of Israel, at: www.palestineremembered.com/Jaffa/Jaffa/Story202.html 150. On the link between urban planning and urban warfare (and Jaffa in particular), see Eyal Weizman, ‘Military Operations as Urban Planning: A Conversation with Philipp Misselwitz’, Territories (Berlin: KW, 2003), pp. 272–286. For a more detailed, military analysis of the assault on Jaffa in 1948, see Benjamin Runkle, ‘Jaffa, 1948: Urban Combat in the Israeli War of Independence’, in Col.

The contractor’s designs are almost always at odds with the already existing urban plans in place, as set by customary standards, and the sole parameter of the project is something loosely defined as ‘density promoting’. The Ministry of Housing remunerates the projects according to the speed in which the procedure is completed. Since 2001, all budgets allocated to neighbourhood restoration schemes have been handed to private contractors by their respective municipalities. This has proved a form of privatization of public and urban planning for low-income populations, without the populations themselves notified or involved in the decision-making process.

., ref1 Shmuel Hagar fights the dunes, ref1 Shohat, Ella, ref1n23 Shva, Shlomo, ref1 Sitting on the Fence, ref1 Six Day War, ref1 Small City with Few People in It, A, ref1, ref2n107 Smilansky, Moshe, ref1 Smithson, Robert, ref1 Sochovolsky, Ziva, ref1 Solel Boneh, ref1 Sorkin, Michael, ref1n224 Soskin, Avraham, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4n67 spatial contradiction, ref1 Species of Spaces, ref1 Speer, Albert, ref1, ref2, ref3n56, ref4n185 Stern, Avraham (‘Yair’), ref1n134 Sur les quatre routes, ref1 surrealists, ref1n219 ‘Swimming competition’, ref1 Szmuk, Nitza, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8 exhibitions curated, ref1 publications, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, Talmi, Menachem, ref1, ref2 Tamuz, Binyamin, ref1 Tartakover, David ref1 taxation, local, ref1 Tel-Amal kibbutz, ref1, ref2n76, ref3n137 Tel Aviv Abu Kabir village/district, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7n118 (cemetery, ref8, ref9; massacre at, ref10) accolades and titles, ref1 (see also World Heritage Site below) Afeka neighbourhood, ref1 Ahuzat Bayit neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10 (plots lottery, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15) Ajami neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8 Al Hamra Cinema/Alhambra Theatre, ref1, ref2n147 Allenby Street, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6 Andromeda Hill, ref1, ref2n164 architectural history of, ref1, ref2, ref3 Atarim Piazza, ref1 Ayalon City, ref1, ref2 Ayalon Highway, ref1, ref2 Azor neighbourhood, ref1 Bat Yam district, ref1, ref2 Bayara, ref1n119 beach, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7 Beit Gidi/Etzel museum, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5n182 Ben Gurion Airport, ref1 Bialik Square, ref1 the ‘Black City’, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11 Bloomfield football stadium, ref1 Botrus district, ref1 boundaries and conceptions, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4n70 Brenner House, ref1 British urban planning in, ref1 Chlenov neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Commercial Centre (street), ref1 Commercial and Grocery Center (neighbourhood), ref1 comparative neglect of areas formerly in/near Jaffa, ref1, ref2, ref3 conservation/urban plans, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10 Dizengoff Center, ref1 Dolphinarium, ref1 Eisenberg Hospital, ref1, ref2, ref3n192 Engel House, ref1 ‘ethnic purification’ (2002–04), ref1, ref2 expensiveness of property, ref1 Ezra neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3 Fedja village/district, ref1 Florentine neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 founding of, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7 Frug Street, ref1 Gan Hapisga (Garden of the Peak), ref1, ref2 German Vineyard, ref1 Geula neighbourhood, ref1 Givat Aliyah neighbourhood, ref1 Givat Herzl neighbourhood, ref1 Givat Moshe A and B neighbourhoods, ref1 as ‘global city’, ref1 Gush Dan, ref1 HaArgazim neighbourhood, ref1, ref2 HaCongress, ref1 Hassan Bek mosque, ref1 Hatikva neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 Herzl Street, ref1, ref2 Herzliya district, ref1 Herzliya Gymnasium, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6n110 (al-)Hiriya district, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 historical centre, ref1 (see also Jaffa) Holon district, ref1, ref2 hospitals, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 housing in see under housing Ibn Gvirol Street, ref1 infrastructure, ref1, ref2 internal north–south division, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Jabaliya neighbourhood, ref1, ref2 Jaffa see Jaffa Jaffa D neighbourhood, ref1 Jaffa–Tel Aviv Road, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 Jammasin neighbourhood, ref1 Jerusalem Beach, ref1 Jerusalem (Har-Zion) Boulevard, ref1, ref2 Jerusalem Boulevard/Jamal Facha Boulevard/King George Boulevard, ref1 Jewish settlements on site, ref1 Kerem Hateimanim neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8 (see also Mahane Israel) Kfar Shalem neighbourhood, ref1, ref2 Kibbutz Galuyot Road, ref1n118 Kiryat Shalom neighbourhood, ref1, ref2 Kolchinsky neighbourhood, ref1 lack of natural centre, ref1n113 Levinsky Park, ref1 Little Orchard neighbourhood, ref1 ‘Little Tel Aviv’, ref1 Mahane Israel neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3 (see also Kerem Hateimanim) Mahane Yehuda neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3 Mahane Yosef neighbourhood, ref1 major projects of 1980s, ref1 Manshieh neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8 (battle of, see under Jaffa; bypass road, ref9; cleared from map, ref10, ref11; destruction and rebuilding, ref12, ref13, ref14n165; Feingold houses, ref15, ref16; police station, ref17) maps of, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7 (see also under Jaffa) markets, ref1 Marmorek neighbourhood, ref1 Mas’udiyya neighbourhood, ref1 Max Fine Technical School, ref1 Megido Street, ref1 Merkaz Baalei Melacha neighbourhood, ref1 Montefiore neighbourhood, ref1 Mount Zion Boulevard, ref1 as a multicultural city, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 municipal government, ref1, ref2, ref3 Museum of Art, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8n135 name of, ref1, ref2 Nathan Gutman Museum, ref1n108 Neve Sha’anan neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10n200 (borders, ref11; bus station in, ref12, ref13; design, ref14; establishment, ref15) Neve Shalom neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4n104 Neve Tzedek neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10n104 Neve Tzedek Tower, ref1 New Central Bus Station, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7n113 new developments in, ref1 Nordia neighbourhood, ref1, ref2 official history of, ref1 (Old) Central Station, ref1 ‘Orange Route’, ref1 parking zones, ref1 paths/roads to the sea, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 Petach Tikva Road, ref1, ref2, ref3 photos of early city, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 police subdivisions, ref1 politico-social significance, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 population, ref1 port, ref1, ref2n143 Raanana district, ref1 Ramat Aviv neighbourhood, ref1 Ramat Chen neighbourhood, ref1 Ramat Gan (suburb), ref1 Ramat Hasharon district, ref1, ref2 Ramat Hashikma/Salame Gimel neighbourhood, ref1 ‘Red City’, ref1 Regional Court building, ref1 Rishon LeZion Hill/district, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 Rothschild Boulevard, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4n68 Saad Orchard neighbourhood, ref1 Salame neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7 Salame Road (later Shlomo Road), ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Shabazi neighbourhood, ref1 Shafir-Klein neighbourhood, ref1 ShalomTower, ref1 Shapira neighbourhood, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9n132 Sheikh Munis village/district, ref1, ref2 Sheinkin Street, ref1, ref2n8 Shivat Tzion neighbourhood, ref1, ref2 Sir Charles Clore Park, ref1, ref2 Summayl neighbourhood, ref1 supplies to, ref1 Tel-A-Reesh village/district, ref1, ref2, ref3 Tel Giburim neighbourhood, ref1, ref2 Tel Hashomer, ref1 Tel Nordau neighbourhood, ref1 topography of, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 transportation in, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4; see also New Central Bus Station treatment of former Jaffa Hebrew neighbourhoods, ref1 Trumpeldor neighbourhood, ref1 urban style, ref1 war with Jaffa, ref1, ref2 as ‘White City’, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9, ref10, ref11, ref12, ref13, ref14, ref15, ref16, ref17 (actually grey, ref18; annual celebrations, ref19, ref20n205; built from white sand, ref21, ref22n68; definition of boundaries, ref23, ref24; fundamental flaws of concept, ref25) White Square installation, ref1 Wolfson Hospital, ref1 Wolfson Street, ref1 as World Heritage site, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6 Yarkon peninsula, ref1 Yazur village/district, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Yefe Nof (Bella Vista), neighbourhood, ref1, ref2 Yehuda district, ref1 Yitzhak Ben Zvi Road, ref1 Zion insurance office building, ref1 Tel Aviv (book by Herzl), ref1 Tel Aviv (booklet), ref1 Tel Aviv (magazine), ref1 Tel Aviv (novel by Pichmann), ref1, ref2 Tel Aviv in Photographs, ref1, ref2, ref3 Tel Aviv in the Tracks of the Bauhaus (exhibition), ref1 terrorism 9/11, ref1n228 in the 1940s, ref1 contemporary, ref1 tactics in attack on Jaffa, 1947, ref1, ref2n147, ref3n148 ‘Third Aliya’, ref1 ‘This is Jaffa’ (song), ref1 Tiberias, ref1 ‘Timunot Yafoyiot’, ref1 Tischler, David, ref1 Tolkovsky, Shmuel, ref1, ref2 tourism, ref1 plans for Old Jaffa, ref1 in Tel Aviv, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5 Toward An Architecture, ref1 Tropical House, ref1 Tschumi, Bernard, ref1n156 Tul Karem, ref1n243 Tumarkin, Yigal, ref1 Turkey prisoners massacred by Napoleon, ref1 soldiers in Palestine, ref1 ‘Two Seas Canal’, ref1n97 Tzur, Muki, ref1n126 urban planning claimed legitimacy of mass destruction in, ref1n165, ref2n193 as an extension of guerrilla tactics, ref1n156, ref2n229 and gentrification, ref1n164 Haussmann’s in Paris, ref1n152, ref2n229 and Hebraization of old Arab cities, ref1, ref2 Israeli, and hill/mountain tops, ref1n171 Le Corbusier and, ref1, ref2 in Tel Aviv see under Tel Aviv United Committee of Hebrew Neighbourhoods, ref1 United Nations Division Plan, ref1, ref2, ref3 Educational Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), political aspects of Tel Aviv listing, ref1, ref2; World Heritage List, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6 Ussishkin, Menachem, ref1n143 Villa Savoye, ref1 Virilio, Paul, ref1, ref2n246 ‘Wall and Tower’ settlements, ref1, ref2, ref3, ,141, ref4, ref5n137 War Cycle, ref1 War in the City (film), ref1 We and Our Neighbours, ref1 Weinraub-Gitai, Munio, ref1, ref2, ref3 Weiss, Akiva, ref1 Weizman, Eyal, ref1, ref2n156 welfare, dependency on, ref1n173 Westernization, ref1 and the West–East border in Israel, ref1 white created from a rainbow of colours, ref1 culture and governance, ref1, ref2 (see also colonialism) implications of, ref1, ref2, ref3 sand, ref1 section of the Israeli Jewish population, ref1, ref2, ref3 symbolism of, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4n214 ‘will to be white’, ref1, ref2 see also architecture, white White Box, ref1 White City across Africa and Middle East, ref1 Algiers as, ref1, ref2, ref3 Tel Aviv as, see under Tel Aviv White City (exhibition), ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 catalogue, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4 ‘White City’ (song), ref1, ref2 ‘White City: A Past in Renewal’ (conference), ref1 ‘White Night’, ref1 Wieseltier, Meir, ref1 Wigley, Mark, ref1n214 Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, ref1n79 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, ref1 Wittkower, Werner Joseph, ref1 World War II, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7, ref8, ref9n88 reparations after, ref1n168 World War I, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5, ref6, ref7n88 worm-hole tactics, ref1 Wretched of the Earth, The (Les damnés de la terre), ref1 Yaar, Ora, ref1, ref2 Yaar, Yaacov, ref1 Yadin, Yigael, ref1 Yarkon River, ref1n70, ref2n143 Yasky, Avraham, ref1n192 Yatzkar, Yehuda and Avraham, ref1, ref2 Yatzkar-Shatz, Rivka, ref1n126 Yellin-Mor, Nathan, ref1n134 Yemenites, ref1, ref2 YESHA Council, ref1, ref2n71 Yonatan, Nathan, ref1n53 Yossef, Dov, ref1 Zandberg, Esther, ref1 Zeevi, Rehavam, ref1, ref2 Zelkind, Nahum, ref1 Zevi, Bruno, ref1 Ziffer, Benny, ref1n211 Zionism agenda and architecture, ref1 attitudes to land of Israel, ref1n97 influence of Russian migrants on, ref1 and the ‘ingathering of Exiles’, ref1, ref2 and Israeli culture, ref1 and the Jewish identity, ref1 main goals of, ref1, ref2, ref3, ref4, ref5n50 myths of, ref1 political and non–political, ref1 post–Zionism, ref1 and socialism, ref1, ref2n122 use of radicalism and counter– culture, ref1 Zohar, Uri, ref1, ref2, ref3n43


pages: 519 words: 136,708

Vertical: The City From Satellites to Bunkers by Stephen Graham

1960s counterculture, Anthropocene, Bandra-Worli Sea Link, Berlin Wall, Boris Johnson, Buckminster Fuller, Buy land – they’re not making it any more, Chelsea Manning, commodity super cycle, creative destruction, Crossrail, deindustrialization, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital map, Dr. Strangelove, drone strike, Edward Glaeser, Edward Snowden, Elisha Otis, energy security, Frank Gehry, gentrification, ghettoisation, Google Earth, Gunnar Myrdal, high net worth, housing crisis, Howard Zinn, illegal immigration, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, Lewis Mumford, low earth orbit, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, megaproject, megastructure, military-industrial complex, moral panic, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, no-fly zone, nuclear winter, oil shale / tar sands, planetary scale, plutocrats, post-industrial society, Project Plowshare, rent control, Richard Florida, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, security theater, Skype, South China Sea, space junk, Strategic Defense Initiative, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, trickle-down economics, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, white flight, WikiLeaks, William Langewiesche

Thus, the leaflet continued, modernist reconstruction could now be delivered to sustain ‘the swift flow of modern traffic; for the play of light and air’.39 Illustrations from John Mansbridge’s 1943 British pamphlet Here Comes Tomorrow celebrating both the modernism of aircraft and the ‘new chance’ that bombing offered British cities to rebuild along modernist lines The aerial annihilation of total war – an unprecedented act of planned urban devastation in its own right – thus served as a massive accelerator of comprehensive urban planning, architecture and urbanism along vertically stratified, modernist lines. The tabula rasa that every devoted modernist craved suddenly became the norm rather than the exception, particularly in the city centres of postwar Europe and Japan. As a result, in a very real sense, ‘the ghosts of the architects of urban bombing – Douhet, Mitchell, Trenchard, Lindemann – and the praxis of airmen like Harris and LeMay, still stalk the streets of our cities’.40 Perhaps urban planning and history teaching should focus on these luminaries of twentieth-century bombing theory as much as their more usual cast of iconic architects and planners. 3.

It was not until the 1960s that vertically segregated circulation became a dominant theme of post-war urban planning. Influenced by architectural radicalism such as the ‘plug-in’ city from the Archigram group,5 the huge raised megastructures proposed for Tokyo by a group of Japanese architectural futurists known as the Metabolists,6 and the one-square-kilometre ‘artificial platform city’ imagined by the Obayashi Corporation in the same city,7 vertically segregated circulation became an obsession in urbanism and urban planning.8 ‘It is only logical to conceive of multi-level cities’, the Archigram group argued. ‘The organisation of, say, New York, which tolerates multi-level components, connected by only two horizontal levels (street and subway) and both of those at the base, is archaic.’9 The widespread destruction of cities through strategic bombing in World War II created opportunities for planners to realise such dreams in practice.

They now organise the global measurement of time as well as the navigation of children to school, yachts to harbours, cars into supermarkets, farmers around fields, runners and cyclists along paths and roads and hikers up to mountaintops. Widened access to powerful imaging satellites, similarly, has allowed high-resolution images to transform urban planning, agriculture, forestry, environmental management and efforts to NGOs to track human rights abuses.6 Digital photography from many of the prosthetic eyes above the Earth, meanwhile, offers resolutions that Cold War military strategists could only dream of – delivered via the satellite and optic fibre channels of the Internet to anyone with a laptop or smartphone.


Smart Cities, Digital Nations by Caspar Herzberg

Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, business climate, business cycle, business process, carbon footprint, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, corporate social responsibility, Dean Kamen, demographic dividend, Edward Glaeser, Edward Snowden, Hacker News, high-speed rail, hive mind, Internet of things, knowledge economy, Masdar, megacity, New Urbanism, operational security, packet switching, QR code, remote working, RFID, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, smart meter, social software, special economic zone, Stephen Hawking, telepresence, too big to fail, trade route, transcontinental railway, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, working poor, X Prize

One of the primary tasks of making urban life possible has concerned the delivery and maintenance of utilities, which in the last century meant power, water, and heat. The new utility is the network that weaves all other utilities, as well as information and data from dozens of other sources, into a single architecture. That network represents a quantum jump in the complexity of urban planning, and it will define the difference between city services that are merely responsive and those endowed with an actual, measurable intelligence. This intelligence will be the key to creating work and living environments that respond to the great challenges of rapidly increasing population, resource conservation, climate change, and the lack of sufficient bricks and mortar to house and provide for urban denizens in accordance with modern standards.

John Chambers, executive chairman of Cisco, summarizes it as “cheap and ubiquitous sensors, tied together by widespread high-speed wireless networks, generating data stored in the cloud, crunched by increasingly valuable analytics, and accessible via simple apps by billions of smartphones and tablets.”3 The key words in this description are ubiquitous and billions—neither is an overstatement. IoE technology will be the underpinning feature of urban planning, but the sheer reach of its technology and the level of complexity are difficult to imagine—and the engineering challenge of keeping up with the potential demand for connectivity is formidable. Coupled with the worldwide urbanization trend, it is one reason why the triumph of IoE technology cannot be assumed.

In the case of New Cairo and 6th October City, they were designed to relieve some of the pressure from Cairo’s runaway population growth but thus far had perpetuated its striking income disparity. Rather than solving a need for stronger economic drivers, many found these developments to be suburban retreats for the wealthy and impractical for the working poor. The entire concept of urban planning on the brand-new, citywide scale too easily invoked dystopian images of grey, lifeless structures containing none of the vitality and relevance the world now expects of city life. Meanwhile, established cities such as London and Chicago were fighting hard to retain their positions as transportation hubs; was it not presumptuous to believe that a brand-new city could divert enough air traffic to sustain economic promise?


pages: 489 words: 132,734

A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook

Berlin Wall, British Empire, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, carbon footprint, Celtic Tiger, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, company town, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Edward Glaeser, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, glass ceiling, high-speed rail, indoor plumbing, joint-stock company, land reform, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, open economy, Parag Khanna, Pearl River Delta, Potemkin village, profit motive, rent control, Shenzhen special economic zone , SimCity, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, starchitect, Suez canal 1869, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, working poor

Derived from the Chinese words li (neighborhoods) and long (lanes), each development was a block, walled off from the main city streets, composed of lines of identical row houses extending along pedestrian alleyways. Lilongs were made of stone, like Western buildings, rather than wood, in the Chinese manner, and used an English row-house structure rather than a Chinese courtyard plan. But their urban planning, with the housing colony built behind walls and closed to through-traffic, was characteristically Chinese, reminiscent of the hutong neighborhoods of Beijing and other historic Chinese cities. By 1860, the British and American Settlements contained 8,740 lilongs compared with just 269 Western-style houses.

Often compared to an army barracks, the chawl was closer to a human beehive, with single men literally packed on top of each other. Five to ten people shared each room with just a small basin for washing clothes and cooking utensils, and often nothing but wooden planks for sleeping. Common toilets were provided at a rate of one per story at best. As a Scottish urban planning professor at Bombay University aptly put it, chawls were not “housing, but warehousing people!” Some fared even worse. For those who could not afford even a bed slat in a chawl, there were the streets. As American writer Mark Twain recorded on his 1896 visit to Bombay, “Everywhere on the ground lay sleeping natives—hundreds and hundreds.

Paternalistically viewing their domination of India as a sacred trust—one called into question by Bombay’s decline—the British endeavored to bestow upon their Indian charges a healthy, modern city. The city’s redevelopment was presided over by the Bombay City Improvement Trust, created in the wake of the plague to improve public health through architecture and urban planning. From its four-story Gothic headquarters fronted by a massive statue of Queen Victoria, the trust’s pith-helmeted army of architects and engineers fanned out across the city. First and foremost, their task was to address conditions in the chawls, where population densities ran as high as twelve hundred people per acre.


pages: 83 words: 23,805

City 2.0: The Habitat of the Future and How to Get There by Ted Books

active transport: walking or cycling, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, big-box store, carbon footprint, clean tech, cognitive load, collaborative consumption, crowdsourcing, demand response, food desert, high-speed rail, housing crisis, Induced demand, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, jitney, Kibera, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, McMansion, megacity, New Urbanism, openstreetmap, ride hailing / ride sharing, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart grid, TED Talk, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, Zipcar

Whatever you own that you’re not using right this second may be going to waste. Or worse, you’re wasting scarce money on it. Viewed through that lens, the sharing economy has the potential to address some of the biggest problems of cities. It’s not just a survival strategy for low-wage workers living in a costly metropolis. It’s a strategy for urban planning. “It changes everything,” says Janelle Orsi, executive director of the Sustainable Economies Law Center and a sharing economy lawyer. Bike and car sharing will influence municipal policies for improving transportation flow. Getaround will contribute to reducing carbon emissions (studies suggest that one shared car can take 13 or 14 others off the road).

More than just an eyesore, the highway served as a physical and mental barrier, preventing most Philadelphians from ever experiencing the river. Straddling nearly 100 acres of prime real estate in downtown Philadelphia that presented an enormous opportunity cost to the city’s tax base, I-95 was a symbol of misbegotten 20th-century urban planning that lingered into the present. When I mentioned what a shame the highway was, Harris told me offhandedly that all 51 miles of I-95 in Pennsylvania were undergoing phased replacement. The last portion of I-95 to be replaced would be the three-mile stretch along Philadelphia’s waterfront. Even though the construction wasn’t slated to begin for another 20 years, the state’s Department of Transportation was already planning the replacement highway.

But it was carefully planned: Community activists recognized the spot as a critical piece of a walking path that could direct thousands of tourists from a renowned museum to the struggling storefronts on the city’s Main Street. Rather than hire a design firm to spend thousands of dollars on site plans, they quickly and cheaply tested one way to liven up downtown. And, as writer Mike Lydon reported on the urban planning website Planetizen, it worked: Owners of a nearby bar quickly saw the potential to draw in new customers, so they planned to organize similar activities in the future. It’s too early to tell, but that one-night sit-down could well prove to be the tipping point in revitalizing an underpass, then a block, and eventually a local economy.


World Cities and Nation States by Greg Clark, Tim Moonen

active transport: walking or cycling, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, business climate, clean tech, congestion charging, corporate governance, Crossrail, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, driverless car, financial independence, financial intermediation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gentrification, global supply chain, global value chain, high net worth, high-speed rail, housing crisis, immigration reform, income inequality, informal economy, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, low skilled workers, managed futures, megacity, megaproject, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, open economy, Pearl River Delta, rent control, Richard Florida, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, smart cities, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, stem cell, supply-chain management, tacit knowledge, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transaction costs, transit-oriented development, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, War on Poverty, zero-sum game

Alongside this economic divergence of world cities and nation states, commentators in this period also identified a resurgent political tension between leading cities and their national governments. An early example of this friction was visible in New York – mayoral candidate Norman Mailer proposed to secede in 1969, and President Gerald R. Ford later refused to bail out the City in the midst of its fiscal crisis in 1975. This was followed by the failure of President Jimmy Carter’s urban plan in 1978 (Smith, 2002). London also witnessed its fair share of political friction in the 1980s and central government eventually abolished the Greater London Council. Later, the OECD (2005: 124) highlighted many other cases where the efforts of city governments to seek opportunities at the global level and to acquire more fiscal and legislative flexibility led to conflict with higher‐tier governments who were unconvinced of the “positive‐sum gains in de‐centralisation.”

An assembly of 209 councillors has jurisdiction on environmental and economic policy over the urbanised area of 7 million people. The new arrangement divides the outer suburbs into 12 territories that will replace the inter‐communal system. The métropole is set to acquire powers over housing and urban planning, as well as presidential leadership and a physical headquarters, but the terms of political integration are a long way from being finalised. Over the next 15 years, the organisation is likely to absorb taxation powers incrementally from the municipalities. Its success as a metropolitan body depends critically on the goodwill of future French national leaders in supporting and activating these incremental additions of power and capacity.

A number of bodies and agencies collectively debate policy, consult experts and advise national government. Most prominent is IAU‐îdF, the planning agency for the Paris Region and an internationally recognised organisation which provides analysis and strategies Paris 67 for the region and other players. Others also play a role. These include APUR, the influential Paris Urban Planning Agency that convenes geographers, architects and planners and, to a lesser extent, AERF, an association of elected councillors which actively supports territorial reform. Until recently, there had been no clear representation of the major private players in Paris, unlike in London or New York.


Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age by Alex Wright

1960s counterculture, Ada Lovelace, barriers to entry, British Empire, business climate, business intelligence, Cape to Cairo, card file, centralized clearinghouse, Charles Babbage, Computer Lib, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, Danny Hillis, Deng Xiaoping, don't be evil, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, European colonialism, folksonomy, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Great Leap Forward, hive mind, Howard Rheingold, index card, information retrieval, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, Jane Jacobs, John Markoff, Kevin Kelly, knowledge worker, Law of Accelerating Returns, Lewis Mumford, linked data, Livingstone, I presume, lone genius, machine readable, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Mother of all demos, Norman Mailer, out of africa, packet switching, pneumatic tube, profit motive, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, scientific management, Scramble for Africa, self-driving car, semantic web, Silicon Valley, speech recognition, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, systems thinking, Ted Nelson, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, Thomas L Friedman, urban planning, Vannevar Bush, W. E. B. Du Bois, Whole Earth Catalog

See also Camera Obscura; Outlook Tower (Edinburgh) classification and taxonomy interests of, 112–114, 113, 200 Comte’s influence on, 114 Index Museum of, 114–115, 121 legacy of, 302 museum exhibits and, 16, 119–122, 193 Otlet and, 116, 122, 173, 189, 193–194 parallel interests to Otlet and La Fontaine, 116 parallel views to Geddes, 255 Short’s Observatory bought by, 108 “Thinking Machines” of, 115, 115 urban planning for Edinburgh by, 109, 112 Gelernter, David, 291 Geneva as location for League of Nations, 164, 180 Germany. See also World War I; World War II African empire of, 51, 151–152 Gessner, Conrad, 20, 21, 26, 30, 42, 49, 71, 78, 80, 226, 283 Ghent, exhibit of urban planning in, 137 Globalization, 149, 303–304 Global Organizational Plan for the League of Nations (Otlet), 155 Godet, Marcel, 175–176, 177, 178 Goldberg, Emanuel, 16, 208–210, 218, 254 Goldschmidt, Robert, 101, 274 Google advertising on, 298 corporate determination of acceptable sites, 281 cultural sponsorships of, 297 EU relationship with, 297, 299–300 partnership with Mundaneum, 295–297 popularity of, 280 purchase of Freebase, 278 Gore, Al, 248 Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXieme siècle (Larousse), 50 Great Chain of Being, 29 The Great Solution: Magnissima Carta (La Fontaine), 149 Gutenberg, Johannes, 20, 24, 205 Hall, Wendy, 270 Harding, Warren, 137 Hébrard, Ernest, 129–130, 131, 133, 301 Hendrik Andersen Museum (Rome), 301–302 Heylighen, Francis, 286–287 Hillis, Danny, 276, 278, 293 Hitler, 4, 68 Hochschild, Adam, 54 Hohe Schule, 4 Holinshed, Ralph, 27 Hollerith, Herman, 42, 209, 234 Hollweg, Bethmann, 145 House, Colonel, 162, 163 Human rights, 150–152 Hymans, Paul, 163, 164, 165 Hyper-documentation, 241, 263 Hyper-G project (Austria), 270 Hyper-intelligence, 241 Hyperlinks, 287, 290, 305 341 INDEX Hypertext, 263–264, 270, 289 HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), 271 IBM (International Business Machines), 42, 209 Ideas.

The Nazis specifically targeted Zamenhof ’s family for extermination.11 Paradoxically, the rise of utopian internationalism, which found such powerful expression at the Paris Expo, coincided with a surge of nationalist fervor—one that would ultimately drive the continent’s population into two cataclysmic wars. One might well look at the idealism of the Expo through the lens of Jane Jacobs’s famous critique of modernist urban planning: as “a dishonest mask of pretended order.”12 Certainly the imagined world on display there presented a relentlessly rosy picture of progress, papering over the dark sides of innovation and “progress”—like ­industrial militarization, and the economic exploitation of less developed countries—that would soon come into focus during World War I.

Though originally trained as a biologist, he 108 T he I nde x M u se u m had taken a keen interest in the emerging field of sociology, where he applied the principles of the scientific method to the study of human societies, promoting the importance of careful observation in exploring the interplay between people, their work, and the places in which they lived. Eventually he would make important contributions to the field of urban planning, advocating a human-centered approach to building that stood in stark contrast to the centralized urban grid planning that had gained so much traction in cities like New York. In 1892, he was still developing his ideas, while conducting minutely detailed surveys of his native Edinburgh. Geddes had developed a keen interest in the problem of Edinburgh’s slums, which were rapidly expanding as the city population grew.


pages: 224 words: 69,494

Mobility: A New Urban Design and Transport Planning Philosophy for a Sustainable Future by John Whitelegg

active transport: walking or cycling, Berlin Wall, British Empire, car-free, carbon tax, conceptual framework, congestion charging, congestion pricing, corporate social responsibility, Crossrail, decarbonisation, Donald Shoup, energy transition, eurozone crisis, glass ceiling, high-speed rail, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), megacity, meta-analysis, negative emissions, New Urbanism, peak oil, post-industrial society, price elasticity of demand, price mechanism, Right to Buy, smart cities, telepresence, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Spirit Level, transit-oriented development, urban planning, urban sprawl

The elevation of mobility to a central position in political, economic, architectural and planning discourse represents a significant error in those areas and social science discourse in general. The time is now right to correct that error. Mobility as a goal or a central organising principle is irrelevant and should be deleted from the transport and urban planning lexicon. Other things matter much more including time budgets, fiscal prudence, equality, accessibility, and health and all these dimensions of everyday life can be enriched within a low mobility framework and will remain unobtainable if we continue to pursue high mobility goals. 1. How mobile are we and how did we get here?

The document is an undiluted manifesto accepting and promoting the growth of mobility and advocating the importance of this growth for the success of wider economic policy objectives, asserting the unquestioned importance of endless economic growth and ignoring the voluminous literature on the impossibility of endless economic growth and of ecological and resource limits to growth (Douthwaite, 1992, Schneidewind, 2014). The European Commission document contains no recognition whatsoever of the well-developed sustainable transport discourse with its emphasis on traffic reduction, demand management, urban planning in favour of the “city of short distances” and modal shift from the car to walking, cycling and public transport or from the aircraft to electronic substitution e.g. videoconferencing. Similarly it airbrushes out of the picture the need to de-carbonise transport and link something called “mobility for growth” to the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector.

It downplays the progressive withdrawal of people from public space and it airbrushes out of the picture the social class discrimination that produces disproportionately larger numbers of deaths amongst the poor and disadvantaged. It is an important agent of legitimation and collaboration with a policing, judicial and urban planning system that blames victims and shapes the built environment in favour of the car and to the detriment of the pedestrian, cyclist and public transport user. The Swedish Vision Zero policy is not without faults but it sets out a clear ambition that is so much better than the lack of a clear vision.


pages: 293 words: 97,431

You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon, but Get Lost in the Mall by Colin Ellard

A Pattern Language, call centre, car-free, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, classic study, congestion pricing, Frank Gehry, global village, Google Earth, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, job satisfaction, Marshall McLuhan, McMansion, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, New Urbanism, peak oil, polynesian navigation, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Snow Crash, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the medium is the message, traveling salesman, urban planning, urban sprawl

Nico Oved’s description of his photographic exposition of housing in les banlieues is described at his website, www.nicooved.com. 2. Although Le Corbusier’s urban planning principles caused much damage both overseas and at home (largely because of his failure to understand the psychology of space), he is still widely respected as an artist and architect. A sympathetic and interesting book is W. Boesiger and H. Girsberger’s Le Corbusier 1910-65 (Birkhäuser: Basel, 1999), which contains photographs of his works along with captions in three languages explaining his intentions. 3. Jane Jacobs condemns Le Corbusier’s mathematics, and some other aspects of his urban-planning principles, in the introductory chapter of her opus The Death and Life of Great American Cities, revised edition (Vintage: New York, 1992). 4.

Our soaring ability to harness energy and technology has allowed us to construct our physical environment in almost any way we please. Hand in glove with our spatial mind, we have used our abilities as toolmakers to design environments that support and extend our mental penchant to transcend physical space. Everything from architectural design through urban planning to modern light-speed communication technologies has been designed to reflect, support, and extend our mastery of physical space. PART II MAKING YOUR WAY IN THE WORLD TODAY HOW OUR MIND SHAPES THE PLACES WHERE WE WORK, LIVE, AND PLAY CHAPTER 7 HOUSE SPACE HOW OUR MENTAL MAPS INFLUENCE OUR BEHAVIOR INSIDE OUR HOMES When the peaks of our sky come together, my house will have a roof.

The Space Syntax Laboratory, a part of the Bartlett School of Planning at University College, London, has had marked success in predicting how people move through spaces on the basis of the graphical tools I have been describing.3 Because most of the work of this group is concerned with the influence of spatial configuration in larger urban settings, we will deal with it more extensively in the next chapter, on city space, but many of the principles used to steer urban planning apply equally well to interior spaces. For example, an analysis of intervisibility and shortest path length values for the Tate Gallery in London has been used successfully to predict where visitors will congregate in the gallery. The Space Syntax Laboratory has used these kinds of analyses to advise the gallery on the effective placement of exhibits to encourage the flow of people and avoid pedestrian gridlock.


pages: 598 words: 140,612

Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Edward L. Glaeser

affirmative action, Andrei Shleifer, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, British Empire, Broken windows theory, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Celebration, Florida, classic study, clean water, company town, congestion charging, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, declining real wages, desegregation, different worldview, diversified portfolio, Edward Glaeser, Elisha Otis, endowment effect, European colonialism, Fairchild Semiconductor, financial innovation, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, global village, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Home mortgage interest deduction, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, job-hopping, John Snow's cholera map, junk bonds, Lewis Mumford, machine readable, Mahatma Gandhi, McMansion, megacity, megaproject, Michael Milken, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, New Urbanism, place-making, Ponzi scheme, Potemkin village, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent control, RFID, Richard Florida, Rosa Parks, school vouchers, Seaside, Florida, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, Steven Pinker, streetcar suburb, strikebreaker, Thales and the olive presses, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the new new thing, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, vertical integration, William Shockley: the traitorous eight, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Despite the fact that the poor would benefit enormously from more open streets, I suspect the city would lack the political will to fine drivers who violate the rules. Mumbai’s traffic problems reflect not just poor transportation policy, but a deeper and more fundamental failure of urban planning. In 1964, Mumbai fixed a maximum floor area ratio of 1.33 in most of the city. In those years, India was enthusiastic about all sorts of regulation, and limiting building heights seemed to offer a way to limit urban growth that was in keeping with fashionable ideas of English urban planning. But Mumbai’s height restrictions meant that, in one of the most densely populated places on earth, buildings could have an average height of only one-and-a-third stories.

., Athens was hardly the intellectual center of the world. The most exciting Greek thinkers lived on the edges of the Greek diaspora in Asia Minor, where they learned from the older civilizations of the Near East. Miletus, a wool-making port in western Turkey, produced the first philosopher, Thales, and the father of European urban planning, Hippodamus, whose gridlike plans provided a model for the Romans and countless cities since then. Athens grew by trading wine, olive oil, spices, and papyrus. The city cemented its power by leading the Greek resistance to the Persian invasions that had already ravaged places like Miletus. Just as rich, ebullient post-World War II New York attracted writers and painters from battle-scarred Europe, fifth-century-B.C.

Her remarkable intellect, which still sparkled well into her eighties, and her New York City experiences led her to many profound and prescient insights. In the 1950s, she saw clearly the folly of those efforts of urban renewal, which replaced well-functioning neighborhoods with immense towers that were isolated from the streets that surrounded them. She opposed the accepted wisdom of urban planning, with its penchant for single-use neighborhoods; she advocated diversity. In the 1960s, she grasped the role that cities play in spreading knowledge and ideas and creating economic growth. In the 1970s, she understood that cities were actually better for the environment than leafy suburbs. Her insights came from her enormous gifts as an observer living and working in New York.


pages: 1,233 words: 239,800

Public Places, Urban Spaces: The Dimensions of Urban Design by Matthew Carmona, Tim Heath, Steve Tiesdell, Taner Oc

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", A Pattern Language, Arthur Eddington, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, big-box store, Broken windows theory, Buckminster Fuller, car-free, carbon footprint, cellular automata, City Beautiful movement, Community Supported Agriculture, complexity theory, deindustrialization, disinformation, Donald Trump, drive until you qualify, East Village, edge city, food miles, Frank Gehry, Future Shock, game design, garden city movement, gentrification, global supply chain, Guggenheim Bilbao, income inequality, invisible hand, iterative process, Jane Jacobs, land bank, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, longitudinal study, Masdar, Maslow's hierarchy, megaproject, megastructure, New Urbanism, peak oil, Peter Calthorpe, place-making, post-oil, precautionary principle, principal–agent problem, prisoner's dilemma, profit motive, Richard Florida, Seaside, Florida, starchitect, streetcar suburb, systems thinking, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, telepresence, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Great Good Place, the market place, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transit-oriented development, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, vertical integration, zero-sum game

An Inquiry by the Royal Fine Arts Commission, RFAC, London Canter, D (1977) The Psychology of Place, Architectural Press, London Carmona, M & Tiesdell, S (2007) (editors) Urban Design Reader, Architectural Press, Oxford Carmona, M; Marshall S; & Stevens, Q (2006) Design codes, their use and potential, Progress in Planning, 65(4), 209–289 Carmona, M & Freeman, J (2005) The groundscraper: Exploring the contemporary reinterpretation, Journal of Urban Design, 10(3), 309–330 Carmona M; de Magalhaes C; Hammond, L; Blum, R & Yang L (2004) Living Places: Caring for Quality, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, London Carmona, M; Carmona, S; & Gallent, N (2001a) Working Together: A Guide for Planners and Housing Providers, Thomas Telford, London Carmona, M; de Magalhaes, C & Edwards, M (2001b) The Value of Urban Design, CABE, London Carmona, M & de Magalhaes, C (2008) Public Space: The Management Dimension, Routledge, London Carmona, M & de Magalhaes, C (2006) Public space management – Present and potential, Journal of Environmental Planning & Management, 49(1), 75–99 Carmona, M; Marshall, S & Stevens, Q (2006) Design codes, their use and potential, Progress in Planning 65, (4) Carmona, M; Punter, J & Chapman, D (2002) From Design Policy to Design Quality, the Treatment of Design in Community Strategies, Local Development Frameworks and Action Plans, Thomas Telford, London Carmona, M & Sieh, L (2004) Measuring Quality in Planning, Managing the Performance Process, Spon Press, London Carmona, M & Sieh, L (2005) Performance measurement innovation in English planning authorities, Planning Theory & Practice, 6(3), 303–333 Carmona, M (2009a) Design coding and the creative, market and regulatory tyrannies of practice Urban Studies, 46(12), 1–25 Carmona, M (2009b) Sustainable urban design: Definitions and delivery, International Journal for Sustainable Development, 12(1), 48–71 Carmona, M (2009c) The Isle of Dogs: Four waves, twelve plans, 30+ years, and a renaissance … of sorts, Progress in Planning, 71(3), 87–151 Carmona, M (2006) Designing mega-projects in Hong Kong: Reflections from an academic accomplice, Journal of Urban Design, 11(1), 105–124 Carmona, M (2001) Housing Design Quality: Through Policy, Guidance and Review, Spon Press, London Carmona, M (1998a) Design control-bridging the professional divide, part 2: A new consensus Journal of Urban Design, 3(3), 331–358 Carmona, M (1998b) Urban design and planning practice Greed, C & Roberts, M Introducing Urban Design: Interventions and Responses, Harlow, Longman Carmona, M (1996) Sustainable urban design: The local plan agenda, Urban Design Quarterly 57, 18–22 Carr, S; Francis, M; Rivlin, L G; & Stone, A M (1992) Public Space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Carter, S L (1998) Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy, Harper Perennial, London Castells, M (1977) The Urban Question – A Marxist Approach, Edwin Arnold, London Castells, M (1991) The Informational City, Blackwell, Oxford Cavanagh, S (1998) Women and the urban environment in Greed C and Roberts M, (1998) (editors) Introducing Urban Design: Interventions and Responses, Longman, Harlow Centre for Livable Communities (1999) Street Design Guidelines for Healthy Neighbourhoods, Local Government Commission, Sacramento CERTU (2001) NonEnAccidents en Milieu Urbain: Sorties de chaussée et chocs contre obstacles latéraux, Centre d’études sure les réseaux, les transports, l'urbanisme et les constructions publiques, Lyon Chase, JL; Crawford, M & Kaliski, J (2008) Everyday Urbanism (second edition), The Monacelli Press, New York Chaplin, S (2007) Places, in Evans B & McDonald F (Editors) Learning from Place 1, RIBA Publishing, London, 104–121 Chapman, D & Larkham, P (1994) Understanding Urban Design, an Introduction to the Process of Urban Change, University of Central England, Birmingham Chase, JL; Crawford, M & Kaliski, J (1999) Everyday Urbanism, The Monacelli Press, New York Chase, J L (2008) The space formerly known as parking, in Chase, JL; Crawford, M & Kaliski, J (2008) Everyday Urbanism (second edition), The Monacelli Press, New York, 194–199 Chatterton, P & Hollands, R (2002) Theorising urban playscapes: Producing, regulating and consuming youthful nightlife city spaces, Urban Studies, 39(1) 95–116 Chase, J; Crawford, M & Kaliski, J (2008) Everyday Urbanism (second edition), Monacelli Press, New York Chaven, A; Peralta, C & Steins, C (2007) (editors) Planetizen Contemporary Debates in Urban Planning, Island Press, Washington Chermayeff, S & Alexander, C (1963) Community and Privacy, Pelican, Harmondsworth Cheshire, P (2006) Resurgent cities: Urban myths and policy hubris: What we need to know, Urban Studies 43(8), 1231–1246 Chih-Feng Shu, S (2000) Housing layout and crime vulnerability, Urban Design International, 5(2), 177–188 Childs, M C (2009) Civic concinnity Journal of Urban Design, 14(2), 131–145 Childs, M C (2004) Squares: A Public Place Design Guide for Urbanists, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque Clarke, P (2009) Urban planning and design’, in Ritchie A Thomas R (2009) Sustainable Urban Design – An Environmental Approach (second edition) Taylor & Francis, London, 12–20 Clarke, RVG (Editor) (1992) Situational Crime Prevention: Successful Case Studies, Harrow & Heston, New York Clifford, S & King, A (1993) Local Distinctiveness: Place, Particularity and Identity, Common Ground, London Cohen, E (1988) Authenticity and commoditisation in tourism, Annals of Tourism Research, 15(3), 371–386 Coleman, A (1985) Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing, Shipman, London Collins, G R & Collins, C C (1965) Translators' Preface’, in Sitte, C (1889) City Planning According to Artistic Principles, (translated by Collins, G R & Collins, C C, 1965) Phaidon Press, London, ix-xiv Colomb, C (2007) Unpacking new labour's ‘Urban Renaissance’ agenda: Towards a socially sustainable reurbanization of British cities?

., New York Gottdiener, M (1995) postmodern Semiotics: Material Culture and Forms of postmodern Life, Blackwell, Oxford Government Office for London (1996) London's Urban Environment, Planning for Quality, HMSO, London Government Office for Science (GOS) (2008) Powering Our Lives: Sustainable Energy and the Built Environment, GOS, London Graham, S (2001) The spectre of the splintering metropolis, Cities, 18(6), 365–368 Graham, S & Marvin, S (2001) Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition, Routledge, London Graham, S (2008) Urban network architectures and the structuring of future cities, in Haas, T (2008), New Urbanism and Beyond: Designing Cities for the Future, Rizzoli International, New York, 212–218 Graham, S & Marvin, S (1999) Planning cybercities? Integrating telecommunications into urban planning? Town Planning Review, 70(1), 89–114 Graham, S & Marvin, S (1996) Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places, Routledge, London Greed, C & Roberts, M (editors) (1998) Introducing Urban Design: Interventions and Responses, Addison Wesley Longman, Harlow Greed, C (2003) Inclusive Urban Design: Public Toilets, Architectural Press, Oxford Greed, C (2007) A Place for Everyone? Gender Equality and Urban Planning A ReGender Briefing Paper, Oxfam, London Gummer, J (1994) More Quality in Town and Country, Department of the Environment News Release 713, DoE, London H Haas, T (2008), New Urbanism and Beyond: Designing Cities for the Future, Rizzoli International, New York Habermas, J (1979) Communication and the Evolution of Society (translated by McCarthy, T) Beacon Press, Boston Habermas, J (1962) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (translated by Burger, T & Lawrence, F), MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass Habraken, NJ (2000) (edited by Teicher, J) The Structure of the Ordinary: Form and Control in the Built Environment, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Hague, R & Harrop, M (2004) Comparative Government and Politics: An introduction (sixth edition) Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke Hajer, M & Reijndorp, A (2001) In Search of New Public Domain, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam Hall, D (1991) Altogether misguided and dangerous – A review of Newman & Kenworthy (1989), Town & Country Planning, 60(11/12), 350–351 Hall, P (1998) Cities in Civilisations: Culture, Innovation and Urban Order, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London Hall P (1995) Planning and urban design in the 1990s Urban Design Quarterly, 56, 14–21 Hall, P & Imrie, R (1999) Architectural practices and disabling design in the built environment’, Environment & Planning B: Planning & Design, 26, 409–425 Hall, P (1973) Great Planning Disasters, Weidenfeld, London Hall, T (2008) Turning a Town Around: A Proactive Approach to Urban Design, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford Hall, T (1998) Urban Geography, Routledge, London Hancock, T & Duhl, L (1988) Promoting Health in the Urban Context, WHO Healthy Cities Papers No 1, Copenhagen, FADL Hannigan, J (1998) Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the postmodern Metropolis, Routledge, London Harcourt, B E (2001) Illusion of Order: The false Promise of Broken Windows Policing, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass Hardy D (2005) Poundbury, the Town that Charles Built, Town & Country Planning Association, London Hargroves, K C & Smith, MH (2005) The Natural Advantage of Nations, Earthscan Publications, London Hart, S I & Spivak, A L (1993) The Elephant in the Bedroom: Automobile Dependence and Denial: Impacts on the Economy and Environment, New Paradigm Books, Pasadena Harvey, D (2005) A Brief History of Neo-liberalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford Harvey, D (1997) The New Urbanism and the communitarian trap, Harvard Design Magazine (Winter/Spring) 68–69 Harvey, D (1989a) From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism’, Geografiska Annaler Series B: Human Geography, 71(1), 3–17 Harvey, D (1990) The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Basil Blackwell, Oxford Harvey, D (1989b) The Urban Experience, Blackwell, Oxford Hass-Klau, C (1990) The Pedestrian and City Traffic, Belhaven Press, London Hass-Klau, C; Crampton, G; Dowland, C; & Nold, I (1999) Streets as Living Space: Helping public Spaces Play Their Proper Role, Landor, London Hatherway, T (2000) Planning local movement systems’ in Barton H (2000) (editor) Sustainable Communities – The Potential for Eco-Neighbourhoods, Earthscan, London, 216-229 Hawkes, D (2003) Civic dimensions: Public places, urban spaces: The dimensions of urban design – Book Review’, Architectural Review, August Haworth, G (2009) Coin street housing: The architecture of engagement, in Ritchie & Thomas (Editors)Sustainable Urban Design – An Environmental Approach, second edition, Taylor & Francis, London, 116–131 Haughton, G & Hunter, C (1994) Sustainable Cities, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London Hayden, D (2004) A Field Guide to Sprawl, WW Norton & Company, London Hayden, D (1995) The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass Hayden, D (1980) What would a non-sexist city be like?

It also draws on the authors' experience teaching, researching and writing about urban design in schools of urban studies, planning, architecture and surveying. Motivation This book comes from two distinct sources. First, from a period during the 1990s when the authors worked together at the University of Nottingham on an innovative undergraduate urban planning programme. Its primary motivation was a belief that teaching urban design at the core of an interdisciplinary, creative, problem-solving discipline, planning (and other) professionals would have a more valuable learning experience and a better foundation for their future careers. Although in many schools of planning, urban design is still figuratively put into a ‘box’ and taught by the school's single urban design ‘specialist’, our contention was that an urban design awareness and sensibility should inform all parts of the curriculum.


pages: 578 words: 168,350

Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies by Geoffrey West

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anthropocene, Anton Chekhov, Benoit Mandelbrot, Black Swan, British Empire, butterfly effect, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, carbon footprint, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, clean water, coastline paradox / Richardson effect, complexity theory, computer age, conceptual framework, continuous integration, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, cotton gin, creative destruction, dark matter, Deng Xiaoping, double helix, driverless car, Dunbar number, Edward Glaeser, endogenous growth, Ernest Rutherford, first square of the chessboard, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, Frank Gehry, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, Great Leap Forward, Guggenheim Bilbao, housing crisis, Index librorum prohibitorum, invention of agriculture, invention of the telephone, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, laissez-faire capitalism, Large Hadron Collider, Larry Ellison, Lewis Mumford, life extension, Mahatma Gandhi, mandelbrot fractal, Marc Benioff, Marchetti’s constant, Masdar, megacity, Murano, Venice glass, Murray Gell-Mann, New Urbanism, Oklahoma City bombing, Peter Thiel, power law, profit motive, publish or perish, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Feynman, Richard Florida, Salesforce, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, smart cities, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Suez canal 1869, systematic bias, systems thinking, technological singularity, The Coming Technological Singularity, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, the strength of weak ties, time dilation, too big to fail, transaction costs, urban planning, urban renewal, Vernor Vinge, Vilfredo Pareto, Von Neumann architecture, Whole Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Review, wikimedia commons, working poor

But some of it must have unsuspectingly remained buried deep in my unconscious waiting to emerge forty years later when I began to speculate that networks form the fundamental scaffolding for understanding how our bodies, our cities, and our companies work. 4. INTERMEDIATE SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION My aim in this brief and somewhat personal digression is not to give a comprehensive critique or balanced overview of urban planning and design but rather to highlight some of its specific characteristics relevant for setting the scene and providing a natural segue into the possibility of developing a science of cities. I am not an expert, nor do I have credentials in urban planning, design, or architecture, so my observations are necessarily incomplete. One important insight that resulted from these observations was that most urban development and renewal—and in particular almost all newly created planned cities such as Washington, D.C., Canberra, Brasilia, and Islamabad—has not been very successful.

Thus, on a per capita basis, all of these quantities systematically increase to the same degree as city size increases and, at the same time, there are equivalent savings from economies of scale in all infrastructural quantities. Despite their amazing diversity and complexity across the globe, and despite localized urban planning, cities manifest a surprising coarse-grained simplicity, regularity, and predictability.15 To put it in simple terms, scaling implies that if a city is twice the size of another city in the same country (whether 40,000 vs. 20,000 or 4 million vs. 2 million), then its wages, wealth, number of patents, AIDS cases, violent crime, and educational institutions all increase by approximately the same degree (by about 15 percent above mere doubling), with similar savings in all of its infrastructure.

Even as far back as Aristotle we find him continually referring to the city (the polis) as a “natural” organic autonomous entity. In more recent times an influential movement in architecture has arisen called Metabolism, which was explicitly inspired by analogy with the idea of biological regeneration driven by metabolic processes. This views architecture as an integral component of urban planning and development and as a continually evolving process, implying that buildings should be designed ab initio with change in mind. One of its original proponents was the well-known Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, the 1987 winner of the Pritzker Prize, considered to be the Nobel Prize of architecture.


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Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, algorithmic bias, augmented reality, Bernie Sanders, Cambridge Analytica, collective bargaining, crowdsourcing, data science, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, falling living standards, first-past-the-post, gender pay gap, gig economy, glass ceiling, Grace Hopper, Hacker Ethic, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, informal economy, lifelogging, low skilled workers, mental accounting, meta-analysis, Nate Silver, new economy, obamacare, Oculus Rift, offshore financial centre, pattern recognition, phenotype, post-industrial society, randomized controlled trial, remote working, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, speech recognition, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Levy, tech bro, the built environment, urban planning, women in the workforce, work culture , zero-sum game

In such a framing, women are set up to be forgettable. Ignorable. Dispensable – from culture, from history, from data. And so, women become invisible. Invisible Women is the story of what happens when we forget to account for half of humanity. It is an exposè of how the gender data gap harms women when life proceeds, more or less as normal. In urban planning, politics, the workplace. It is also about what happens to women living in a world built on male data when things go wrong. When they get sick. When they lose their home in a flood. When they have to flee that home because of war. But there is hope in this story too, because it’s when women are able to step out from the shadows with their voices and their bodies that things start to shift.

The men (and it would have been men) who originally devised the schedule knew how they travelled and they designed around their needs. They didn’t deliberately set out to exclude women. They just didn’t think about them. They didn’t think to consider if women’s needs might be different. And so this data gap was a result of not involving women in planning. Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, an urban-planning professor at Madrid’s Technical University, tells me that this is a problem in transport planning more generally. Transport as a profession is ‘highly male-dominated’, she explains. In Spain, ‘the Ministry of Transportation has the fewest women of all the ministries both in political and technical positions.

While much of the historical gender data gap in travel planning has arisen simply because the idea that women might have different needs didn’t occur to the (mainly) male planners, there is another, less excusable, reason for it, and that is that women are seen as, well, just more difficult to measure. ‘Women have much more complicated travel patterns,’ explains Sánchez de Madariaga, who has designed a survey to measure women’s care travel. And on the whole, transport authorities aren’t interested in women’s ‘atypical’ travel habits. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, tells me that ‘oftentimes there is the perception from the part of transit operators that everyone has universal needs. Men, women, everything is the same. And this is completely untrue.’ She laughs in exasperation. ‘Talking to women riders they bring up a whole slew of different needs that are not being taken care of.’


pages: 290 words: 82,220

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz

biofilm, Black Lives Matter, clean water, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, David Graeber, Easter island, European colonialism, Ferguson, Missouri, gentrification, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, it's over 9,000, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, mass immigration, megacity, off-the-grid, rent control, the built environment, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl

Streets would have been lined with dense but orderly rows of wooden houses. This degree of coordination, Heng speculates, would have required a centralized urban planning authority. In one short inscription written by J7’s son, we see a hint of what this meant. “It says Jayavarman VII took the land by force,” Heng said simply. To transform the city’s more organically shaped neighborhoods into a grid, the king’s forces relocated his subjects. This kind of coercive urban planning was also a good way to suppress rebellion, which was a constant problem for the expansionist king. “One way to crush rebellion is to take people’s property and make their families into servants of the temple,” Heng mused.

The timescale may have been different, but the results were similar: environmental disasters like the floods that Evans described at the West Baray made the city unlivable for the majority of its population. But the final blow had nothing to do with nature: the Angkorian kings could no longer command armies of laborers to rebuild the canal system that was the city’s lifeblood. Perhaps the most unsustainable part of Angkor’s urban planning was not its system of reservoirs, but a rigid social hierarchy that depended on forced labor. Meanwhile, in the Americas, another great medieval city expanded and contracted, its reversal of fortunes recorded indelibly on the landscape. Cahokia was the largest city in North America before the arrival of Europeans, growing from a small riverside village in the Mississippi River bottom to a sprawling metropolis of over 30,000 people whose holdings straddled two sides of the river.

People living in Çatalhöyük were torn between two sets of customs: the older communitarian one, in which difference and hierarchy are discouraged, and the newer, urban one, in which both are unavoidable. Kuijt believes major conflicts would have emerged when traditional egalitarianism started to feel like rigid conformity. When tensions ran too high, people might have started to walk away from the East Mound, whose urban plan was purpose-built to promote the idea that nobody should be significantly different from her neighbors. West Mounders built homes spaced farther apart, with a wide range of floor plans, suggesting a society where people were publicly proclaiming their individuality. Still, architectural reform wasn’t enough to keep people there.


pages: 300 words: 81,293

Supertall: How the World's Tallest Buildings Are Reshaping Our Cities and Our Lives by Stefan Al

3D printing, autonomous vehicles, biodiversity loss, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, carbon footprint, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, colonial rule, computer vision, coronavirus, COVID-19, Deng Xiaoping, digital twin, Disneyland with the Death Penalty, Donald Trump, Easter island, Elisha Otis, energy transition, food miles, Ford Model T, gentrification, high net worth, Hyperloop, invention of air conditioning, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, Marchetti’s constant, megaproject, megastructure, Mercator projection, New Urbanism, plutocrats, plyscraper, pneumatic tube, ride hailing / ride sharing, Salesforce, self-driving car, Sidewalk Labs, SimCity, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, social distancing, Steve Jobs, streetcar suburb, synthetic biology, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the built environment, the High Line, transit-oriented development, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, tulip mania, urban planning, urban sprawl, value engineering, Victor Gruen, VTOL, white flight, zoonotic diseases

They were planned in grids. Egyptian pharaohs, known for their pyramids, may have also been the world’s first urban planners. Soon, ideas around urban planning would determine the shapes of many cities. The ancient Greeks popularized more formal city planning, although grid plans existed in other societies as well—such as the twenty-sixth-century BC Indus Valley and fifteenth-century BC China. In the fifth century BC, Hippodamus of Milete, known as the “father of urban planning,” designed the grid system of Piraeus, near Athens. His “checkerboard” plan featured straight streets crossing at right angles. He believed the grid expressed the rationality of civilized life.

SIX: The Competition for Air Rights: New York 1.David Albouy, Gabriel Ehrlich, and Minchul Shin, “Metropolitan Land Values,” Review of Economics and Statistics 100, no. 3 (2018): 454–66. 2.Hendrik Hartog, Public Property and Private Power: The Corporation of the City of New York in American Law, 1730–1870 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), 163. 3.Parker v. Foote, 19 Wend. 309 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1838). 4.Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. Thomas P. Abernethy (New York: Harper Torchbook, 1964), 158. 5.John M. Levy, Contemporary Urban Planning (New York: Routledge, 2016), 9. 6.“The Crust at Chicago,” New York Times, October 18, 1891, 4. 7.Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880 (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2014), 35. 8.Hall, Cities of Tomorrow, 37. 9.Henry James, The American Scene (London: Chapman & Hall, 1907), 80. 10.H. A. Caparn, “The Riddle of the Tall Building: Has the Skyscraper a Place in American Architecture?”

In the postwar era, urban populations in Europe and the United States declined, as people moved to the suburbs. Since the 1980s, there has been a reversal of the suburban exodus. Never before have more people chosen to live in cities. In the United States, Europe, and Asia, younger and more highly educated people are moving to cities, attracted by the opportunities the cities create. Urban planning researcher Markus Moos has called it the “youthification” of American cities, with two-thirds of twenty-five- to thirty-four-year-olds with a bachelor’s degree living in metropolitan areas.3 Similarly in Europe, large cities like London have been magnets for people in their twenties.4 This millennial generation, unlike their parents, is far less drawn to home or car ownership or to a car-oriented lifestyle.


pages: 385 words: 118,314

Cities Are Good for You: The Genius of the Metropolis by Leo Hollis

Airbnb, Alvin Toffler, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, Broken windows theory, Buckminster Fuller, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, cellular automata, classic study, clean water, cloud computing, complexity theory, congestion charging, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, digital map, Disneyland with the Death Penalty, Donald Shoup, East Village, Edward Glaeser, Elisha Otis, Enrique Peñalosa, export processing zone, Firefox, Frank Gehry, General Motors Futurama, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, Gini coefficient, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, Hernando de Soto, high-speed rail, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Leo Hollis, Lewis Mumford, Long Term Capital Management, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Masdar, mass immigration, megacity, negative equity, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, openstreetmap, packet switching, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, place-making, power law, Quicken Loans, Ray Oldenburg, Richard Florida, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, smart grid, spice trade, Steve Jobs, technoutopianism, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Great Good Place, the High Line, The Spirit Level, the strength of weak ties, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Malthus, trade route, traveling salesman, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, white flight, Y2K, Yom Kippur War

From the grid layout of Augustine Rome regulated by the Caesars, Medici Florence, Baron Haussman’s elegant boulevards that tore through the dilapidated streets of nineteenth-century Paris, to the re-imagining of Shanghai as the capital of the twenty-first century, architecture and political control have gone hand in hand. But just as the judicious planning of urban space can enforce compliance and order, can architecture also liberate and nurture? Can a well-planned neighbourhood encourage a sense of community? The narrative of modern urban planning is the story of turning philosophy to stone. The twentieth-century planner was nothing if not ambitious: confident that he (for he is almost exclusively male) had found the technological panacea for the ills of society, convinced that building the city afresh would offer mankind a new start, accelerating people into the sublime realms of modernity: free from want, pain or unnecessary emotion.

In the coming decades evolutionary theory, fantastical fiction, the desire to shock, the latest findings from newly forged sciences – psychology, sociology, psychoanalysis – would all be legitimate seedbeds for germinating ideas of the new city. However, as can be seen in the lives of three of the founding fathers of modern urban planning – Patrick Geddes, Ebeneezer Howard and Le Corbusier – the street was too often forgotten. Just below the castle at the end of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh stands the Outlook Tower. Originally home to Short’s Observatory, Museum of Science and Art, the tower was purchased in 1892 by the then professor of botany at University College, Dundee, Patrick Geddes.

As a leading member of the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA), Mumford transformed and popularised Geddes’s theories: allowing cities to grow unchecked was intolerable; people, industry and land were an integrated network that needed to be planned. Following the Great Depression, the RPAA was perfectly placed to give shape to the urban projects of Roosevelt’s New Deal, combining practical directives of urban planning and a positive social agenda that drove forward the rebuilding of America out of adversity. Many of the New Deal towns, constructed by schemes such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, saw whole communities emerging according to regional planning. In turn, Mumford’s synthesis of Geddes’s regional planning found fertile ground back in Britain in the work of Sir Patrick Abercrombie, the man who campaigned in the 1930s for a greenbelt around London to halt the spread of the city.


pages: 261 words: 57,595

China's Future by David Shambaugh

Berlin Wall, capital controls, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, facts on the ground, financial intermediation, financial repression, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, high net worth, high-speed rail, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, low skilled workers, market bubble, megacity, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open economy, Pearl River Delta, rent-seeking, secular stagnation, short selling, South China Sea, special drawing rights, too big to fail, urban planning, Washington Consensus, working-age population, young professional

Urbanization Another significant future challenge for China is increasing urbanization (), which is a very high priority of the government and particularly of Premier Li Keqiang during his tenure in office (which ends in 2022). In March 2014 Li unveiled the “National New-Type Urbanization Plan,” the nation’s first-ever official urbanization blueprint.29 Probably no government in history has devised such a comprehensive orchestrated urbanization scheme on such a grand scale—involving issues of land and buildings, public and private transportation, communications, public services, finances, ecology, food, labor, governance, and other facets of urban planning.30 China spends up to $400 billion a year on buildings, putting up 28 billion square feet of new residential property annually.

., “National Security: Everything Xi Wants,” The Economist, July 4, 2015. 29. See Jon R. Taylor, “The China Dream Is an Urban Dream: Assessing the CPC’s National New-Type Urbanization Plan,” Journal of Chinese Political Science 20 (2015), pp. 107–20. The Plan was jointly issued by the CCP Central Committee and State Council. 30. The Chinese government has had the benefit of working closely with The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and other international organizations in preparing its urbanization plan. See, for example, The World Bank and Development Research Center of the State Council, Urban China: Toward Efficient, Inclusive, and Sustainable Urbanization (Washington, DC: The World Bank Group, 2014). 31.

Another growing concern is the relative decline in foreign inbound investment, which is related to the increased costs and difficulties of operation for foreign multinationals in China. What other time bombs lurk waiting to burst in China’s opaque economy? Socially, there are multiple variables to monitor. The facilitation or repression of civil society (by the government) is one. The government’s urbanization plans are another, as the scheme will involve the largest population movement in human history. Rising unrest in Tibet, Xinjiang, and across China is a major challenge. Reform or abolition of the household registration (hukou) system is critical to managing China’s massive internal migration problem.


pages: 232 words: 60,093

Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities by Witold Rybczynski

benefit corporation, big-box store, carbon footprint, Celebration, Florida, City Beautiful movement, classic study, company town, cross-subsidies, David Brooks, death of newspapers, deindustrialization, edge city, Edward Glaeser, fixed income, Frank Gehry, garden city movement, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, global village, Guggenheim Bilbao, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, megaproject, megastructure, New Urbanism, Peter Eisenman, Seaside, Florida, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Le Corbusier called the large apartment, with two floors and an outdoor roof terrace, an “apartment-villa,” since it combined the attributes of a house with high-rise living. The planning exhibit included the material that he had displayed at the Salon d’Automne—drawings, models, a diorama—augmented by an even more radical urban plan. The so-called Voisin Plan applied Le Corbusier’s theories to the center of the city of Paris. His proposal covered six hundred acres of the Right Bank, including the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Les Halles, and the Marais, and called for demolishing all the buildings except for prominent historic landmarks such as the Madeleine, the Opéra, the Palais-Royal, and the Place Vendôme.

Jacobs’s reporting took her to different cities—Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Saint Louis, Fort Worth—where she visited urban redevelopment projects and interviewed planning officials. In 1956, the editor of the magazine, Douglas Haskell, was invited by Harvard’s Graduate School of Design to speak at a conference on urban planning, but since he was on vacation, he sent Jacobs in his stead. She chose an unlikely subject for her ten-minute talk: the lack of stores in urban redevelopment projects. She described traditional shopping streets as “strips of chaos that have a weird wisdom of their own not yet encompassed in our concept of urban order.”

“What passes for city planning today is fundamentally a rejection of the big city and of all it means—its variety, its peculiarities, its richness of choice and experience—and a yearning for a bucolic society,” he writes.10 Glazer makes the original observation that while in many ways Le Corbusier’s Radiant City was diametrically opposed to Howard’s Garden City—being vertical rather than horizontal—the two concepts shared a common assumption, “that the city could be improved by replacing its chaos and confusion with a single plan, different from the urban plans of the past in that it was not conceived as a general outline of streets and major public institutions, but as a placement of every residence, every facility, every plot of green.”11 Glazer argued that current American city planning was a fusion of Howard’s and Le Corbusier’s ideas, and he criticized the suburban character of such well-known projects as Louis I.


pages: 296 words: 76,284

The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream Is Moving by Leigh Gallagher

Airbnb, big-box store, bike sharing, Burning Man, call centre, car-free, Celebration, Florida, clean water, collaborative consumption, Columbine, commoditize, crack epidemic, demographic winter, East Village, edge city, Edward Glaeser, extreme commuting, Ford Model T, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, helicopter parent, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, Jane Jacobs, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, low skilled workers, Mark Zuckerberg, McMansion, Menlo Park, microapartment, mortgage tax deduction, negative equity, New Urbanism, peak oil, Peter Calthorpe, Ponzi scheme, Quicken Loans, Richard Florida, Robert Shiller, Sand Hill Road, Seaside, Florida, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, streetcar suburb, TED Talk, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Tony Hsieh, Tragedy of the Commons, transit-oriented development, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, walkable city, white flight, white picket fence, young professional, Zipcar

The historian Lewis Mumford: Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, pp. 237, 244; Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (Mariner Books, 1970). Her influential 1961 book: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Random House, 1961). The definitive critique of twentieth-century urban planning. It’s hard to overstate Jacobs’s role in urban planning, and her own artful explanation of the “sidewalk ballet” is worth citing in full here. She wrote that under the seeming disorder of cities, there was a “marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city.” This order, she wrote, is “composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance—not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole.

“Everybody was super thrilled with me because I got this project approved out of nowhere,” he says. And since the project would connect more homes, it would allow the town to promote the fact that it was creating capacity for the city to grow. But over the next several years, as Marohn went back to Remer to do additional work—he had by then gotten a degree in urban planning—and saw that the town was in the process of doing a similar project with their water system, he realized he had created an unsustainable financial situation. Thanks to the leaky pipe he fixed, the town now had to bear the maintenance costs of a system that was double the size of the one it had before.

“There is a connection . . . between the fact that the urban sprawl we live with daily makes no room for sidewalks or bike paths and the fact that we are an overweight, heart disease-ridden society,” wrote the report’s author, Richard Jackson, MD, a pediatrician, chair of Environmental and Health Sciences at UCLA, and former director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health. Jackson has been tracking the impact of environment on health for his entire career, in recent years focusing specifically on the influence of urban planning, including sprawl, on our overall well-being. Jackson has become a fierce advocate for the design of what he calls “healthier” communities—those that have safer places to walk, designated bike lanes, green spaces, better air quality, and the like—elements that draw people out into the environment and get them walking and exercising naturally.


pages: 313 words: 92,907

Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are Thekeys to Sustainability by David Owen

A Pattern Language, active transport: walking or cycling, big-box store, Buckminster Fuller, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, clean water, congestion charging, congestion pricing, delayed gratification, distributed generation, drive until you qualify, East Village, Easter island, electricity market, food miles, Ford Model T, garden city movement, hydrogen economy, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, linear programming, McMansion, megaproject, Michael Shellenberger, military-industrial complex, Murano, Venice glass, Negawatt, New Urbanism, off grid, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, PalmPilot, peak oil, placebo effect, Stewart Brand, systems thinking, Ted Nordhaus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Thomas L Friedman, unemployed young men, urban planning, urban sprawl, walkable city, zero-sum game

See public transit trees absorption of atmospheric carbon in dense urban areas reforestation Trillin, Calvin Udall, Randy United States oil consumption oil reserves and production population increase urban planning failures withdrawal from Kyoto Protocol urban areas. See also New York City; specific cities; specific issues drawbacks and vulnerabilities as ecological disasters heat-island effect outdoor activity planning failures quality-of-life concerns as role models self-sufficiency of aging residents urban planning for economic efficiency failures recreational areas Washington.C. zoning regulations urbanization trend Urbina, Ian U.S. Bureau of Mines U.S.

Building the city didn’t fill the Hudson Valley with parking lots; fleeing the city did. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF POPULATION DENSITY WAS ELUCIDATED brilliantly in 1961 in a landmark book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs.35 Jacobs upended many widely held ideas about how cities ought to be put together, and she has been celebrated ever since as an urban-planning iconoclast and visionary, but she could be viewed just as easily as a pioneering environmentalist. Indeed, Jacobs’s book may be most valuable today as a guide to reducing the ecological damage caused by human beings, even though it scarcely mentions the environment, other than by making a couple of passing references to smog.

Jacobs’s focus was on the vibrancy of city life, but the same urban qualities that she identified as enhancing human interaction also dramatically reduce energy consumption and waste. Placing people and their daily activities close together doesn’t just make the people more interesting; it also makes them greener. Unfortunately, her catalogue of the failures of modern urban planning also still applies, almost fifty years later, with little modification, all across America: “Low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace. Middle-income housing projects which are truly marvels of dullness and regimentation, sealed against any buoyancy or vitality of city life.


The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler

A Pattern Language, blue-collar work, California gold rush, car-free, City Beautiful movement, corporate governance, Donald Trump, financial independence, fixed income, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frank Gehry, gentrification, germ theory of disease, indoor plumbing, It's morning again in America, jitney, junk bonds, land tenure, Lewis Mumford, mass immigration, means of production, megastructure, Menlo Park, new economy, oil shock, Peter Calthorpe, place-making, plutocrats, postindustrial economy, Potemkin village, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Skinner box, Southern State Parkway, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Whole Earth Review, working poor, Works Progress Administration, yellow journalism

The culture of good place-making, like the culture of farming, or agriculture, is a body of knowledge and acquired skills. It is not bred in the bone, and if it is not transmitted from one generation to the next, it is lost. Does the modern profession called urban planning have anything to do with making good places anymore ? Planners no longer employ the vocabulary of civic art, nor do they find the opportunity to practice it-the term civic art itself has nearly vanished in common usage. In some universities, urban-planning departments have been booted out of the architecture schools and into the schools of public administration. Not surprisingly, planners are now chiefly preoccupied with adminis­ trative procedure: issuing permits, filling out forms, and shuffling pa­ pers-in short, bureaucracy.

A remarkable series of expositions followed the Chicago fair-the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo in 1901 (where President McKinley was shot), the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition at Seattle in 1910, and the Panama-Pacific Exposition at San Francisco in 1915, among others. They served as demonstration projects for a manner of heroic urban planning that would evolve into the City Beautiful movement in America, a concerted effort to bring focus and unity where chaos, visual squalor, or monotony had reigned, and to do it on a scale not seen since the Baroque period. The City Beautiful movement might be viewed as just another architectural fad.

In this chapter I have selected three cities that are strikingly different from one another, and yet all, I believe, represent a type. I have picked Detroit because it is the worst case of an old industrial metropolis gone to hell. Portland, Oregon, in contrast, embodies the most hopeful and progressive trends in American city life and especially in urban plan­ ning. Los Angeles, the quintessential city of the twentieth century, wholeheartedly dedicated to cars, is the most problematic place to in­ terpret. The form it has assumed may not allow it to function in the century to come, and so this most modern of places has, paradoxically, the most dubious future.


pages: 281 words: 83,505

Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, assortative mating, basic income, Big Tech, big-box store, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, Broken windows theory, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, deindustrialization, desegregation, digital divide, Donald Trump, East Village, fake news, Filter Bubble, food desert, gentrification, ghettoisation, helicopter parent, income inequality, informal economy, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, John Snow's cholera map, late fees, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, megaproject, Menlo Park, New Urbanism, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peter Thiel, public intellectual, Ray Oldenburg, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, smart grid, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Great Good Place, the High Line, universal basic income, urban planning, young professional

In 1957, more than 90 percent of all units were occupied. A few architecture critics initially praised the high modernist project for its spatial efficiency and abundance of green space. But major problems soon emerged. In the 1960s, Oscar Newman, a young professor of architecture and urban planning from Washington University in St. Louis, initiated a study to determine what was wrong. Newman had read about the conditions at Pruitt-Igoe, but that hadn’t prepared him for what he saw in person. Vandals had destroyed the laundry and garbage facilities. Graffiti covered the common areas wherever he went.

They often encourage the kind of informal social interaction among residents that allows for eyes on the street. They maintain all public areas, which sends a clear signal that residents monitor and care about the physical environment. Wherever possible, they reduce opportunities for crime. In City of Walls, the Berkeley anthropologist and urban planning scholar Teresa Caldeira documents the fortification of urban space in São Paulo during the 1980s and 1990s. “In the last two decades, in cities as distinct as São Paulo, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Budapest, Mexico City, and Miami, different social groups, especially from the upper classes, have used the fear of violence and crime to justify new techniques of exclusion and their withdrawal from traditional quarters of the cities,” she writes.

But, as the story of São Paulo’s successful dry laws illustrates, some commercial outlets are more likely to foster crime than to inhibit it. Bars and liquor stores are obvious examples; banks, currency exchanges, and automatic teller machines can have similarly deleterious effects on vulnerable neighborhoods, for the simple reason that they create new targets for robbery and assault. In the 1960s, the urban planning scholar Shlomo Angel examined patterns of illicit behavior in Oakland, which, like many cities at the time, was experiencing a worrisome spike in street crime. Angel found that retail corridors were hot spots, particularly after hours, when most consumers were at home and informal surveillance was weak.


pages: 472 words: 80,835

Life as a Passenger: How Driverless Cars Will Change the World by David Kerrigan

3D printing, Airbnb, airport security, Albert Einstein, autonomous vehicles, big-box store, Boeing 747, butterfly effect, call centre, car-free, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, Chris Urmson, commoditize, computer vision, congestion charging, connected car, DARPA: Urban Challenge, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, deskilling, disruptive innovation, Donald Shoup, driverless car, edge city, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, fake news, Ford Model T, future of work, General Motors Futurama, hype cycle, invention of the wheel, Just-in-time delivery, Lewis Mumford, loss aversion, Lyft, Marchetti’s constant, Mars Rover, megacity, Menlo Park, Metcalfe’s law, Minecraft, Nash equilibrium, New Urbanism, QWERTY keyboard, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rodney Brooks, Sam Peltzman, self-driving car, sensor fusion, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, smart cities, Snapchat, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, technological determinism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, the built environment, Thorstein Veblen, traffic fines, transit-oriented development, Travis Kalanick, trolley problem, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, urban sprawl, warehouse robotics, Yogi Berra, young professional, zero-sum game, Zipcar

Because of the focus on cars and co-located parking (where the car is stored close to its owner) as a solution in urban planning in recent decades, the distance between people and their destinations is typically greater than before, so they spend more time in traffic or on the bus; parking is baked into the price of most housing, goods, and services, so we pay more for all of them (hundreds of dollars per month, at least); and since we've built our city around the assumption that most people will drive, most people do—because all the incentives point in that direction. Parking & Congestion According to Donald Shoup,[44] Professor of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, a surprising amount of traffic congestion isn’t caused by people who are on their way somewhere.

Outline Evaluating the potential impact of driverless cars is not as simple a topic as it might first seem where you can quickly take a binary position on their benefits or otherwise. Though many initial simplistic responses may be along the lines of “it’ll never work”, “it’ll save lives” or “I don’t want a robot driving me”, it actually is a much more complex proposition and crosses disciplinary divides including economics, geography, urban planning, technology and even philosophy. As such though, it is a fascinating journey that raises questions fundamental to the very evolution of our society. It’s hard to find any area of daily life that escapes the scope of this seemingly innocuous new arrival. To enable an accessible and comprehensive look at the topic, I’ve chosen to structure this book as follows: In Chapter 2, I’ll begin our journey into the world of driverless cars by taking a step back and looking at how the car has come to dominate so much of modern society and how significant any change to that position would prove.

If the ownership models discussed above favour on-demand access to driverless cars rather than ownership and therefore car sales fall, auto dealers will be adversely impacted - and as a sector, they own or lease about $130 billion of real estate in the U.S. There are some other less-obvious victims too. Might public storage facilities feel the bite as their largest competitor will become the 40 billion square feet of free garage space opening up over the next couple decades? Urban Planning “Imagine a city where the street system permits vehicles to move without obstructions, traffic lights or officers with automatic regulation of speed and capacity; where pedestrians can walk continuously through the whole city areas—no matter whether this be in the outskirts or in the center—without any fear and danger of vehicular traffic.


Saving America's Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age by Lizabeth Cohen

activist lawyer, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, benefit corporation, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, car-free, charter city, deindustrialization, desegregation, Edward Glaeser, garden city movement, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, ghettoisation, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, indoor plumbing, Jane Jacobs, land reform, Lewis Mumford, megastructure, new economy, New Urbanism, Peter Eisenman, postindustrial economy, race to the bottom, rent control, Robert Gordon, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, subprime mortgage crisis, tech worker, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, Victor Gruen, Vilfredo Pareto, walkable city, War on Poverty, white flight, white picket fence, young professional

On the LRCC, see Lower Roxbury Community Corporation Records, 1968–1978, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections (hereafter LRCC), particularly the history in “Urban Renewal in Madison Park,” c. 1970, Washington Park Urban Renewal Area Bulletin, Box 1, Folder 8; LRCC, The Future of Lower Roxbury Depends on You, printed pamphlet, n.d. but c. 1968; Bailey, Lower Roxbury, 19–26, 29, 32–47, 57–63; Gordon Fellman, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, December 18, 2010, Cambridge, MA.   58. On Urban Planning Aid and its involvement in Madison Park, see UPA Records, 1966–82, particularly its mission statement in “Attachments to Form 1023,” n.d. but c. 1966, Box 1, Folder 7; Gordon Brumm, “Urban Renewal in Washington Park and Madison Park,” Dialogues Boston 1, no. 2 (March 1968), Box 12, Folder 1. Also, “Roxbury Leaders Blast Renewal Plan,” BSB, May 28, 1966, for how Goodman presented UPA; Robert Goodman, interview by Lizabeth Cohen, April 24, 2010, Amherst, MA; Fellman, interview.   59. “Contract Between Urban Planning Aid and the Lower Roxbury Community Committee on Urban Renewal,” July 25, 1966; and Dr.

For Logue’s communication with the developers, see Logue, Memorandum to the file, September 21, 1961, EJL, Series 6, Box 148, Folder 376; “North Harvard Project” (materials prepared for Yale Law School class, November 1965), EJL, Series 6, Box 151, Folder 464, which states that backing down would be a “dangerous precedent.” Also, Chester Hartman, Between Eminence and Notoriety: Four Decades of Radical Urban Planning (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University Press, 2002), 18–19; “An Open Letter to Mayor John Collins and the Boston Redevelopment Authority,” 1965, Loeb Library Ephemera Collection, HGSD; Douglas Mathews, “Politics and Public Relations—or, How to Relocate the BRA,” Crimson, January 7, 1966; “Urban Planning Aid: A Proposal to Provide Planning Assistance to Low-Income Communities,” Dirt and Flowers 2 (July 30, 1966): 5, UPA, Box 12, Folder 1; Goodman, interview; “What to Do ’Til the Wrecker Comes, Plot by Boston Renewal Authority, Editing by Brainerd Taylor,” Connection: Visual Arts at Harvard, Spring 1966, Loeb Special Collections, HGSD; “SDS Will Assist in Fight Against Urban Renewal,” Crimson, March 4, 1965; “The Mess in Brighton—and a Suggestion,” editorial, BG, August 11, 1965; “Boston’s Powerful Model for Rebuilders,” BW, November 26, 1966; Jim Botticelli, Dirty Old Boston: Four Decades of a City in Transition (Boston: Union Park Press, 2014), 78.   91.

Success as this kind of expert depended not on mastery of a narrowly defined body of technical information, as had often been the case earlier in the twentieth century during the Progressive Era. Instead, it required broad skills to negotiate for the resources available to cities from Washington and to oversee a wide range of initiatives on the ground. That expansive portfolio included urban planning, real estate, design, construction, management, legal matters, public relations, community organizing, and lobbying. A lawyer like Logue, who emerged from legal training at Yale schooled in public interest law (long before the term became popular in the 1970s) with a focus on labor and legislation, was particularly well suited to engage with the growing government bureaucracy of postwar America.


pages: 232

Planet of Slums by Mike Davis

barriers to entry, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Brownian motion, centre right, clean water, company town, conceptual framework, crony capitalism, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Dr. Strangelove, edge city, European colonialism, failed state, gentrification, Gini coefficient, Hernando de Soto, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet Archive, jitney, jobless men, Kibera, labor-force participation, land reform, land tenure, Lewis Mumford, liberation theology, low-wage service sector, mandelbrot fractal, market bubble, megacity, microcredit, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, Pearl River Delta, Ponzi scheme, RAND corporation, rent control, structural adjustment programs, surplus humans, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, working poor

After a final defiance — the bulldozing of Colonia Santa Ursula in Ajusco in 29 Young and Turner, The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, p. 98; Deborah Posel, "Curbing African Urbanization in the 1950s and 1960s," in Mark Swilling, Richard Humphries, and Khehla Shubane (eds), Apartheid City in Transition, Cape Town 1991, pp. 29-30. 30 Carole Rakodi, "Global Forces, Urban Change, and Urban Management in Africa," in Rakodi, The Urban Challenge in Africa, pp. 32-39. 31 Urban Planning Studio, Columbia University, Disaster-Resistant Caracas, New York 2001, p. 25. September 1966 - he was deposed by President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, a politician notorious f or his many ties to foreign capital and land speculators. A fast-growth agenda that included tolerance for pirate urbanization on the periphery in return for urban renewal in the center became the PRI policy in La Capital.32 A generation after the removal of barriers to influx and informal urbanization elsewhere, China began to relax its controls on urban growth in the early 1980s.

In 1972, Ajegunle contained 90,000 people on 8 square kilometers of swampy land; today 1.5 million people reside on an only slightly larger surface area, and 81 Sharma, Rediscovering Dbaravi, pp. xx, xxvii, 18. 82 James Drummond, "Providing Collateral for a Better Future," Financial Times, 18 October 2001. 83 Suzana Taschner, "Squatter Settlements and Slums in Brazil," pp. 196, 219. 84 Urban Planning Studio, Disaster Resistant Caracas, p. 27. 85 Mohan, Understandingthe DevelopingMetropolis, p. 55. they spend a hellish average of three hours each day commuting to their workplaces.86 Likewise in supercrowded Kibera in Nairobi, where more than 800,000 people struggle for dignity amidst mud and sewage, slum-dwellers are caught in the vise of soaring rents (for chicken-cooplike shacks) and rising transport costs.

Certainly the old gold coasts remain — like Zamalek in Cairo, Riviera in Abidjan, Victoria Island in Lagos, and so on — but the novel global trend since the early 1990s has been the explosive growth of exclusive, closed suburbs on the peripheries of Third World cities. Even (or especially) in China, the gated community has been called the "most significant development in recent urban planning and design.'"58 These "off worlds" — to use the terminology of Blade Runner — are often imagineered as replica Southern Californias. Thus, "Beverly Hills" does not exist only in the 90210 zip code; it is also, with Utopia and Dreamland, a suburb of Cairo, an affluent private city "whose inhabitants can keep their distance from the sight and severity of poverty and the violence and political Islam which is seemingly permeating the localities.'"59 Likewise, "Orange County" is a gated estate of sprawling million-dollar California-style homes, designed by a Newport Beach architect and with Martha Stewart decor, on the northern outskirts of Beijing.


pages: 248 words: 73,689

Age of the City: Why Our Future Will Be Won or Lost Together by Ian Goldin, Tom Lee-Devlin

15-minute city, 1960s counterculture, agricultural Revolution, Alvin Toffler, Anthropocene, anti-globalists, Berlin Wall, Bonfire of the Vanities, Brixton riot, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, charter city, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, clean water, cloud computing, congestion charging, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, data science, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Edward Glaeser, Edward Jenner, Enrique Peñalosa, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial independence, future of work, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, germ theory of disease, global pandemic, global supply chain, global village, Haight Ashbury, Hernando de Soto, high-speed rail, household responsibility system, housing crisis, Howard Rheingold, income per capita, Induced demand, industrial robot, informal economy, invention of the printing press, invention of the wheel, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Perry Barlow, John Snow's cholera map, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour mobility, Lewis Mumford, lockdown, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, megacity, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, Pearl River Delta, race to the bottom, Ray Oldenburg, remote working, rent control, Republic of Letters, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, rising living standards, Salesforce, Shenzhen special economic zone , smart cities, smart meter, Snow Crash, social distancing, special economic zone, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, superstar cities, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Great Good Place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, trade route, Upton Sinclair, uranium enrichment, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, white flight, working poor, working-age population, zero-sum game, zoonotic diseases

Working as a parliamentary reporter at the end of the nineteenth century, he developed a passion for urban planning, and drafted a proposal for what he called the ‘Garden City’. His vision was to disperse the populations of overcrowded cities into a constellation of connected but self-sufficient towns containing a mixture of spacious housing, public amenities, some factories and an agricultural belt around the periphery.13 Other than a few isolated cases, such as Letchworth and Welwyn on the outskirts of London, Howard’s model was never adopted in its entirety, but his ideas profoundly influenced urban planning over the course of the twentieth century. The new principle of urban design was to offer people the closest thing possible to the spacious lifestyle of the countryside while maintaining access to the economic opportunities afforded by a city.

As the US economy picked up steam in the decades following the Second World War, its growing middle class moved en masse to newly built suburbs. The expansion of zoning laws also played an important role in the changing nature of cities. Whereas once they evolved organically, with factories and offices intermingled with residential buildings, shopping and entertainment, a more interventionist approach to urban planning began to take shape in the early decades of the twentieth century. To protect against the ills of pollution and congestion, planners used building permissions to separate cities into distinct zones of activity. Separate places to work, live and play were enshrined in law. While suburbanization is often associated with the United States, European capitals were not immune from sprawl.

It is a classic example of what urban planners describe as a single-use area. Canary Wharf is a stark contrast to the more vibrant Shoreditch roughly three miles away, that melds together residential living, a heaving nightlife and a thriving tech cluster in what urban planners refer to as a mixed-use area. As discussed in Chapter 4, the prevailing urban planning philosophy that took hold in the twentieth century entailed separating different areas of the city into different functional uses. This kind of separation will become increasingly untenable in a world of hybrid working. Business districts in particular must reimagine themselves for a working life less centred around the office.


City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age by P. D. Smith

active transport: walking or cycling, Albert Einstein, Andrew Keen, Anthropocene, augmented reality, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Broken windows theory, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, business cycle, car-free, carbon footprint, classic study, clean water, colonial rule, congestion charging, congestion pricing, cosmological principle, crack epidemic, double entry bookkeeping, Dr. Strangelove, edge city, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, en.wikipedia.org, Enrique Peñalosa, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, garden city movement, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, global village, haute cuisine, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of gunpowder, Jane Jacobs, John Snow's cholera map, Kevin Kelly, Kibera, Kickstarter, Kowloon Walled City, Lewis Mumford, Masdar, megacity, megastructure, multicultural london english, mutually assured destruction, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, peak oil, pneumatic tube, RFID, smart cities, starchitect, telepresence, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The future is already here, the High Line, Thomas Malthus, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, walkable city, white flight, white picket fence, young professional

The novel made a powerful impression on Ebenezer Howard, who sought to cure the problems of the city by bringing town and country together: ‘out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilisation’.50 In Garden Cities of To-morrow, Howard envisaged a network of new cities spread across the countryside (similar to Thomas More’s island of Utopia, with fifty cities all within walking distance), each with its own light industrial base and having no more than thirty thousand inhabitants, with individual homes provided for every family. These were clean, green cities, built on a human scale, in stark contrast to the sooty, stinking megalopolis that was London in the nineteenth century. Howard’s decentralised vision was immensely influential on twentieth-century urban planning. The garden cities of Letchworth (1903) and Welwyn (1920) were the direct result in Britain but his idea inspired new towns across Europe and America in the 1930s.51 In the post-war era, too, many new towns were built, such as Milton Keynes in Britain and Brasília in Brazil. But it has been in the suburbs that people have tried to realise the garden city dream for themselves.

Some 35,000 people lived there, most of them refugees from the People’s Republic of China. The Walled City was an anomaly, its existence due solely to a legal and diplomatic loophole. It was built on the site of the oldest inhabited part of Hong Kong. Originally it was a walled garrison town designed according to the principles of traditional Chinese urban planning, facing southwards and with its back to the great Lion Rock to the north. According to the 1898 convention by which Britain gained control of Hong Kong for ninety-nine years, the Walled City remained Chinese territory. When the Japanese captured Hong Kong during the Second World War, they demolished its granite walls.

Mesopotamians believed that Babylon was the place where the gods had come to earth and it was known as Babi-ilani, or ‘the Gate of the Gods’. Such foundation myths gave people divine authority to build: it was as if the gods themselves had granted a lease on the land to mortals. Other city builders sought cosmic authority in the symbolism of their urban plans. Beijing’s four-square design reflected what they believed was the shape of the universe, a plan repeated in other Chinese imperial cities. Like a sun, the divine emperor sat on his throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony (the Taihedian), in a city within a city, his divine aura radiating out across this city of walls.


pages: 407 words: 117,763

In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist by Pete Jordan

active transport: walking or cycling, bike sharing, business process, car-free, centre right, fixed-gear, German hyperinflation, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, post-work, Suez crisis 1956, urban planning

AFTER MORE THAN a decade of incessant rambling, trying to see and experience as much of America as possible, I began studying urban planning at San Francisco State University in the fall of 2001. My interest focused on learning how cities could best be organized in ways that limited car usage, increased mass transit ridership and added facilities for pedestrians and cyclists. At school, inspired by what I was learning, I’d leave class feeling extremely motivated. But then, just after stepping outside and unlocking my bike, I’d face an urban-planning nightmare: 19th Avenue, San Francisco’s busiest—and one of its most dangerous—streets.

And as a cyclist, I felt squeezed out, pushed to the margins, alone. A COUPLE OF days after having discovered the 1950s Amsterdam cycling photo, I walked into my university’s Study Abroad office. Applying to study urban planning—in English—at the University of Amsterdam turned out to be far easier than I’d expected. I was duly accepted into the program. The plan was set: Amy Joy and I would marry in June 2002. I’d leave for Amsterdam in July. She’d follow me seven weeks later. I’d study Dutch urban planning through the fall semester and learn all I could about how to help make American cities more accommodating and less perilous for cyclists. Then, in December, we’d return to San Francisco.

I was vaguely familiar with her tragic story of hiding from the Nazis and her subsequent death, but if someone had told me she’d hidden in Brussels or Copenhagen, I’d have nodded in agreement, oblivious to the truth. I had just spent the previous decade absorbed with exploring America and gave scant thought to what lay beyond its borders. About Holland, mostly I’d just heard that the Dutch loved bikes. So, as an older, returning college student, I’d come to Amsterdam to study Dutch urban planning for five months at the University of Amsterdam. That first night, I settled into the university-provided studio apartment on Spaarndammerstraat. On my second morning in Europe, I began my intensive, monthlong, five-morning-a-week Dutch language course. When not in class, I explored the city by bike, day and night.


pages: 413 words: 115,274

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar

A Pattern Language, Adam Neumann (WeWork), Airbnb, Albert Einstein, autonomous vehicles, availability heuristic, big-box store, bike sharing, Blue Bottle Coffee, car-free, congestion pricing, coronavirus, COVID-19, digital map, Donald Shoup, edge city, Ferguson, Missouri, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, Google Earth, income inequality, indoor plumbing, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, Lyft, mandatory minimum, market clearing, megastructure, New Urbanism, parking minimums, power law, remote working, rent control, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Seaside, Florida, side hustle, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, SimCity, social distancing, Stop de Kindermoord, streetcar suburb, text mining, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, TikTok, traffic fines, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, walkable city, WeWork, white flight, Yogi Berra, young professional

For decades, he worked in obscurity, churning out papers on a subject that only mall developers and garage operators had critically considered since the early years of the auto age. Parking was absent from urban planning textbooks and from architecture curricula even as it became the single largest land use in many American downtowns. And then came The High Cost of Free Parking. His colleagues in the urban planning department may have pontificated on Serious Global Issues, but it was Don Shoup whose book got translated into Arabic, Russian, and Chinese. “I’m a bottom-feeder,” Shoup often said about the field he pioneered.

The lack of civic functions was the first. The second: “the ugliness and discomfort of the land-wasting seas of parking.” It was the empty car that made the most noise. In 1968, just before the civil rights movement culminated in a wave of revolts that would expose just how harmful and shortsighted America’s philosophy of postwar urban planning had been, Victor Gruen moved back to Vienna. There he met a series of unpleasant surprises. An encounter in the street with the Nazi who had taken over his practice moved the architect to tears. Later, a “gigantic shopping machine” opened south of the city, weakening Vienna’s traditional core and stripping the retail from surrounding town centers.

In 2005, an economist at the University of California at Los Angeles named Donald Shoup published The High Cost of Free Parking. It was a sensation, and not just for a 733-page doorstop about car storage. Shoup got a feature story in USA Today and hooked famous people on parking. He became an urban planning celebrity overnight. “I believe it’s a wake-up call to change the way we think about parking,” said Paul Farmer, the executive director of the thirty-thousand-member American Planning Association (APA). UCLA let Shoup teach an entire course on parking, where every year new students would be converted into parking-policy apostles before fanning out into the offices of local governments, university faculties, real estate developers, and architecture firms.


pages: 239 words: 56,531

The Secret War Between Downloading and Uploading: Tales of the Computer as Culture Machine by Peter Lunenfeld

Albert Einstein, Andrew Keen, anti-globalists, Apple II, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Brownian motion, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, business cycle, business logic, butterfly effect, Charles Babbage, computer age, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, don't be evil, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Dynabook, East Village, Edward Lorenz: Chaos theory, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fall of the Berlin Wall, folksonomy, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Gehry, Free Software Foundation, Grace Hopper, gravity well, Guggenheim Bilbao, Herman Kahn, Honoré de Balzac, Howard Rheingold, Ian Bogost, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, Ivan Sutherland, Jacquard loom, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Jon Ronson, Kickstarter, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Mercator projection, Metcalfe’s law, Mother of all demos, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, new economy, Norbert Wiener, PageRank, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, planetary scale, plutocrats, post-materialism, Potemkin village, RFID, Richard Feynman, Richard Stallman, Robert Metcalfe, Robert X Cringely, Schrödinger's Cat, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, seminal paper, SETI@home, Silicon Valley, Skype, social bookmarking, social software, spaced repetition, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, technological determinism, Ted Nelson, the built environment, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the medium is the message, Thomas L Friedman, Turing machine, Turing test, urban planning, urban renewal, Vannevar Bush, walkable city, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, William Shockley: the traitorous eight

The woman decided to write down the record of her experiences and thoughts about cities and urban planning, and the field of urban planning was changed forever. She was Jane Jacobs, the year was 1961, and her book was The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs was our preeminent urban anthropologist—a person who could look at a city block, and through building up the details, show exactly how it worked. An associate editor of Architectural Forum in the 1950s, she became more and more concerned with the deadening effects of urban planning on cities. She went over the whole sad history of those influential thinkers who saw 84 WEB n.0 cities as horrid, dirty, overcrowded places filled with the dregs of humanity who needed planners to come in and rationalize, de-densify, and order their spaces for them.

., 39 Simulation, xvi, 2, 11 affordances and, 16–17 bespoke futures and, 98, 121, 124, 126–127 buttons/knobs and, 16 communication devices and, 15–16 culture machine and, 143–144, 147– 152, 156–160, 166–168, 175–178 downloading and, 143, 168 emulation and, 183n3 213 INDEX Social issues (continued) figure/ground and, xvi, 42–43, 46, 102 folksonomies and, 80–81 hackers and, 22–23, 54, 67, 69, 162, 170–173 Holocaust and, 107 Hosts and, xv, 144, 167, 175 hypercontexts and, xvi, 7, 48, 76–77 information overload and, 22, 149 MaSAI and, xvi, 112, 120–123, 127, 193nn32 meaningfulness and, xvi, 14, 17, 20, 23–29, 42, 67, 77, 79, 119, 123, 128–129, 133, 173 narrative and, xv, 2, 7–8, 58–59, 67, 71, 76, 108, 110, 130–132, 143– 145, 174, 178, 180n4, 188n25, 193n34 personal grounding and, xiv–xv play and, xvi, 13, 15, 32–34, 39, 53, 55, 62, 64, 67–77, 85, 88, 110–111, 130–131, 143, 153, 160–163, 185n22, 188n25 Plutocrats and, xv, 144, 152–159, 163–166, 170 plutopian meliorism and, xvi, 127–129, 133, 137–138 power and, xvi, 8, 13, 17, 22 (see also Power) relationship with data and, 32 religion and, xi, 1, 13, 76, 130–135, 138 R-PR (Really Public Relations) and, xvi, 123–127 Searchers and, xv–xvi, 144, 167, 174–178 suburbs and, 3, 8 television and, xii (see also Television) terrorism and, 99–101, 130–131, 134, 137 unfinish and, xvi, 34–37, 51, 67, 70, 76–79, 92, 127–129, 136 urban planning and, 84–86 utopia and, 36, 73, 97, 101, 104, 108, 110, 120, 127–129, 138 wants vs. needs and, 13, 37, 57 wicked problems and, 158 World War I era and, 21, 107, 123, 146, 190n1 World War II era and, xi, 18, 25, 32, 47, 73, 107–108, 144–150, 157, 170 Socialists, 102–105 Software platforms, 15, 164, 170 Sontag, Susan, 135 Sopranos, The (TV show), 7 Soundscapes, 53–55 Soviet Union, 31, 85, 88, 146 Berlin Wall and, 85, 97, 99, 104 Cuban Missile Crisis and, xi Exhibition of the Achievement of the Soviet People’s Economy (VDNX) and, 102–105 fall of, 104 gulags of, 107 samizdat and, 59 unimodernism and, 49–52, 73 Space Invaders, 71 Spacewar!

, 71 Spielraum (play space), 75 Spin, 124 Stallman, Richard, 170–171 Stanford, 144, 149, 158–159, 162, 175 Stardust@home, 122–123 Stardust Interstellar Dust Collector (SIDC), 193n33 Sterling, Bruce, 101–102 Stewart, Jimmy, 44 Stickiness defining, 28, 184n15 downloading and, 13–17, 20–23, 27–29, 184n15 duration and, 28 fan culture and, 28–32, 48, 49, 87 gaming and, 70–74 214 INDEX Systems theory, 151 Stickiness (continued) information and, 22–23, 32–35 markets and, 13, 16, 24, 30–33, 37 modernism and, 36 networks and, 16–17, 22, 24, 29–36 obsessiveness and, 28 play and, 32–34, 70–74 power and, 32–34 simulation and, 15–19, 27, 32, 35 Teflon objects and, 28–32, 49, 87 toggling and, 33–34, 43, 102, 197n30 tweaking and, xvi, 32–35, 185nn22,23 unfinish and, 34–37, 76–77 unimodernism and, 70–74 uploading and, 13–17, 20, 23–24, 27–29 Web n.0 and, 79, 87 Stock options, 98 Stone, Linda, 34 Storage, 47, 60, 153, 196n17 Strachey, Christopher, 18–19 Strachey, Lytton, 19 Strange attractors, xvi, 117–120, 192n27 Sturges, Preston, 88 Stutzman, Fred, 22 Stewart, Martha, 49 Suburbs, 3, 8 Suicide bombers, 100–101 Sullivan’s Travels (Sturges), 88 Sun Microsystems, 172, 176 Superflat art, xi, 49 Supersizing, 3–4 Suprematism, 117 Surfing, 20, 80, 180n2 Surrealism, 31 Sutherland, Ivan, 160–161 Swiss Army Knife theory, 17 Symbiosis, 151–152 Synthetism, 117 Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (Jacobs), 85–86 Take-home consumption, 3 Tarantino, Quentin, 49 Taxonomies, 80–83 Technology analog, 18, 53, 150 anticipated, 108–110 bespoke futures and, 98–104, 107–113, 116, 119, 125–127, 131– 133, 136–139 broadband, 9, 57 cell phones, xiii, xvii, 17, 23, 42, 53, 56, 76, 101 commercial networks and, 4–5 compact discs (CDs), 2, 48, 53 computer mouse, 158–159 culture machine and, 143–163, 173–174 cyberpunk maxim on, 87 determinism and, 131–132 difference engine, 149 digital video discs (DVDs), 2, 7–8, 15, 58 dot-com bubble and, 79, 174 Dynabook, 161–162, 196n17 Ethernet, 161 Exhibition of the Achievement of the Soviet People’s Economy (VDNX) and, 102–105 film cameras, 15 Gutenberg press, 11, 137–138 hierarchical structures and, 123, 155, 175–176, 189n8 historical perspective on computer, 143–178 hypertext and, 158 information overload and, 22, 149 Jacquard loom, 11 mechanical calculator, 149 Metcalfe’s corollary and, 86–87 microfilm, 149–150 215 INDEX Technology (continued) Moore’s law and, 156, 195n13 New Economy and, 97, 99, 104, 131, 138, 144–145, 190n3 personal digital assistants (PDAs), 17 Photoshop, 131 progress and, 132 RFID, 65 secular culture and, 133–139 storage, 47, 60, 153, 196n17 technofabulism and, 99–100 teleconferencing, 158–159 3–D tracking, 39 tweaking and, 32–35, 185nn22,23 videocassette recorders (VCRs), 15, 23 wants vs. needs and, 4 woven books, 10–11 Teflon objects, 28–32, 49, 87 Teleconferencing, 158–159 Television as defining Western culture, 2 aversion to, xii bespoke futures and, 101, 108, 124, 127–129, 133–137 delivery methods for, 2 dominance of, xii, 2–10 downloading and, 2 as drug, xii, 7–9 general audiences and, 8–9 habits of mind and, 9–10 Internet, 9 junk culture and, 5–10 Kennedy and, xi macro, 56–60 marketing fear and, xvii overusage of, 7–9 as pedagogical boon, 14 quality shows and, 7 rejuveniles and, 67 Slow Food and, 6–7 spin-offs and, 48 as time filler, 67 U.S. ownership data on, 180n2 Telnet, 169 “Ten Tips for Successful Scenarios” (Schwartz and Ogilvy), 113 Terrorism, 99–101, 130–131, 134, 137 Textiles, 11 Text-messaging, 82 3COM, 86 3–D tracking, 39 Tiananmen Square, 104 Timecode (Figgis), 58 Time magazine, xii, 145 Time Warner, 63, 91 Tin Pan Alley, 28, 63 Tintin, 90 Toggling, xvi, 33–34, 43, 102, 197n30 Tools for Thought (Rheingold), 145 Torvalds, Linus, 144, 167–173 Tracy, Dick, 108 Traitorous Eight, 156 Trilling, Lionel, 79 Turing, Alan, 17–20, 52, 148 Turing Award, 17, 156 Tweaking, xvi, 32–35, 185nn22,23 20,000 Leagues beneath the Sea (Verne), 108 Twins paradox, 49–50 Twitter, 34, 180n2 2001 (film), 107 Ubiquity, xiii bespoke futures and, 125, 128 culture machine and, 144, 166, 177–178 folksonomies and, 80–81 Freedom software and, 22–23 hotspots and, xiv information overload and, 22, 149 isotypes and, 125 stickiness and, 22–23 unimodernism and, 39, 53, 57–59, 62, 74 216 INDEX simulation and, 39, 49, 53–54, 57, 71–76 soundscape and, 53–55 stickiness and, 70–74 twins paradox and, 49–50 unconscious and, 43–44 unfinish and, 51, 67, 70, 76–78 unimedia and, 39–40 uploading and, 42, 49, 53, 57, 67, 77 WYMIWYM (What You Model Is What You Manufacture) and, 64–67 WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) and, 55–56, 64–65 United States Cuban Missile Crisis and, xi September 11, 2001 and, 99–101, 130 television’s dominance and, 2, 180n2 Universal Resource Locator (URL), 168–169 Universal Turing Machine, 18–19 University of Pennsylvania, 148 University of Utah, 160 UNIX, 170–171 “Untitled (After Walker Evans)” (Levine), 41 Uploading, xiii–xiv, 180nn1,2 activity levels and, 5 animal kingdom and, 1 bespoke futures and, 97, 120–123, 128–129, 132 commercial networks and, 4–5 communication devices and, 15–16 conversation and, 13 cultural hierarchy of, 1–2 culture machine and, 143, 168, 173, 175 disproportionate amount of to downloading, 13 humans and, 1–2 information and, 1, 4, 11 meaningfulness and, xvi, 29 stickiness and, 13–17, 20, 23–24, 27–29 Ubiquity (continued) Web n.0 and, 79–95 Ublopia, 101 Ulysses (Joyce), 94–95 Uncertainty principle, 37 Unfinish, xvi bespoke futures and, 127–129, 136 continuous partical attention and, 34 perpetual beta and, 36 stickiness and, 34–37, 76–77 unimodernism and, 51, 67, 70, 76–78 Web n.0 and, 79, 92 Unimedia, 39–40 Unimodernism Burroughs and, 40–42 common sense and, 44–45 DIY movements and, 67–70 downloading and, 41–42, 49, 54–57, 66–67, 76–77 figure/ground and, 42–43, 46 gaming and, 70–74 hypertextuality and, 51–53 images and, 55–56 information and, 45–49, 55, 60, 65–66, 74 Krikalev and, 50–51 macrotelevision and, 56–60 markets and, 45, 48, 58–59, 71, 75 mashing and, 25, 54–55, 57, 74 mechanization and, 44–45 microcinema and, 56–60 modders and, 69–70 Moulin Rouge and, 60–63 narrative and, 58–59, 67, 71, 76 networks and, 39, 47–48, 54–57, 60, 64–65, 68–69, 73–74 participation and, 54, 66–67, 74–77 perception pops and, 43–49 play and, 67–77 postmodernism and, 39–41, 74 remixing and, 39, 53–54, 62–63, 70 running room and, 74–77 217 INDEX Uploading (continued) unimodernism and, 42, 49, 53, 57, 67, 77 Web n.0 and, 79–83, 86–87, 91 Urban planning, 84–86 U.S. Congress, 90 U.S. Department of Defense, 152 Utopia bespoke futures and, 97, 101, 104, 108, 110, 120, 127–129, 138 stickiness and, 36 unimodernism and, 73 Valéry, Paul, 136 Velvet Revolution, 104 Verne, Jules, 108 Vertigo (film), 44 Vertov, Dziga, 31, 44 Victorian aesthetics, 14, 19, 44, 46 Videocassette recorders (VCRs), 15, 23 Video games, 188n25 arcades and, 15, 71 first, 71 stickiness and, 15, 23, 33–34, 70–74 unimodernism and, 57, 67, 70–74 Wii system and, 72 Vinyl records, 2 Viral distribution, 30, 56, 169 Vodaphone, 116 Von Neumann, John, 148 Wachowski Brothers, 39 Wack, Pierre, 112 Walt Disney Company, 65, 88–89 “Want It!”


pages: 329 words: 88,954

Emergence by Steven Johnson

A Pattern Language, agricultural Revolution, AOL-Time Warner, Brewster Kahle, British Empire, Claude Shannon: information theory, complexity theory, Danny Hillis, Douglas Hofstadter, edge city, epigenetics, game design, garden city movement, Gödel, Escher, Bach, hive mind, Howard Rheingold, hypertext link, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Kevin Kelly, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, Menlo Park, mirror neurons, Mitch Kapor, Murano, Venice glass, Naomi Klein, new economy, New Urbanism, Norbert Wiener, PalmPilot, pattern recognition, pez dispenser, phenotype, Potemkin village, power law, price mechanism, profit motive, Ray Kurzweil, SimCity, slashdot, social intelligence, Socratic dialogue, stakhanovite, Steven Pinker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, traveling salesman, trickle-down economics, Turing machine, Turing test, urban planning, urban renewal, Vannevar Bush

For five hundred years, Manchester had technically been considered a “manor,” which meant, in the eyes of the law, it was run like a feudal estate, with no local government to speak of—no city planners, police, or public health authorities. Manchester didn’t even send representatives to Parliament until 1832, and it wasn’t incorporated for another six years. By the early 1840s, the newly formed borough council finally began to institute public health reforms and urban planning, but the British government didn’t officially recognize Manchester as a city until 1853. This constitutes one of the great ironies of the industrial revolution, and it captures just how dramatic the rate of change really was: the city that most defined the future of urban life for the first half of the nineteenth century didn’t legally become a city until the great explosion had run its course.

At the core of this lamentable transformation was the street itself, and the interactions between strangers that once took place on it. The brilliance of Death and Life was that Jacobs understood—before the sciences had even developed a vocabulary to describe it—that those interactions enabled cities to create emergent systems. She fought so passionately against urban planning that got people “off the streets” because she recognized that both the order and the vitality of working cities came from the loose, improvised assemblages of individuals who inhabited those streets. Cities, Jacobs understood, were created not by central planning commissions, but by the low-level actions of borderline strangers going about their business in public life.

At over ten thousand words, Mumford’s critique was extensive and wide-ranging, but the central message came down to the potential of metropolitan centers to self-regulate. Jacobs had argued that large cities can achieve a kind of homeostasis through the interactions generated by lively sidewalks; urban planning that attempted to keep people off the streets was effectively destroying the lifeblood of the urban system. Without the open, feedback-heavy connections of street culture, cities quickly became dangerous and anarchic places. Building a city without sidewalks, Jacobs argued, was like building a brain without axons or dendrites.


pages: 366 words: 117,875

Arrival City by Doug Saunders

agricultural Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Branko Milanovic, call centre, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, foreign exchange controls, gentrification, ghettoisation, Gini coefficient, guest worker program, Hernando de Soto, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Kibera, land reform, land tenure, low skilled workers, mass immigration, megacity, microcredit, new economy, Pearl River Delta, pensions crisis, place-making, price mechanism, rent control, Silicon Valley, special economic zone, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban sprawl, white flight, working poor, working-age population

The African American ghettos of the United States in the twentieth century began as classic arrival cities, as the U.S. post-slavery exodus known as the Great Migration sent hundreds of thousands of southern rural ex-slaves in an optimistic search for the center of American society. But their arrival cities failed—because property ownership was unattainable in urban districts owned by indifferent or intolerant outsiders, because arrival-city residents were excluded from the economic and political mainstream by racism and bad urban planning, and because of the absence of government support and institutions. They turned into something else, places of failed arrival—a threat that hangs over many arrival cities today. Nor do all rural-urban migrations create arrival cities. Emergency migrations, caused by war or famine, lack careful investment and planning among villagers and the tightly woven networks of support and linkage that characterize normal village-arrival patterns.

“The migrants from the villages come with very high expectations, often higher than those of the native-born city dwellers,” says Patricia Mota Guedes, a Brazilian scholar who studies schools and social conditions in favelas. “They always have the choice to move out and go back to the village, and more than half of them do. Those who stay are the toughest and smartest ones, and they can take a lot of change.” Or, as one Kenyan urban-planning administrator concluded, “slum dwellers are generally more robust than the rest of the urban population.”8 THE BIRTH PANGS: AN ARRIVAL CITY TAKES SHAPE Kamrangirchar, Dhaka, Bangladesh First come the men with saws and machetes, clearing the swampy, low-lying land on the edge of town. Then come the families, carting piles of bricks and wood down mud pathways, staking out rudimentary foundations on the small plots they have purchased.

This leads to an odd paradox: The downward trend for the place is the opposite indicator of the upward trend enjoyed by the residents themselves.”5 This paradox has created a sense among outsiders that the city’s immigrant districts are poorer or more desperate than they really are, which leads to a misunderstanding of the forms of government investment they really need—a serious policy problem in many migrant-based cities around the world. Rather than getting the tools of ownership, education, security, business creation, and connection to the wider economy, they are too often treated as destitute places that need non-solutions, such as social workers, public-housing blocks, and urban-planned redevelopments. Yet, it is clear to anyone who visits them that these neighborhoods are not on a downward spiral, but rather are becoming platforms for personal, family, and village transformation. The amount of investment in these urban tracts is formidable. In the 1990s, home ownership levels among Latino immigrants in the city reached 45.3 percent, a particularly amazing figure given the comparatively high prices of L.A. property and the very low neighborhood incomes.


pages: 195 words: 58,462

City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World by Catie Marron

Berlin Wall, carbon footprint, Day of the Dead, deindustrialization, do-ocracy, fixed-gear, gentrification, Jane Jacobs, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Occupy movement, plutocrats, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, too big to fail, Twitter Arab Spring, urban planning

Aquila, Piazza del Duomo I grew up in Greenwich Village, Jane Jacobs’s old neighborhood, where Washington Square Park was my version of Antonacci’s Duomo square, the place where I met friends, cooled off in the fountain, played catch with my dad, and people-watched. It was the heart of what was then a scruffier but more venturesome neighborhood than today’s Village. The city’s urban planning czar Robert Moses had wanted to drive a highway straight through the middle of Washington Square. That the Village has become one of the most desirable and expensive places in the world is in no small measure due to Moses’s failure and the park’s survival. The good life, wrote the other great New York urban writer of Jacobs’s era, Lewis Mumford, involves more than shared prosperity; it entails what Mumford described as an almost religious refashioning of values based on an ecological view of the city.

In The City Shaped, the architectural historian Spiro Kostof wrote: “Italian Renaissance theory began to see radial design, or at least centrally planned schemes, as the diagram of humanist perfection, and went further, in urban-political terms, to equate perfect social order with the humanist prince.” The city square was once again a focus of urban planning, but the republican version didn’t survive the classical era: In the age of Machiavelli, power was confined to the palace. The ideal city of the Renaissance depended on the benevolence of a tyrant. The city squares of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were designed to display the wealth and power of Europe’s upper classes.

In Tehran, the capital of modern Iran, the closest thing to an iconic assembly place is Azadi—or Freedom—Square. It’s a large traffic circle fed by expressways, surrounding a fifty-meter concrete tower-arch in a style that could be called Persian-modernist. Azadi was built according to a master urban plan that was drafted in 1968. It’s somewhat smaller than the Maidan-e Naqsh-e Jahan in Isfahan, and unlike the Safavid imperial center, it’s miles from the hub of the capital, the Grand Bazaar. Half deserted and barely integrated into the life of the city, Tehran’s modern squares were built by the shah to glorify the state and himself.


pages: 321 words: 85,267

Suburban Nation by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck

A Pattern Language, American ideology, back-to-the-city movement, big-box store, car-free, Celebration, Florida, City Beautiful movement, congestion pricing, desegregation, edge city, Frank Gehry, gentrification, housing crisis, if you build it, they will come, income inequality, intermodal, Jane Jacobs, jitney, McMansion, megaproject, New Urbanism, operational security, Peter Calthorpe, place-making, price mechanism, profit motive, Ralph Nader, Seaside, Florida, Silicon Valley, skinny streets, streetcar suburb, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Great Good Place, transit-oriented development, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, white flight, working poor, Works Progress Administration

—JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER, HOME FROM NOWHERE (1996) In turning from the region to the city, it is important to remember that America’s inner cities did not wither all at once, or by chance. For much of the twentieth century, they have suffered from the unanticipated consequences of government policy and urban planning. The availability of the massive interstate system for daily commuting made it easy to abandon the city for houses on the periphery. The widespread construction of parking lots downtown further eased the automotive commute while turning the city into a paved no-man’s-land. Racism, redlining, and the concentration of subsidized housing projects destabilized and isolated the poor, while federal home-loan programs, targeting new construction exclusively, encouraged the deterioration and abandonment of urban housing.

This discipline is especially important in areas of mixed use, as it is a consistent streetscape that makes different uses compatible. Such a code is not difficult to write, but it requires an approach to city planning that has fallen out of use in recent years. Rather than specifying what it doesn’t want, this code specifies what it does want, which implies a degree of proactive physical vision that is currently rare among urban planning and zoning boards.cq One such urban code is the Traditional Neighborhood Development Ordinance, described later, which is currently being used and imitated by municipalities nationwide. In certain instances, it makes sense to complement the urban code with a second document, an architectural code.

When the transit stop is located at the neighborhood center, next to the corner store or the café, the commuter has the opportunity to wait for the bus or trolley indoors with a cup of coffee and a newspaper, with some measure of comfort and dignity. For this condition to occur with regularity, transit routes and urban plans must be developed in concert. Ideally, transit authorities should also work directly with shop owners, who typically welcome the extra business that a transit stop can generate. THE STREETS We have already discussed pavement width, but we must be more specific. On well-traveled streets within a neighborhood, there is no justification for travel lanes wider than ten feet and parking lanes wider than seven feet.


pages: 342 words: 86,256

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck

A Pattern Language, active transport: walking or cycling, benefit corporation, bike sharing, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, congestion charging, congestion pricing, David Brooks, Donald Shoup, edge city, Edward Glaeser, Enrique Peñalosa, food miles, Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao, if you build it, they will come, Induced demand, intermodal, invisible hand, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, meta-analysis, New Urbanism, parking minimums, peak oil, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Florida, skinny streets, smart cities, starchitect, Stewart Brand, tech worker, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, transit-oriented development, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, white flight, white picket fence, young professional, zero-sum game, Zipcar

He tried to relate her plight to his own work as an epidemiologist: If that poor woman had collapsed from heat stroke, we docs would have written the cause of death as heat stroke and not lack of trees and public transportation, poor urban form, and heat-island effects. If she had been killed by a truck going by, the cause of death would have been “motor-vehicle trauma,” and not lack of sidewalks and transit, poor urban planning, and failed political leadership. That was the “aha!” moment for me. Here I was focusing on remote disease risks when the biggest risks that people faced were coming from the built environment.3 Jackson, who has more recently served as California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s state public health adviser, spent the next five years quantifying how so much of what ails us can be attributed directly to the demise of walkability in the auto age.

STEP 3: GET THE PARKING RIGHT What parking costs and what it costs us; Induced demand redux; Addiction made law; The cost of required parking; Some smarter places; The problem with cheap curbside parking; The right price; A tale of two cities; What should we do with all this money?; A bargain at $1.2 billion This chapter exists because of one man. He is in his mid-seventies, green-eyed, gray-bearded, and often pictured riding a bicycle. He holds four degrees from Yale in engineering and economics, and teaches at UCLA, where he was chair of the Department of Urban Planning and ran the Institute of Transportation Studies. His name is Donald Shoup and, inside an admittedly small circle, he is a rock star. He is alternately hailed as the “Jane Jacobs of parking policy” and the “prophet of parking.” There is even a Facebook group called “The Shoupistas.”1 Shoup has earned his exalted status by being perhaps the first person to really think about how parking works in cities.

Doherty, Patrick C., and Christopher B. Leinberger. “The Next Real Estate Boom.” The Washington Monthly, November/December 2010. Doig, Will. “Are Freeways Doomed?” salon.com, December 1, 2011. Donovan, Geoffrey, and David Butry. “Trees in the City: Valuing Trees in Portland, Oregon.” Landscape and Urban Planning 94 (2010): 77–83. Dorner, Josh. “NBC Confirms That ‘Clean Coal’ Is an Oxymoron.” Huffington Post, November 18, 2008. Duhigg, Charles. “Saving US Water and Sewer Systems Would Be Costly.” The New York Times, March 14, 2010. Dumbaugh, Eric. “Safe Streets, Livable Streets.” Journal of the American Planning Association 71, no. 3 (2005): 283–300.


pages: 415 words: 119,277

Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places by Sharon Zukin

1960s counterculture, big-box store, blue-collar work, classic study, corporate social responsibility, crack epidemic, creative destruction, David Brooks, East Village, en.wikipedia.org, Frank Gehry, gentrification, Guggenheim Bilbao, Haight Ashbury, Jane Jacobs, late capitalism, mass immigration, messenger bag, new economy, New Urbanism, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, rent control, rent stabilization, Richard Florida, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional

Critics of urban renewal, though, added what we would now call positive goals of affordability and diversity to James’s hostility to overbuilding. In Boston the sociologist and urban planning researcher Herbert Gans wrote a stunning indictment of how local elites needlessly destroyed the Italian working-class district of the West End, coining the term “urban village” to depict the close-knit, family-based, ethnic community that was displaced in the name of slum clearance. Even more famously, in New York the journalist and community activist Jane Jacobs published a call to arms against the fatal machinery of modern urban planning, which brought in the bulldozers and “cataclysmic money” of urban renewal projects to destroy old, but still vibrant, neighborhoods.

A few years later, faced with similar grassroots opposition to his plan to build an expressway across Broome Street, which would have destroyed a large number of nineteenth-century loft buildings across a wide swath of the neighborhood that soon became known as SoHo, Moses suffered another big defeat at the hands of artists, historic preservationists, and the same Greenwich Village residents, including Jacobs, who had fought him on Washington Square Park. In the third battle, a plan to tear down old houses and warehouses near Jacobs’s home in order to build high-rise, low-income public housing, Moses lost again.16 Robert Moses enraged people not just because of his arrogant manner or the architectural designs he chose; his use of Modernist urban planning principles struck deep into the heart of a traumatized liberal community. The Allies’ bombing of Dresden, Berlin, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki and the German air attacks on London during World War II had shown how easy it was to destroy the historic heart of cities. Though postwar governments in the United States did not try to murder thousands of urban dwellers, they did aim to annihilate the material landscape of the past, and the same gut feeling of terror caused by the threat of the atomic bomb could be aroused by the rubble of districts razed for urban renewal.

Its reputation for authenticity still reflected local character, but the meaning of “local” had changed. The East Village still enjoys the image of an oasis of authenticity in a Wal-Mart wasteland, which tends to make living here even more expensive. Almost everywhere, lofts and walk-up flats have been transformed into luxury housing. “Blight,” which urban planning officials in the 1950s sneeringly said was the problem with old neighborhoods like ours, has yielded to chic.9 Redevelopment began in the 1950s, to the south of Washington Square Park, when Robert Moses used federal government funds for urban renewal to demolish manufacturing lofts and replace them with faculty housing for NYU.


The Making of a World City: London 1991 to 2021 by Greg Clark

Basel III, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, carbon footprint, congestion charging, corporate governance, cross-subsidies, Crossrail, deindustrialization, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, East Village, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, financial intermediation, gentrification, global value chain, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, housing crisis, industrial cluster, intangible asset, job polarisation, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Masdar, mass immigration, megacity, megaproject, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open immigration, Pearl River Delta, place-making, rent control, Robert Gordon, Silicon Valley, smart cities, sovereign wealth fund, trickle-down economics, urban planning, urban renewal, working poor

The LDDC was the most assertive response yet to the crisis of de-industrialisation. Its project responded to a shift in the mobility and scale of global capital and marked the first major initiative in London prior to 1991: The back story 17 post-industrialised planning for London. It set the tone for much of the rationale for urban planning in the 1990s and 2000s, in that it showed the potential transferability of substantial parts of London’s economic core after hundreds of years of relative stasis. The LDDC’s initial conflict with local Labour-controlled boroughs and local activists, which was particularly fierce until 1986, ultimately was resolved to forge a less antagonistic political culture by the end of the 1980s (Smith, 1991).

This considers the functionality of the whole city rather than focusing solely on isolated redevelopment districts. The stakeholder consensus has been that, because London’s prosperity depends on the attraction of international investment and people, diversity and fairness must be embraced and actively incorporated into urban planning. The draft London Plan explained that London’s ‘urban renaissance’ would consist of “making the city a place where people want to live, rather than a place from which they want to escape” (Mayor of London, 2002a). 72 The evolution of London, 1991 to 2015 Such a consensus around urban development would have appeared almost unthinkable during the political antagonism of the late 1980s.

Since 2013 these connections have been solidifying. The Future Cities Catapult is one London in the next decade: Implications of the rise of other world cities 143 of several new London-based organisations proposing to make the city a centre of excellence for designing global solutions to climate change, resource scarcity and urban planning (Crabtree, 2013). The combination of engineering expertise and access to finance means London is well placed to become a pioneer in private sector financing for urban development worldwide. Culture, diversity and destination London is, along with Toronto and New York, one of the most successfully diverse city societies in the world.


pages: 278 words: 91,332

Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It by Daniel Knowles

active transport: walking or cycling, autonomous vehicles, Bandra-Worli Sea Link, bank run, big-box store, bike sharing, Boeing 747, Boris Johnson, business cycle, car-free, carbon footprint, congestion charging, congestion pricing, coronavirus, COVID-19, Crossrail, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Detroit bankruptcy, Donald Shoup, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elaine Herzberg, Elon Musk, first-past-the-post, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, garden city movement, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, ghettoisation, high-speed rail, housing crisis, Hyperloop, Induced demand, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jeremy Corbyn, Jevons paradox, Lewis Mumford, lockdown, Lyft, megacity, megastructure, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, parking minimums, Piers Corbyn, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, safety bicycle, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Southern State Parkway, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, walkable city, white flight, white picket fence, Yom Kippur War, young professional

Air pollution is considerably lower than in any other city of equivalent size anywhere in the world. Typical commutes are, admittedly, often fairly long, at forty minutes each way. But they are not in awful smoggy car traffic. So how has Tokyo managed it? Andre Sorensen, a professor of urban planning at the University of Toronto, who published a history of urban planning in Japan, told me that Japan’s history has a lot to do with it. Japan’s urbanization happened a little more like some poorer countries—quickly. At the start of the twentieth century, just 15 percent of Japanese people lived in cities. Now 91 percent do, one of the highest rates of urbanization in the entire world.

The road cuts across the city, east to west, while drainage goes from north to south, meaning that it acts as a gigantic barrier, trapping water in the city. In 2017 Hurricane Harvey flooded 96,000 homes. Across Texas it caused $125 billion of damage and killed sixty-eight people. There have been smaller floods every year since. Sam Brody, an urban planning expert at Texas A&M University, reckons that each new square meter of tarmac built in the city adds about $4,000 in flooding costs. It also kills people. When Houston floods, “most people die in their car under an overpass,” says Brody, because roads naturally direct water to the lowest point, where unlucky drivers can get trapped amid a rising flood.

“He showed me the ‘after’ street, all fixed up, and there was just one person on it, a bored little boy kicking a tire in the gutter,” she told a panel in San Francisco much later, in 2004. That motivated her despair. In 1961, Jacobs published a book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which remains probably the best book about urban planning ever written. In the introduction she talks about the visionaries who believed, if they just had enough money, that could “wipe out all our slums in ten years, reverse decay in the great, dull gray belts that were yesterday’s and day-before-yesterday’s suburbs, anchor the wandering middle class and its wandering tax money, and perhaps even solve the traffic problem.”


pages: 215 words: 71,155

Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the Great Good Places at the Heart of Our Communities by Ray Oldenburg

Celebration, Florida, gentrification, Jane Jacobs, land bank, market design, New Urbanism, place-making, Ray Oldenburg, Seaside, Florida, the built environment, The Great Good Place, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, walkable city

A think tank called Great Cities, which aimed to promote the inclusion of neighborhood residents in the development process, was set up on campus. Therefore, the Maxwell Street Coalition had reason to believe that it would receive some support from the Great Cities program and members of UIC’s urban planning department. This did not prove to be the case. Regimes change. The director of the Great Cities Institute publicly supported the elimination of the market and the razing of the neighborhood. Only two professors in the urban planning department worked to help the coalition. In September 1994 the city created an alternative market on an empty street that had no storefronts for musicians to plug their instruments into, and vendor fees increased five thousand percent.

In contrast, chain personnel turnover is high and “wasting time” with customers is discouraged. No matter how bad the weather, letting people in before the appointed minute is just as unthinkable as adjusting the menu to local tastes. Successful third places are also harder to achieve because several decades of poor urban planning have encouraged people to stay at home. “Nesting” or “cocooning” are reported to be favored by increasing numbers of Americans. As the public sphere became more inhospitable and enervating to get around in, the private sphere improved. Homes are better equipped, more comfortable, and more entertaining than ever before.

The university, with its immense financial resources (annual budget of a billion dollars), PR staff, patronage army, lobbying apparatus, alumni networks, and mayoral backing, aborted our every effort. We were part-time volunteers and they had full-time staff. With over a thousand college faculty and prominent departments in urban planning, social work, anthropology, sociology, and architecture, only three of the faculty gave us any assistance or spoke out against UIC’s old-fashioned, urban renewal people removal policy. UIC faculty’s politically correct liberal rhetoric turned out to be just empty posturing. Most of the faculty had never even visited Maxwell Street.


pages: 225 words: 70,590

Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in Our Lives by Chris Bruntlett, Melissa Bruntlett

15-minute city, An Inconvenient Truth, autonomous vehicles, bike sharing, BIPOC, car-free, coronavirus, COVID-19, emotional labour, en.wikipedia.org, global pandemic, green new deal, Jane Jacobs, lockdown, Lyft, microplastics / micro fibres, New Urbanism, post-work, RAND corporation, ride hailing / ride sharing, self-driving car, social distancing, streetcar suburb, the built environment, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, white flight, working-age population, World Values Survey

Being a “cycling advocate” was a role Melissa had graciously accepted, wanting to make things better not just for her daughter, but for every woman. But here in Delft, there was an incredible lifting that came with not having to be that advocate every time she stepped out the front door. She is now able to channel that boundless energy into her day job, challenging the status quo in the urban planning world, and celebrating what can be achieved when active transportation is made simple, comfortable, and normal; regardless of one’s ability or identified gender. The changes from our Canadian to our Dutch experiences were anticipated to some degree, given what we already knew about the built environment in Delft.

The vast majority of activities needed for the maintenance of daily life—those done predominantly by women, the unpaid caretakers of the family—were excluded from consideration as valuable functions. This has a considerable impact on transport planning, which often fails to appropriately accommodate the needs of individuals performing care work. In her book Fair Shared Cities: The Impact of Gender Planning in Europe, Inés Sánchez de Madariaga—professor of urban planning at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid—defines care work as unpaid labor performed by adults for children and dependents, including labor related to household upkeep; that is, work still predominantly performed by women. She acknowledges the need to quantify, assess, and highlight the daily travel associated with care work, coining the term mobilities of care.

Eighty percent of Dutch urban roads are calmed to 30 km/h (20 mph) or less, with car access restricted, creating plenty of space for physically distant active travel. (Modacity) Applying “Resilience Thinking” to Our Cities Resiliency has become a bit of a buzzword in recent years, especially in urban planning circles, but unlike sustainability, it does not enjoy a unified definition. This often makes it open to interpretation, depending on the eye of the beholder; something Dr. Judith (Y. T.) Wang—an associate professor in resilient transportation at the University of Leeds—is working tirelessly to correct.


pages: 274 words: 63,679

Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America by Angie Schmitt

active transport: walking or cycling, autonomous vehicles, car-free, congestion pricing, COVID-19, crossover SUV, desegregation, Donald Trump, Elaine Herzberg, gentrification, global pandemic, high-speed rail, invention of air conditioning, Lyft, megacity, move fast and break things, off-the-grid, Ralph Nader, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Skype, subprime mortgage crisis, super pumped, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, urban sprawl, white flight, wikimedia commons

Texas and Georgia, for example, have more than twice as many per capita pedestrian fatalities as Massachusetts, even though people walk at much higher rates in Boston than in Houston.40 “In most of these states, their built environments were constructed with Eisenhower’s Interstate Highways System as the model,” said Atherton of the National Complete Streets Coalition.41 Geoff Boeing, professor of urban planning at the University of Southern California, analyzed the street networks across the United States and found different patterns based on the “era” an area was developed.42 Boeing found that places that developed prior to 1940—central Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, and the central cores of small towns and big cities alike across the country—have a high level of what Boeing calls “griddedness.”

By repeating the “not in the crosswalk” statement without studying the context, the reporter sidesteps the question of whether the road itself offered sufficient pedestrian infrastructure and misses an opportunity to tie Salazar’s death to wider systemic failures. Researchers who have studied media treatment of pedestrian deaths call the inclusion of these kinds of details “counterfactuals.” Tara Goddard, professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University and coauthor of a 2019 study exploring this phenomenon, wrote that these counterfactuals “imply that a victim could have avoided death or injury if they had behaved differently.”20 Goddard and her colleagues were able to demonstrate empirically that the inclusion of counterfactuals in reporting made readers more likely to place blame on pedestrians.

Group Bias The NCUTCD is a publicly sponsored organization, with voting members appointed by some of the most important traffic engineering institutions in the United States. But in some ways it is an insular group. The committee does no real public outreach. It does not seek input from experts in adjacent fields—like public health and urban planning. The culture of the committee itself is part of the problem, Schultheiss said. “These committees can . . . like any committee, be influenced by the bias of the people on it,” he said.10 Civil engineers as a group are not representative of the populations who suffer the most from poor walking conditions.


pages: 252 words: 66,183

Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It by M. Nolan Gray

Albert Einstein, barriers to entry, Black Lives Matter, car-free, carbon footprint, City Beautiful movement, clean water, confounding variable, COVID-19, desegregation, Donald Shoup, Edward Glaeser, Elisha Otis, game design, garden city movement, gentrification, George Floyd, global pandemic, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, industrial cluster, Jane Jacobs, job-hopping, land bank, lone genius, mass immigration, McMansion, mortgage tax deduction, Overton Window, parking minimums, restrictive zoning, rewilding, San Francisco homelessness, scientific management, Silicon Valley, SimCity, starchitect, streetcar suburb, superstar cities, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, transit-oriented development, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty

These zones were regularly mapped in areas with significant environmental risks, adjacent to hazardous industrial districts, and with extremely poor public services, often altogether lacking sewerage.6 By allowing White homeowners to decide who could live where, zoning formed the bedrock of planning for segregation. But it was only the tip of the iceberg. As urban planning professor Charles Connerly recounts in his sweeping history of the planning of Birmingham, zoning was guided by comprehensive plans explicit in identifying White areas and Black areas, with public service provision focused on the former and denied to the latter.7 Indeed, official planning documents in cities like Austin and Kansas City continued to refer to “Black neighborhoods” and “White neighborhoods” as late as the 1980s.8 Public housing, which was segregated until 1954, would strengthen the patterns of segregation instituted by zoning, as would federal highway construction, which was often used to buffer White areas from Black areas.

Indeed, similar trends can increasingly be observed in renter segregation—a useful proxy for economic segregation—which increased at twice the rate among early zoning adopters. While racial segregation has slightly abated thanks to robust federal policy interventions, economic segregation has only deepened over the past half century. One study by urban planning professors Michael C. Lens and Paavo Monkkonen, which surveyed the link between land-use regulation and segregation across ninety-five metropolitan areas, finds that zoning continues to play a driving role in keeping rich and poor separate.21 It does so, the authors find, by allowing the wealthiest parts of town to wall themselves off.

Jessica Trounstine, Segregation by Design (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 94. 3. As Rothstein, Color of Law notes, a majority of the committee that drafted the Standard Zoning Enabling Act, as well as many early zoning framers, were vocal segregationists. 4. Christopher Silver, “The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities,” in Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows, edited by June Manning Thomas and Marsha Ritzdorf (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997). 5. Exceptions are often made for “servants’ quarters” in single-family zones, a reflection of their classist origins. Such anachronistic language lingered in the zoning code of Fairfax County, Virginia, until 2019 and continues to survive in many ordinances. 6.


pages: 717 words: 150,288

Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism by Stephen Graham

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", addicted to oil, airport security, Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, anti-communist, autonomous vehicles, Berlin Wall, call centre, carbon footprint, clean tech, clean water, congestion charging, creative destruction, credit crunch, DARPA: Urban Challenge, defense in depth, deindustrialization, digital map, disinformation, Dr. Strangelove, driverless car, edge city, energy security, European colonialism, export processing zone, failed state, Food sovereignty, gentrification, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Global Witness, Google Earth, illegal immigration, income inequality, knowledge economy, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, loose coupling, machine readable, market fundamentalism, mass incarceration, McMansion, megacity, military-industrial complex, moral panic, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, one-state solution, pattern recognition, peak oil, planetary scale, post-Fordism, private military company, Project for a New American Century, RAND corporation, RFID, Richard Florida, Scramble for Africa, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, SimCity, smart transportation, surplus humans, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Washington Consensus, white flight, white picket fence

Smith eventually resigned in June 2009. 2 Mark Mills and Peter Huber, ‘How Technology Will Defeat Terrorism,’ City Journal, Winter 2002. 3 Mills and Huber, ‘How Technology Will Defeat Terrorism’. 4 See Tim Blackmore, War X: Human Extensions in Battlespace, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. 5 See www.northcom.mil/. 6 Lorenzo Veracini, ‘Colonialism Brought Home: On the Colonization of the Metropolitan Space,’ Borderlands, 4:1, 2005, available at www.borderlands.net.au. 7 See Derek Gregory, The Colonial Present, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004; David Harvey, The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 8 Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–6, London: Allen Lane, 2003, 103. On the panopticon, see Tim Mitchell, ‘The stage of modernity’, in Tim Mitchell (ed), Questions of Modernity, Minneapolis; University of Minnesota Press, 2000, 1–34. On Hausmannian planning, see Eyal Weizman, interview with Phil Misselwitz, ‘Military Operations as Urban Planning’, Mute Magazine, August 2003 at www.metamute.org. And, on fingerprinting, see Chan dak Sengoopta, Imprint of the Raj: How Fingerprinting Was Born in Colonial India, London: Pan Books, 2003. 9 Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, ibid. 10 See Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon and Schuster: New York, 1998. 11 See Sally Howell and Andrew Shryock, ‘Cracking Down on Diaspora: Arab Detroit and America’s “War on Terror’’ ’, Anthropological Quarterly 76, 443–62. 12 Stefan Kipfer and with Kanishka Goonewardena, ‘Colonization and the New Imperialism: On the Meaning of Urbicide Today’, Theory and Event 10: 2, 2007, 1–39. 13 Kristin Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. 12. 14 Mustafa Dikeç, Badlands of the Republic: Space, Politics and Urban Policy, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.

Spatial experiments in the laboratory of the colonial city have often set the stage for the replanning of the colonial metropole. In the 1840s, for instance, after Marshall Thomas Robert Bugeaud45 succeeded in quelling the insurrection in Algiers through the combination of atrocities and the destruction of entire neighbourhoods to make way for modern roads, his techniques of ‘urban planning skipped over the Mediterranean, from the Algerian countryside, where they were experimented with, to the streets and alleyways of Paris.’46 To undermine the revolutionary ferment of the poor of Paris, Bugeaud devised a plan for the violent reorganization of the city through the construction of wide military highways – a plan later implemented by his avid reader Baron Haussmann.47 By the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, industrial cities in the global North had grown in synchrony with the killing power of technology.

Right up to the start of the twenty-first century, the capture of strategic and politically important cities has remained ‘the ultimate symbol of conquest and national survival’.52 Moreover, ever since the demise of obvious systems of urban fortifications, the design, planning and organization of cities has been shaped by strategic and geopolitical concerns – a topic neglected in mainstream urban studies.53 In addition to providing the famous ‘machine for living’ and bringing light and air to the urban masses, modernist planners and architects envisaged the situating of housing towers within parks as a means of reducing the vulnerability of cities to aerial bombing. Such towers were also designed to raise urbanites above the killer gas then expected to lie within the bombs.54 Along with the ‘white flight’ to the suburbs, early Cold War urban planning in the US sought to see US cities ‘through the bombardier’s eye’,55 and actively tried to stimulate decentralization and sprawl as means of reducing the nation’s vulnerability to a pre-emptive Soviet nuclear attack.56 And it is often forgotten that the massive US interstate highway system was initially labelled a ‘defense highway’ system and was partly designed to sustain military mobilization and evacuation in the event of global nuclear war.


Autonomous Driving: How the Driverless Revolution Will Change the World by Andreas Herrmann, Walter Brenner, Rupert Stadler

Airbnb, Airbus A320, algorithmic bias, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, call centre, carbon footprint, clean tech, computer vision, conceptual framework, congestion pricing, connected car, crowdsourcing, cyber-physical system, DARPA: Urban Challenge, data acquisition, deep learning, demand response, digital map, disruptive innovation, driverless car, Elon Musk, fault tolerance, fear of failure, global supply chain, industrial cluster, intermodal, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Lyft, manufacturing employment, market fundamentalism, Mars Rover, Masdar, megacity, Pearl River Delta, peer-to-peer rental, precision agriculture, QWERTY keyboard, RAND corporation, ride hailing / ride sharing, self-driving car, sensor fusion, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, Steve Jobs, Tesla Model S, Tim Cook: Apple, trolley problem, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Zipcar

We thank all of them for taking the time to share their knowledge and convictions with us. Excerpts from those discussions are presented throughout the book. Jan Becker, Dr. Senior Director, Faraday Future, Los Angeles, California, USA Ofer Ben-Noon Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Argus Cyber Security, Tel Aviv, Israel Jose Castillo Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and architect in Mexico City, Mexico Joseph Curtatone Mayor of the City of Somerville, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Volkmar Denner, Dr. Chairman of the Board of Management of Robert Bosch GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany Claus Doll, Dr.

Whoever is mobile can change jobs, move to better paid work and utilise career opportunities. In this way, the provision of mobility is an important task for the whole of society. PRECONDITIONS The potential offered by autonomous driving in terms of improved traffic flows, pollution, financial savings and urban planning can only be utilised when society as a whole wants to make this quantum leap in mobility. On the one hand, this means that car manufacturers, suppliers and technology companies will have to develop their mobility concepts around the ideas of the various interest groups in society. At the very least, they will have to take their concerns and fears into consideration and should not dismiss them as living in the past.

K e y T a ke a w a y s Despite all the justified reservations, concerns and fears that are often expressed, autonomous driving will help to save lives, as well as time, space, energy and money. The enormous potential of autonomous driving in terms of traffic flow, the environment, the economy and urban planning can only be realised when society as a whole wants to take this quantum leap in mobility. It is necessary to have an open and honest approach to the risks of selfdriving vehicles. Every technology is subject to risks, which have to be identified, assessed and accepted. Self-driving cars and driverless buses will allow children as well as elderly, ill and disabled people to be mobile.


Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City by Richard Sennett

Anthropocene, Big Tech, Buckminster Fuller, car-free, classic study, clean water, cognitive dissonance, company town, complexity theory, creative destruction, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, double helix, Downton Abbey, driverless car, East Village, en.wikipedia.org, Evgeny Morozov, Frank Gehry, gentrification, ghettoisation, housing crisis, illegal immigration, informal economy, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, Mark Zuckerberg, Masdar, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, megaproject, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Norbert Wiener, open borders, place-making, plutocrats, post-truth, Richard Florida, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, SimCity, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, surveillance capitalism, systems thinking, tacit knowledge, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, urban planning, urban renewal, Victor Gruen, Yochai Benkler

More positively, a knock-on effect of removing shit and urine from the street was that it made the outdoors more usable as social space; the huge outdoor café fronting a boulevard was the sanitary engineer’s gift to urban civilization.3 The engineering of healthy cities had been foreshadowed by a fundamental discovery about the human body made three centuries before the urbanist engineers set to work. In 1628, William Harvey’s De motu cordis explained how the human heart causes blood to circulate mechanically through arteries and veins, whereas earlier medicine had thought blood circulated as it heated up. A century later, Harvey’s discovery about the circulatory system became a model for urban planning; the French urbanist Christian Patte used the imagery of arteries and veins to invent the system of one-way streets we know today. Enlightenment planners imagined that if motion through the city became blocked at any major point, the collective body would be prone to a crisis of circulation like that an individual body suffers during a heart attack.

His emphasis on self-rule is not a desire for fixed procedure; he admires in Siena the continual rewriting of its laws, the ever-changing pricing of bread and bricks as the needs of the commune altered. Self-governance is for him a work in progress, rather than a fixed set of regulations. Perhaps this attitude also explains why this mental omnivore had no taste for the urban plans going on all around him – plans which declared the solidity, the fixity, the bureaucratic permanence of the German state, but more widely asserted the plan for, the form of a modern city. We cannot ask him to spell out this critique, since he wrote only of the distant past; we can observe that his list of the elements which give a city-state life are open-ended in a way which has vanished.

In the face of this reality Costa clung to the generic ideals of the Charter: ‘there exists, already perfectly developed in its fundamental elements … an entire new constructive know-how, paradoxically still waiting for the society to which, logically, it should belong.’ That latter phrase is pure Plan Voisin; it asserts that the modern cité has not caught up with the modernizing ville.12 From the time of the ancient urban planner Hippodamus, admired by Aristotle, a certain kind of urban planning ignored natural terrain, mapping the city as though no hills, rivers or forest knolls stood in the way. In the making of Chicago, for instance, its original planners treated the icy winds blowing off Lake Michigan as irrelevant to laying out its geometrical grid plan, whereas a less implacable plan would have curved and twisted streets so that they acted as shields against the cold.


pages: 777 words: 186,993

Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani

"World Economic Forum" Davos, addicted to oil, affirmative action, Airbus A320, BRICs, British Empire, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, carbon credits, carbon tax, clean water, colonial rule, corporate governance, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, digital map, distributed generation, electricity market, farmers can use mobile phones to check market prices, flag carrier, full employment, ghettoisation, glass ceiling, global supply chain, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, informal economy, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), joint-stock company, knowledge economy, land reform, light touch regulation, LNG terminal, load shedding, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, market fragmentation, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, open economy, Parag Khanna, pension reform, Potemkin village, price mechanism, public intellectual, race to the bottom, rent control, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, Silicon Valley, smart grid, special economic zone, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, unemployed young men, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population

One Indian observer remarked on the British parts, and their “spaciousness, wealth of color, peace, restfulness and beauty . . . none of this belonged to us.”3 Many of the buildings in these areas were in fact faithful imitations of what the British had left behind—English-style homes were built with large verandas and windows, which had to then be shuttered and draped with thick curtains to keep the heat and insects out.4 The government buildings were similarly meant to remind the officers of those back home.5bn Britain’s urban planning had little role in the cities beyond distancing the rulers from their festering colony. Indian cities were segregated to the point of having separate railway stations, such as in Bangalore, where a vast patch of grass set apart the “native” City and the “European” Cantonment stations.6 Nehru made an attempt to phase out these urban divides during his tumultuous stint as chairman of the Allahabad Municipality between 1921 and 1923.

By the early 1960s, driven to the trenches and addressing basic food and security concerns, we saw our plan of building a modern, urban India fade. But one wonders how much of the dream would have been realized, even without the crises. For the Indian state was busy committing a laundry list of missteps in the name of urban planning. The cities in independent India were still essentially symbols, as they were for the British—Chandigarh was the sparkling spire on the hill for Indian socialism, “a city of government rather than of industry, meant for politicians, bureaucrats, administrators.” The industrial cities too were weighted with symbolism.16 The Indian government had missed the essential relevance of the city in the context of the market—failing to see them as vibrant, living systems that sustained economies by becoming centers of large-scale, efficient production, and that, as people coalesced in large numbers, also became spaces for innovation.

The disconnect was well captured in the 1951 census report, which stated that India’s towns and cities were “accidents of history and geography.”17 Swati Ramanathan—who with her husband, Ramesh, forms the passionate, reformist team that heads Janaagraha, an NGO emerging as a think-tank on urban policy—tells me, “Our first Town and Country Planning Act was based on Britain’s Town and Country Planning Act of 1909. But while they have revised their act and urban planning laws over eight times, we have held on to ours as if they have been carved in stone.” But while the concerns of urban India may have held little interest for Indian legislators, the city lights were beacons of hope and promise for the masses of India’s rural poor, the dispossessed and the unemployed.


pages: 603 words: 182,781

Aerotropolis by John D. Kasarda, Greg Lindsay

3D printing, air freight, airline deregulation, airport security, Akira Okazaki, Alvin Toffler, An Inconvenient Truth, Asian financial crisis, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, big-box store, blood diamond, Boeing 747, book value, borderless world, Boris Johnson, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, carbon footprint, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, Charles Lindbergh, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, cognitive dissonance, commoditize, company town, conceptual framework, credit crunch, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, digital map, disruptive innovation, Dr. Strangelove, Dutch auction, Easter island, edge city, Edward Glaeser, Eyjafjallajökull, failed state, financial engineering, flag carrier, flying shuttle, food miles, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frank Gehry, fudge factor, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, Future Shock, General Motors Futurama, gentleman farmer, gentrification, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, George Gilder, global supply chain, global village, gravity well, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, Hernando de Soto, high-speed rail, hive mind, if you build it, they will come, illegal immigration, inflight wifi, intangible asset, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), intermodal, invention of the telephone, inventory management, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jevons paradox, Joan Didion, Kangaroo Route, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge worker, kremlinology, land bank, Lewis Mumford, low cost airline, Marchetti’s constant, Marshall McLuhan, Masdar, mass immigration, McMansion, megacity, megaproject, Menlo Park, microcredit, military-industrial complex, Network effects, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), peak oil, Pearl River Delta, Peter Calthorpe, Peter Thiel, pets.com, pink-collar, planned obsolescence, pre–internet, RFID, Richard Florida, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, savings glut, Seaside, Florida, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, SimCity, Skype, smart cities, smart grid, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, spinning jenny, starchitect, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Suez canal 1869, sunk-cost fallacy, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, tech worker, telepresence, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the long tail, The Nature of the Firm, thinkpad, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, Tony Hsieh, trade route, transcontinental railway, transit-oriented development, traveling salesman, trickle-down economics, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, walkable city, warehouse robotics, white flight, white picket fence, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

The aerotropolis offers a new transportation paradigm powerful and compelling enough to assert itself as the bustling center of commerce within a city whose hinterlands lie a continent away. “Look for yesterday’s busiest train terminals and you will find today’s great urban centers. Look for today’s busiest airports and you will find the great urban centers of tomorrow. This is the union of urban planning, airport planning, and business strategy,” Kasarda told me. “And the whole will be something altogether different than the sum of its parts.” But what if the center cannot hold? What if globalism falls apart? There is a growing Greek chorus warning us the age of air travel is over, undone by the twin calamities of peak oil and climate change.

Webber’s point about such communities is that they are more vivid, more intense—more authentically who we are—than the ones composed of neighbors we’ve never met. In this sense, wholesalers, mall developers, Vegas visitors, and nerds all compose their own communities too, and it wasn’t until the jet brought them together that they could function as one. In light of this, Webber wanted to throw out the old models of urban planning and start over. A city’s space-time continuum was relative, he asserted, but planners acted as if it were absolute. He meant to correct them with his notion of the “elastic mile,” a more pliable way of thinking about space. Where you are matters less than how far you move; location is trumped by access, as the latter expands the scope and opportunities of daily life.

Having enriched the surrounding region, is it entitled to build on its own success? As the airport’s CEO, Jeff Fegan, phrased it, “It’s a public-policy concern. Should an airport be allowed to pursue tenants who could exist outside it?” In other words, is it in the aviation business, the real estate business, or the urban planning business? The answer is all three. Ben Carpenter and Trammel Crow weren’t alone in grasping the implications of DFW. The announcement of its location in 1965 touched off a frenzy of speculation in the pastureland of Southlake, Euless, Grapevine, Irving, and half a dozen other farm towns. Today these communities have a population of a million.


The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape by Brian Ladd

Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, full employment, megaproject, New Urbanism, planned obsolescence, Prenzlauer Berg, rent control, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, urban planning, urban renewal

The application of asbestos during the building's construction had in fact been carried out according to procedures imported from the West, and experts put forward by the building's supporters argued that the contamination was no worse than in West Berlin's convention center, another 1970s building whose architecture was not widely admiredbut a building that remained in use. Other proponents of rebuilding the royal palace employed the language of urban planning and architecture to present their interpretation of Berlin's history and identity. For them, the Palace of the Republic had to go because its mediocre architecture was unworthy of its prominent site. This crucial point in the German capital, where Unter den Linden and the grid of Friedrichstadt are melded into old Berlin-Cölln and points east, held the key to the city's very identity.

A north-south rail tunnel under the Tiergarten, first proposed by Speer, will finally be built. In short, much of the planning for Nazi Berlin shared the technocratic rationality of all modern urban societies. The Third Reich differed from its predecessorsand perhaps its successorsin having the power to impose its plans on a large and complicated city. All urban planning contains an authoritarian element; planning and architecture are always linked closely to power. The opportunity for the ruthless exercise of power made the Third Reich a dream come true for an ambitious architect like Speer as well as a megalomaniac dreamer like Hitler. Few students of Speer's architecture have failed to reflect on the affinities between it and the new job Speer took on in 1942, when his organizational skill was put in charge of wartime industrial production.

In other words, government was not to be isolated from commerce, culture, and residence, as it was in Bonna demand that Schultes's plan fulfilled at both ends of his east-west band and also along the banks of the Spree arc to the north. The goal was diversity, which became the watchword of Berlin urban planning in the 1990s. The roots of this policy lay in the 1980s, when the International Building Exhibition (IBA) had changed official policy toward inner-city districts near the Wall. IBA was a multiyear project of urban redevelopment, lavishly funded in the days when West Berlin was still the subsidized showcase of the West.


The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community by Ray Oldenburg

bread and circuses, citizen journalism, cognitive bias, feminist movement, fixed income, global village, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, New Journalism, New Urbanism, place-making, profit motive, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ray Oldenburg, Seaside, Florida, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Great Good Place, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, wage slave, young professional

Third places are typically places of business and their slow periods benefit from retired people who can fill the booths and chairs when others are at work or in school. Furthermore, retired people are generally more sociable and more civilized. No longer grubbing for a living, they come to place more value on good conversation, on enjoying people just for the company they offer. It escapes me right now, who first wrote that urban planning which meets the needs of children and the elderly will be nice for everybody, but truer words are rarely written. Several years ago, I participated in an “Evaluation Study” of a program for retired people in a Minnesota town of barely 7,000 people. The program was contained, for the most part, in the basements of two of the town’s larger churches.

Anything the designer can do, even to the point of affectation, to keep them alive will make the world a more interesting place to live in.5 In urban America, the demonstrated inability to create a suitable human habitat is brought to horrifying proportions by the speed with which an unsuitable environment is being manufactured. Even as our corporations now realize that their futures are jeopardized by imposing systems upon employees without their input, we continue to impose equally-flawed urban planning upon citizen-users as though their involvement in the process were not crucial to success. One might suppose that the intellectuals of the planning and architectural professions, the book-writers, would have a broader and better vision. I have found little to be encouraged about here. I’ve scanned scores of books and manuals on the subject never to find the barest mention of lounges, taverns, bars, or saloons.

The resulting habitat discourages contact of any kind between those who have the potential for becoming, if not the best friends, at least the most available ones. The ancient Chinese wisdom suggesting that “a friend in one’s own village is worth a hundred in the capitol” has little currency in urban planning. I called a city planner ’s office one day, curious as to what percent of area homes had no sidewalks to serve them. They didn’t know. It was not considered important. We aren’t expected to freerange as in the past but to make more “strategic” trips, none of them by walking. In an intriguing social commentary entitled The Broilerhouse Society, Patrick Goldring traces the recent history of the chicken.


pages: 290 words: 85,847

A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next by Tom Standage

accelerated depreciation, active transport: walking or cycling, autonomous vehicles, back-to-the-city movement, bike sharing, car-free, carbon footprint, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, Chris Urmson, City Beautiful movement, Clapham omnibus, congestion charging, coronavirus, COVID-19, deep learning, Didi Chuxing, Donald Shoup, driverless car, Elaine Herzberg, Elon Musk, flex fuel, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, garden city movement, General Motors Futurama, Ida Tarbell, Induced demand, interchangeable parts, invention of the wheel, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, jitney, Joan Didion, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Lewis Mumford, lockdown, Lyft, Marshall McLuhan, minimum wage unemployment, oil shock, Own Your Own Home, peak oil, prompt engineering, Ralph Nader, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rosa Parks, safety bicycle, self-driving car, social distancing, Steve Jobs, streetcar suburb, tech bro, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, trade route, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unbiased observer, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, W. E. B. Du Bois, walkable city, white flight, wikimedia commons, Yom Kippur War, Zipcar

Mesopotamian cities had thoroughfares between their main gates and, in some cases, ceremonial avenues, which would have been large enough to allow the use of wheeled vehicles in parades. Their irregular mazes of narrow streets provided protection against sun and windblown dust; wide, straight streets suitable for vehicles were unnecessary because goods were transported by porters or pack animals. In Europe and Mesopotamia, the layout of settlements—what we now call urban planning—was entirely driven by the needs of people, not vehicles. For the nomads who lived in their wagons, by contrast, their built environment was not merely influenced by their vehicles—it consisted of them. Wagons were clearly used in very different ways in these three regions. The wheels depicted on the Royal Standard of Ur even look different from European and Black Sea examples: they are made of three wooden pieces that fit together, but the pieces are curved rather than straight planks.

But it is the world that most Americans, and an increasing proportion of people elsewhere, now live in. Despite the much-trumpeted resurgence of American cities in recent years, around 70 percent of Americans live in suburbs, and about the same proportion of the population in Canada and Australia, which adopted similar approaches to postwar urban planning. In Europe, with its medieval street layouts, greater population densities, higher land prices, and lower levels of car ownership, the shift to the suburban-commuter lifestyle started later and did not go quite so far. Postwar cities were remodeled to be more car friendly, rather than car dependent.

Fear of this outcome has resulted in a constantly shifting web of alliances between AV start-ups, ride-hailing firms, and carmakers, as everyone tries to hedge bets. Waymo, for example, has partnerships with Lyft, Fiat Chrysler, and Jaguar Land Rover, while Toyota has invested in Uber’s AV unit. GM’s AV unit, Cruise, has dallied with both Lyft and Uber. And so on. If AVs do undermine the case for car ownership, that would have dramatic implications for urban planning. Fewer vehicles would mean that less space would be wasted on parking for private cars, which are unused 95 percent of the time. A study modeling the use of AVs in Lisbon, Portugal, found that the city’s 203,000 cars could be replaced with a fleet of 26,000 robotaxis. In effect, cities have banked a large amount of valuable real estate in the form of parking spaces and garages, notes Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia, and could decide how to spend the resulting windfall.


pages: 295 words: 81,861

Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong About the Future of Transportation by Paris Marx

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Airbnb, An Inconvenient Truth, autonomous vehicles, back-to-the-land, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bike sharing, Californian Ideology, car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, cashless society, clean tech, cloud computing, colonial exploitation, computer vision, congestion pricing, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, DARPA: Urban Challenge, David Graeber, deep learning, degrowth, deindustrialization, deskilling, Didi Chuxing, digital map, digital rights, Donald Shoup, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Elaine Herzberg, Elon Musk, energy transition, Evgeny Morozov, Extinction Rebellion, extractivism, Fairchild Semiconductor, Ford Model T, frictionless, future of work, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, George Gilder, gig economy, gigafactory, global pandemic, global supply chain, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, green new deal, Greyball, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, independent contractor, Induced demand, intermodal, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, jitney, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, knowledge worker, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, lockdown, low interest rates, Lyft, Marc Benioff, market fundamentalism, minimum viable product, Mother of all demos, move fast and break things, Murray Bookchin, new economy, oil shock, packet switching, Pacto Ecosocial del Sur, Peter Thiel, pre–internet, price mechanism, private spaceflight, quantitative easing, QWERTY keyboard, Ralph Nader, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, safety bicycle, Salesforce, School Strike for Climate, self-driving car, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, smart cities, social distancing, Southern State Parkway, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Stop de Kindermoord, streetcar suburb, tech billionaire, tech worker, techlash, technological determinism, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, TikTok, transit-oriented development, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, urban renewal, VTOL, walkable city, We are as Gods, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, WeWork, Whole Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Review, work culture , Yom Kippur War, young professional

I outline the problems that all these ideas face in achieving mass adoption—assuming their technology can ever be perfected—but also how they are in fact unlikely to deliver the benefits that are often claimed. While I do refer to supply chains, logistics, and delivery, my focus is primarily on the transportation of people, not of goods. My argument is not that we do not need a significant overhaul of the way transportation works, nor indeed that we do not need to reimagine how we approach urban planning. In recent years, there has been a lot more discussion about the need to challenge auto-oriented development in favor of prioritizing pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit to enable denser, greener, and more walkable communities. But progress is far too slow given the harms and inequities of the current system.

From the late 1950s through the 1960s, Jacobs was a leader in the campaign against Moses’s urban renewal strategy—in part because of how it affected her neighborhood of Greenwich Village—and his planned Lower Manhattan Expressway that would have cut through Manhattan to connect the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge to the Holland Tunnel. But she was also not alone; similar campaigns against urban highways were occurring across the United States in the 1960s. Jacobs’s seminal critique of modernist urban planning in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, outlined the importance of the diversity of urban communities and argued against the effort to encourage more people to move to suburbs on the urban fringe. Yet, as sociologist Sharon Zukin has explained, Jacobs directed her ire at urban planners, not at the forces of capital that were really driving the reconstruction of the American city to suit their interests.

While the NTSB placed secondary blame on Uber for its lack of safety and driver monitoring, as well as on Herzberg herself for being impaired, and on the Arizona Department of Transportation for its ineffective oversight of autonomous vehicles, it is clear that the company wanted to avoid a precedent-setting judgment that could have left the developers of autonomous vehicles with liability when they get into accidents. The agency’s decision was not a surprise, but placing blame on an individual misses the bigger picture, both in a technological sense and an urban planning sense. The actions of Uber executives and engineers are in line with the “move fast and break things” culture that is promoted in Silicon Valley, one which is motivated first and foremost by beating competitors to market by launching a minimum viable product and capturing market share as quickly as possible in the pursuit of monopoly.


A History of British Motorways by G. Charlesworth

New Urbanism, North Sea oil, restrictive zoning, the built environment, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, urban planning, urban renewal

In short, the development of the motorway network in the 1960s was bringing about a major change in transport in the country, the economic and social effects of which were only just beginning to be perceived at the end of the decade. References 1. MINISTER OF TRANSPORT. Roads in England and Wales 1959-60. HMSO, London, 1961. 2. MINISTER OF TRANSPORT. Roads in England and Wales 1969-70. HMSO, London, 1970. 3. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT. Roads for the future: a new inter-urban plan. HMSO, London, 1969. 4. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT. Roads for the future: the new inter-urban plan for England. HMSO, London, 1970. 5. SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Sixth report session 1968-69. Motorways and trunk roads. HMSO, London, 1969. 6. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL ENGINEERING. Efficiency in road construction. HMSO, London, 1966, 1967. 7.

The Automobile Association considered it to be a time-consuming procedure which could lead to a gap between the completion of the 1,000 miles of motorway and the Green Paper programme; the Society of 70 1960-1970: A DECADE OF GROWTH Motor Manufacturers and Traders said it gave no indication of standards to which routes would be developed, apart from them being dual carriageways, nor of priorities; the British Road Federation were disappointed by the level of expenditure proposed. In May 1970 the Government followed up the Green Paper with a White Paper Roads for the future: the new inter-urban plan for England 4 (proposals for roads in Scotland and in Wales were published earlier). It was claimed that the concept of the comprehensive development plan put forward in the Green Paper "was widely welcomed". Existing programmes would provide 1,000 miles of motorway and about the same mileage of all-purpose dual carriageway by the end of 1972.

They also remarked that "The general road system in London is, and will remain, a national scandal" and indicated that they expected to examine the problems of transportation in London during the "lifetime of the present Parliament". The role of urban motorways The preceding brief review of some of the complexities of the urban transport problem has shown that improvements to transport have to be considered within the wider context of urban planning and renewal and that various options such as better public transport systems, traffic restraint and new and improved roads have to be taken into account. It is now of interest to consider to what extent motorways can contribute to better transport conditions in urban areas. There seems to be some uncertainty about what is meant by an urban motorway.


pages: 307 words: 90,634

Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil by Hamish McKenzie

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Ben Horowitz, business climate, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Chris Urmson, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, Colonization of Mars, connected car, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, disinformation, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, Fairchild Semiconductor, Ford Model T, gigafactory, Google Glasses, Hyperloop, information security, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, low earth orbit, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, margin call, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, megacity, Menlo Park, Nikolai Kondratiev, oil shale / tar sands, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, Shenzhen was a fishing village, short selling, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Snapchat, Solyndra, South China Sea, special economic zone, stealth mode startup, Steve Jobs, tech worker, TechCrunch disrupt, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, Tim Cook: Apple, Tony Fadell, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, urban sprawl, Zenefits, Zipcar

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have estimated that electric robotaxis could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent compared to personal gasoline cars. A 2015 study by scholars at the University of Texas found that one self-driving car could replace nine regular vehicles. Cars that don’t have to “cruise” for parking spots also release fewer emissions. In one study from 2007, an urban-planning professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that cars looking for parking in one Los Angeles business area generated 730 tons of carbon dioxide a year. Columbia University’s Earth Institute has found that shared autonomous cars would cost about fifteen cents per mile to operate, compared to sixty cents a mile for personal gasoline cars.

Except for those among us who are especially twisted, we’ll enjoy never again having to parallel park, or having to find parking at all, because our cars, or the ones we’ve paid to ride in, will drive themselves to parking spots or simply move on to pick up someone else. We’ll be able to convert our garages into bedrooms or home offices, or places to store disused KitchenAid mixers, bread makers, and Abdominizers. We’ll pay lower auto insurance premiums. The autonomous age also promises a do-over for urban planning, and it might not be all to the good. People may forsake public transport and instead pour onto the roads, clogging them up even worse than today. Or, knowing that it’s cheaper for their cars to simply drive themselves around the city than to pay for parking, car owners could let their empty vehicles roam while not in use, creating a nightmarish scenario of what Robin Chase calls “zombie cars” crowding the streets uselessly.

See also autonomous vehicles; electric automobiles; specific manufacturers California’s favorable conditions for, 103–105 dealer model for sales, 45–50, 73 difficulty of start-ups in, 71–74 electric car history, 27–32, 37 gasoline cars vs. electric cars, 14–17, 170–172 history of, 193–194 internal combustion engines and, 3–4, 9, 30 resistance to electric automobiles, 176–177, 260 technology industry culture clash with, 246 Tesla’s influence on, 159–162 Tesla’s innovations in, 4–9 Tucker and, 35 autonomous vehicles, 257–275 Apple’s plans for, 112–113 Autopilot (Tesla), 183, 205–213, 265 buses, 198, 267 Chinese market for, 110–111, 235–246, 257–264 climate change and, 272–273 electric vehicle development and, 265–267 ethical issues of, 269–270 innovation in Silicon Valley and China, 110–111 levels of autonomy for, 264–269 quality of life issues and, 274–275 regulation for, 263, 267–269, 272–273 ride-sharing with, 198–199, 260–263, 267, 269, 271–273 robotaxis, 261, 266, 272 Singulato Motor’s plans for, 146–147 Tesla’s plans for, 267–268 trucks, 270–272 urban planning for, 273–274 Autopilot, 183, 205–213, 265 Baglino, Drew, 67 BAIC (Beijing Automotive Industry Corporation), 95, 114–115, 135 Baidu, 103, 110–111, 142–143, 260, 262–263 Bamford, Robert, 156 Barra, Mary, 162 batteries. See also Gigafactory cost of, 172–176, 217 Edison and, 30 safety of, 39–44 Tesla business model and, 8–9, 13, 64, 66 BBC, 34 Beijing Automotive Industry Corporation (BAIC), 95, 114–115, 135 Beijing Electric Vehicle Company, 114–115 Beijing Guangmo Investment Company, 116 Beijing Jieweisen Technology, 94–95 Beim Maple Properties, 242 Berkshire Hathaway, 130, 209 Beta China (McKenzie), 140, 142 Bezos, Jeff, 271 Bigelow Aerospace, 84–85 Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), 85 bin Salman, Mohammed (prince, Saudi Arabia), 221 Bitauto, 100 Blastar (video game), 18 Blitz Technology Hong Kong, 115–116 Bloch, M.


pages: 432 words: 124,635

Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Abraham Maslow, accelerated depreciation, agricultural Revolution, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Apollo 11, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, Boeing 747, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, centre right, City Beautiful movement, clean water, congestion charging, correlation does not imply causation, data science, Donald Shoup, East Village, edge city, energy security, Enrique Peñalosa, experimental subject, food desert, Frank Gehry, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, Google Earth, happiness index / gross national happiness, hedonic treadmill, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, Induced demand, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, license plate recognition, McMansion, means of production, megacity, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, mortgage tax deduction, New Urbanism, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, power law, rent control, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, science of happiness, Seaside, Florida, Silicon Valley, starchitect, streetcar suburb, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transit-oriented development, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban sprawl, wage slave, white flight, World Values Survey, zero-sum game, Zipcar

Aside from creating a huge burden for the building’s tenant, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (which is contractually bound to put on an astounding 128 concerts each winter season in order to pay the debt service on the garage), the structure has utterly failed to revive area streets. This is because people who drive to the Disney Hall never actually leave the building, noted Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the world’s foremost expert on the effects of parking. “The full experience of an iconic Los Angeles building begins and ends in its parking garage, not in the city itself,” Shoup and his graduate student Michael Manville wrote in a damning analysis.

And he had tried to sate Copenhageners’ desire to bike absolutely everywhere by creating an apartment building whose figure-eight shape allowed residents to cycle a gentle promenade all the way up to their tenth-floor apartments. Much of Ingels’s previous work had broken down the separation of uses that so often characterizes architecture and urban planning. The power plant would take this theme further. As per the brief, the facility would create heat and electricity by burning the city’s garbage. But rather than letting the new waste-to-energy facility stand alone, Ingels proposed wrapping the giant structure in an exoskeleton whose winding roof would serve as an artificial ski slope the size of seven football fields (333,700 square feet).

Just a village where she could park her car, walk around and do a few errands, and feel as though she were someplace. Meyer could see the outlines of that place as she squinted out across the collage of asphalt and lawn. The two architects who stood with us could see it too. “The town square could be right here,” offered Galina Tachieva, a partner at the urban planning firm Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ). She pulled off her bug-eye sunglasses and swept a hand across the scene. “And there could be a row of shops or live-work studios lining it. And this disastrous road needs to be slowed down so that old people and children can actually walk across it. We might add parking along the curbs, or split the road in half, like a zipper.”


pages: 512 words: 165,704

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt

Albert Einstein, autonomous vehicles, availability heuristic, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, call centre, cellular automata, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, cognitive dissonance, computer vision, congestion charging, congestion pricing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, DARPA: Urban Challenge, Donald Shoup, endowment effect, extreme commuting, fundamental attribution error, Garrett Hardin, Google Earth, hedonic treadmill, Herman Kahn, hindsight bias, hive mind, human-factors engineering, if you build it, they will come, impulse control, income inequality, Induced demand, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, John Nash: game theory, Kenneth Arrow, lake wobegon effect, loss aversion, megacity, Milgram experiment, Nash equilibrium, PalmPilot, power law, Sam Peltzman, Silicon Valley, SimCity, statistical model, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Timothy McVeigh, traffic fines, Tragedy of the Commons, traumatic brain injury, ultimatum game, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, working poor

There seems to be some innate human limit for travel—which makes sense, after all, if one sleeps eight hours, works eight hours, spends a few hours eating (and not in the car), and crams in a hobby or a child’s tap-dance recital. Not much time is left. Studies have shown that satisfaction with one’s commute begins to drop off at around thirty minutes each way. The enduring persistence of the one-hour rule was shown in a paper by urban planning researchers David Levinson and Ajay Kumar. Looking at the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area over a number of years from the 1950s to the 1980s, they found that average travel times—around thirty-two minutes each way—had hardly budged across the decades. What had changed were two other factors: distance and average travel speed.

Many of us can remember or envision a time when the typical commute involved Dad driving to the office while Mom took care of the kids and ran errands around town. Or, because many American families had only one car, Dad was driven to the morning train and picked up again just in time for cocktail hour and Cronkite. This is a blinkered view, argues Sandra Rosenbloom, an urban planning professor at Arizona State University whose specialty is women’s travel behavior. “That was just a middle-class model,” she says. “Lower-class women always worked. Either alongside husbands in stores, or at home doing piecework. Women always worked.” Still, the Leave It to Beaver commute was not a total fiction, given that in 1950 women made up 28 percent of the workforce.

Engineers can look at a section of highway and measure its capacity, or model how many cars will pass in an hour. That traffic flow, while it may mathematically seem like a discrete entity, is made up of people who all have their own reasons for going where they are going, for enduring that traffic. Some may have no choice; some may choose. Moreover, Brian Taylor, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, observes that when we travel to work by car, there may be any number of parts to that journey. We may walk to our car, drive down our residential block, briefly cruise a larger arterial, then pop onto the highway for a spell before exiting onto another arterial, continue on to a smaller street, then drive up a parking-garage ramp, walk to the elevator, and finally walk to our desk.


pages: 422 words: 131,666

Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back by Douglas Rushkoff

Abraham Maslow, Adam Curtis, addicted to oil, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Amazon Mechanical Turk, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-globalists, AOL-Time Warner, banks create money, Bear Stearns, benefit corporation, big-box store, Bretton Woods, car-free, Charles Lindbergh, colonial exploitation, Community Supported Agriculture, complexity theory, computer age, congestion pricing, corporate governance, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, death of newspapers, digital divide, don't be evil, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, easy for humans, difficult for computers, financial innovation, Firefox, full employment, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, Glass-Steagall Act, global village, Google Earth, greed is good, Herbert Marcuse, Howard Rheingold, income per capita, invention of the printing press, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, John Nash: game theory, joint-stock company, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, laissez-faire capitalism, loss aversion, market bubble, market design, Marshall McLuhan, Milgram experiment, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, multilevel marketing, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, negative equity, new economy, New Urbanism, Norbert Wiener, peak oil, peer-to-peer, place-making, placebo effect, planned obsolescence, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, price stability, principal–agent problem, private military company, profit maximization, profit motive, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, public intellectual, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, RFID, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, short selling, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social software, Steve Jobs, Telecommunications Act of 1996, telemarketer, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, trade route, trickle-down economics, union organizing, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, Vannevar Bush, vertical integration, Victor Gruen, white flight, working poor, Works Progress Administration, Y2K, young professional, zero-sum game

Many of these academics, like James Burnham, professed the benefits of an industry-led “American Empire,” which, like the Roman Empire that conquered Greece, would “be, if not literally worldwide in formal boundaries, capable of exercising decisive world control.” Freshly graduated psychologists, now willingly in the service of marketers, conducted the first “focus groups” to determine how and why people buy things. Slowly but surely a new definition of self as “consumer” penetrated the mass psyche. The scores of economic, management, urban-planning, and marketing theories to emerge from this effort were almost invariably geared toward making one part or another of the industrial machine work more efficiently: motivate production, stimulate consumption, assimilate impediments. No matter how humanistic in their wording, or how focused on giving people what they really wanted or needed, these techniques were only “creative” in their ability to tweak the great engine of commerce.

Local governments that attempted to resist were quickly and decisively neutralized by the courts. The resulting highways displaced hundreds of thousands of people and further drove down property values in the cities. According to Senator Gaylord Nelson, 75 percent of federal transportation spending has gone toward highways, while 1 percent has been spent on mass transit. Urban-planning masters such as Robert Moses developed highway schemes intended to keep undesirable people from traveling into desirable neighborhoods. In just one of many examples, Moses built highway overpasses with only nine feet of clearance in order to prevent buses from getting through. This was intended to keep poor black people from traveling from the city to the new suburbs, while also making the purchase of a car a prerequisite for residence.

I launched the blog with four goals in mind: First, I aimed to create a new journalistic beat covering a range of stories from the intense neighborhood-level battles over new bike lanes and parking spaces to the big questions around how New York City planned to address the challenge of peak oil and climate change. Second, I wanted Streetsblog to serve as a watchdog for the New York City Department of Transportation, an agency that no one was holding to account. Third, Streetsblog would educate New York City’s policy makers, press, and regular citizens about urban planning and transportation best practices that were emerging in other cities. Finally, the blog would function as a gathering place and discussion forum for livable-streets advocates. If it succeeded, I figured, Streetsblog would, at best, help get New York City moving slowly in the right direction. Streetsblog succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.


pages: 362 words: 97,288

Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car by Anthony M. Townsend

A Pattern Language, active measures, AI winter, algorithmic trading, Alvin Toffler, Amazon Robotics, asset-backed security, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, backpropagation, big-box store, bike sharing, Blitzscaling, Boston Dynamics, business process, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, car-free, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, company town, computer vision, conceptual framework, congestion charging, congestion pricing, connected car, creative destruction, crew resource management, crowdsourcing, DARPA: Urban Challenge, data is the new oil, Dean Kamen, deep learning, deepfake, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, deliberate practice, dematerialisation, deskilling, Didi Chuxing, drive until you qualify, driverless car, drop ship, Edward Glaeser, Elaine Herzberg, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, extreme commuting, financial engineering, financial innovation, Flash crash, food desert, Ford Model T, fulfillment center, Future Shock, General Motors Futurama, gig economy, Google bus, Greyball, haute couture, helicopter parent, independent contractor, inventory management, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jevons paradox, jitney, job automation, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, Lewis Mumford, loss aversion, Lyft, Masayoshi Son, megacity, microapartment, minimum viable product, mortgage debt, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, North Sea oil, Ocado, openstreetmap, pattern recognition, Peter Calthorpe, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, Ray Oldenburg, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rodney Brooks, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, SoftBank, software as a service, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, surveillance capitalism, technological singularity, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, The Coming Technological Singularity, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, The Great Good Place, too big to fail, traffic fines, transit-oriented development, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, urban sprawl, US Airways Flight 1549, Vernor Vinge, vertical integration, Vision Fund, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics

People knew that work was changing from the widespread use of automation, but there was no theory to guide researchers or even a common language with which to frame questions. As concern among policymakers grew, an interdisciplinary dream team came together to tackle the issue—David Autor, a professor of business at MIT’s Sloan School of Management; Frank Levy, a labor economist in the urban planning department of MIT’s architecture school; and Richard Murnane, a Harvard-based expert on the economics of education. Over the course of the next few years, the trio worked out an ingenious and comprehensive new approach that they called a “task model.” The task model drew two fundamental distinctions.

DURING THE HOUSING BUBBLE of the early 2000s, “Drive until you qualify” for a mortgage became a do-or-die mantra for first-time homebuyers. In a city of rovers, the same might be true, but you’d hop onto a self-driving scooter instead of sliding into an SUV. To understand why, we need to think geometrically. A widely used rule of thumb in urban planning assumes that people are willing to walk only about 20 minutes to a transit stop—in practice that works out to about a one-mile walkshed for TOD projects. Cruising along on a rover, however, the same person can cover more ground in the same period of time—as much as five miles, circumscribing a zone some 25 times larger in area (remember, A = πr).

We shouldn’t rush to place restrictions on AVs, but we also mustn’t shy away from exercising strong oversight on their development and use. And we must search for ways to exploit their efficiency and flexibility, without compromising our values. Second, big mobility is travel-intensive. Nobody should live in a community where bad design or bad policy forces them to travel unnecessarily. That’s why progressive approaches to urban planning emphasize access over mobility. The best community is one where there’s no need to travel at all—everything is already close to everything else. While this is a noble aspiration, rebuilding entire nations and cities in this way takes too long. It’s time to face up to the fact that while we have largely failed to find ways to build for access at scale, our ability to invent cheap, flexible, and sustainable mobility technologies like rovers, conveyors, taxibots, and software trains is remarkable.


pages: 231 words: 69,673

How Cycling Can Save the World by Peter Walker

active transport: walking or cycling, bike sharing, Boris Johnson, car-free, correlation does not imply causation, Crossrail, Donald Shoup, driverless car, Enrique Peñalosa, fixed-gear, gentrification, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, meta-analysis, New Journalism, New Urbanism, post-work, publication bias, safety bicycle, Sidewalk Labs, Stop de Kindermoord, TED Talk, the built environment, traffic fines, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, transit-oriented development, urban planning

Everything You Know About Parking Is Wrong “My father never paid for parking, my mother, my brother, nobody,” says George Costanza in one episode of the New York City–based sitcom Seinfeld. “It’s like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay when, if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free?” This quote is used in a New York Times article13 by Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA. Shoup has devoted much of his career to a single subject, penning two dozen papers on it as well as an eight-hundred-page book, described by its publisher as a “no-holds-barred treatise.” The subject? Yes, parking. Parking, especially free, on-street parking, is one of those areas that many people seem somehow to take both entirely for granted and very, very personally.

The network of protected bike lanes for which he had battled to build for so many years in his home city were still under construction when cyclists started hopping over builders’ barriers to use them. “Sections had been laid, but they were far from done,” says the man who, as Seville’s head of urban planning, oversaw the installation of fifty miles of fully segregated cycleways in the southern Spanish city in 2006. “Some people were so keen they lifted their bikes over the fences and rode anyway. It was all okay, apart from a couple of people who did this at night and crashed into barriers where a section finished.”

The city’s traffic was in chaos at the time—because of the local habit of the afternoon siesta, it has four daily rush hours rather than two—and the United Left, traditionally supportive of cycling, managed to get a deal to build the bike lanes onto a coalition agreement. But even then it could easily have come to nothing. By good fortune, Seville’s head of urban planning was José Garcia Cebrián, a keen cyclist who, like the United Left, had been awaiting such an opportunity. Even then, he cheerfully admits, the main reason the bike lane plan succeeded was because almost no one believed it would ever happen and so very few people bothered to try and stop it. “In Spain there’s been a lot of planning about cycling, but then the plans get put into a drawer,” Cebrián says.


pages: 219 words: 67,173

Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America by Sam Roberts

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Bear Stearns, City Beautiful movement, clean water, collective bargaining, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Donald Trump, Jane Jacobs, Joan Didion, Lewis Mumford, Marshall McLuhan, megaproject, New Urbanism, the High Line, transcontinental railway, transit-oriented development, urban planning, urban renewal, Y2K

The goat pastures and shanties that still dotted mid-Manhattan would be replaced by a colossal Grand Central Terminal. It would be a majestic gateway to the nation’s greatest city, the catalyst for a new Midtown flanking a breathtakingly luxuriant boulevard, and a prototype for innovative transportation and urban planning imperatives across the country. In short, the new Grand Central Terminal was built, in a way, by accident. TERMINAL CONNOTES AN ENDING. For a century, Grand Central has been anything but. This book is Grand Central’s biography. Nobody who has been there, no one who has witnessed the intricate choreography on the Main Concourse or eavesdropped on the crowd’s collective voice, could doubt that a building, a supposedly quiescent pile of marble and stone, could embody a living organism.

Perhaps more than any other public space, the terminal not only evolved into a household name, but also exercised a profound influence on American culture. Grand Central inspired song lyrics, a popular radio program, memorable movie scenes, literary works, television and theatrical performances, the civil rights movement, new visions of architecture for transportation, including airline terminals, the City Beautiful school of urban planning, the enormously profitable monetization of the empty space above private property, and the sometimes conflicting principle of historic preservation. All while whisking hundreds of thousands of people daily to and from their destinations. GRAND CENTRAL, its predecessors on 42nd Street and its famous trains, emerged early on as a cultural touchstone emblematic of New York’s magnetic glamour.

Since 1991, the terminal has been bathed in 136,000 watts of floodlight from buildings across the street. The blue and magenta tints were designed by Sylvan R. Shemitz, a lighting engineer whose goal, he said, was to make New York “a lively, friendly and joyful place.” IN ITS FIRST CENTURY, Grand Central has played a prodigious role in the annals of urban planning, beginning with William Wilgus’s ingenious monetization of air rights (the ability to transfer those rights between adjacent properties was also introduced in New York in 1916 in the nation’s first zoning ordinance). The skyrocketing value of those rights nearly doomed Grand Central until the U.S.


pages: 565 words: 122,605

The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us by Joel Kotkin

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alvin Toffler, autonomous vehicles, birth tourism , blue-collar work, British Empire, carbon footprint, Celebration, Florida, citizen journalism, colonial rule, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, demographic winter, Deng Xiaoping, Downton Abbey, edge city, Edward Glaeser, financial engineering, financial independence, Frank Gehry, gentrification, Gini coefficient, Google bus, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, intentional community, Jane Jacobs, labor-force participation, land reform, Lewis Mumford, life extension, market bubble, mass immigration, McMansion, megacity, megaproject, microapartment, new economy, New Urbanism, Own Your Own Home, peak oil, pensions crisis, Peter Calthorpe, post-industrial society, RAND corporation, Richard Florida, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Seaside, Florida, self-driving car, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, starchitect, Stewart Brand, streetcar suburb, Ted Nelson, the built environment, trade route, transit-oriented development, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, Whole Earth Catalog, women in the workforce, young professional

KURTZLEBEN, Danielle. (2011, October 21). “Cities Where Women Are Having the Most Babies,” US News and World Report, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/10/21/cities-where-women-are-having-the-most-babies. KUSHNER, James A. (2006). “Urban Planning and the American Family,” Stetson Law Review, vol. 36, no. 67, http://www.stetson.edu/law/lawreview/media/urban-planning-and-the-american-family.pdf. KWANG, Han Fook. (2013, June 18). “When wages fail to grow along with economy,” asiaone, http://www.askmelah.com/when-wages-fail-to-grow-along-with-economy/. LACHMAN, M. Leanne and BRETT, Deborah L. (2015).

DESAI, Rajiv. (2009, November 16). “Incredible India Indeed,” Times of India, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Incredible-India-Indeed/articleshow/5232986.cms. DESOUZA, Kevin C. (2014, February 18). “Our Fragile Emerging Megacities: A Focus on Resilience,” Planetizen: The Urban Planning, Design, and Development Network, http://www.planetizen.com/node/67338. DEWAN, Shaila. (2013, December 4). “Home Buyers Are Scarce, So Renters Take Their Place,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/business/first-time-buyers-are-scarce-so-in-some-cities-renters-move-in.html. DILLON, Sam. (2009, April 22).

“The New American Divide,” Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204301404577170733817181646. MUSTAFI, H., et al. (2012). “Main Air Pollutants and Myocardial Infarction,” Journal of American Medical Association, no. 307, doi: 10.1001/jama.2012.126. MYERS, J.C. (2008, March 20). “Traces of Utopia: Socialist Values and Soviet Urban Planning.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, San Diego, California. MYRSKLA, Mikko, GOLDSTEIN, Joshua R., and CHENG, Yen-Hsin Alice. (2013, April). “New Cohort Fertility Forecasts for the Developed World,” MPIDR Working Paper WP 2012–2014, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2012-014.pdf.


pages: 267 words: 79,905

Creating Unequal Futures?: Rethinking Poverty, Inequality and Disadvantage by Ruth Fincher, Peter Saunders

barriers to entry, classic study, ending welfare as we know it, financial independence, full employment, gentrification, Gini coefficient, income inequality, income per capita, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, marginal employment, minimum wage unemployment, New Urbanism, open economy, pink-collar, positional goods, purchasing power parity, shareholder value, spread of share-ownership, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, urban planning, urban renewal, very high income, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population

He was a member of the team that undertook the first Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey between 1989 and 1991. His primary research interests are the employer determinants of labour productivity and the role of the state in nurturing new forms of multi-employer co-ordination. RUTH FINCHER is Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne. An urban and social geographer by training, she holds a PhD from Clark University (USA). She taught in Canada for six years, at McGill, and then McMaster Universities. Since returning to Australia from North America in 1986, she has been Reader in Geography and Director of the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne, and a Research Manager in the federal government’s Bureau of Immigration Research.

Many contributors to Australian Poverty: Then and Now (Fincher and Nieuwenhuysen 1998) expressed despair at the loss of government services, like adequate legal aid provisions and dental care, that are cruelly affecting the lives of the disadvantaged. On the other hand, government is proceeding in other ways most actively, and is spending much time defending its decisions about new forms of regulation (called deregulation) in the courts. This is evident in industrial relations matters, at the State and federal levels, and in policies like urban planning at the State level. Neoliberal governments are also pursuing public–private partnerships—for example in secondary and tertiary education, in 23 PDF OUTPUT c: ALLEN & UNWIN r: DP2\BP4401W\MAIN p: (02) 6232 5991 f: (02) 6232 4995 36 DAGLISH STREET CURTIN ACT 2605 23 CREATING UNEQUAL FUTURES?

Of course, the underpinning by governments of commercial law continues to provide advantages like limited liability to corporations and businesses which have never been available to wage earners and other citizens. What is being developed in Australia is a change in style and substance of governance. The adoption in government of neoliberal economic philosophies directs our national and sub-national involvement in globalisation to take particular forms. Gleeson and Low (2000), in their account of urban planning in Australia—an activity at the local level that is defined and regulated by State governments—describe this as replacing the social democratic aims of the manageralism of the 1980s and before, by what they term ‘corporate liberalism’ in the 1990s. Though their presentation is about State governments in Australia, the defining features they list of corporate liberalism in those governments characterise other governments as well.


pages: 423 words: 115,336

This Is Only a Test: How Washington D.C. Prepared for Nuclear War by David F. Krugler

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Berlin Wall, City Beautiful movement, colonial rule, company town, cuban missile crisis, desegregation, Dr. Strangelove, Frank Gehry, full employment, glass ceiling, index card, launch on warning, Lewis Mumford, nuclear winter, RAND corporation, Silicon Valley, urban planning, Victor Gruen, white flight, Works Progress Administration

Throughout American history, political leaders and groups have used Washington, as both city and capital, to fulfill national goals, set an example, provide a prototype.7 Americans have marched in Washington seeking women’s suffrage, veterans’ bonuses, and to stop the Vietnam War.8 Southern members of Congress correctly recognized that intense efforts to abolish slavery in the District signified a national struggle, prompting them to redouble efforts to protect slavery in the border states.9 During Reconstruction, Congress used the District as a “proving ground” for national legislation.10 After World War II, the District’s racial segregation tarnished America’s democratic ideals, and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both regarded desegregation of the District as a Cold War necessity.11 Washington has also served as a model and laboratory for urban planning and practices. After the Civil War, the city’s business elite tapped Congressional interest in creating a world-class capital to modernize the city’s infrastructure.12 In 1902, Washington became a showcase for the City Beautiful movement through the McMillan Plan, which sought to create “the capital of a new kind of America—clean, efficient, orderly and, above all, powerful.”

Washington’s dispersal would then lay down a stepping stone for national dispersal. If the future could happen in the nation’s city, then the government would wield the moral authority to promote or even force dispersal elsewhere. No one was more qualified to plan Washington’s dispersal than Augur. In 1949, the Federal Works Agency hired him as an Urban Planning Officer, and, acting under the authority of the NSRB, instructed him to find dispersed sites for wartime essential government offices.11 Planning to Plan Augur didn’t have to begin from scratch. On October 27, 1948, Arthur Hill had submitted his panel’s report on Washington to the President.

In a note thanking Holland for his efforts, Truman remarked, “[h]ow anybody could oppose a national defense project as important as that [dispersal] to the capital of the United States I can’t understand.”18 In January 1952, the President once more asked for dispersal in his budget message. In a bid to win over suburban residents and Rep. Smith, Truman promised that only government-owned land would be used.19 It wasn’t enough to change Congressional minds, however, and Truman didn’t press the issue. By this date, Tracy Augur had quit his job as Urban Planning Officer. Few had worked as hard as Augur to disperse the capital, making the ignominious outcome not just a professional blow, but a personal one, too. The Mysterious Mountain Throughout 1951, Blue Ridge Summit, a small Pennsylvania town close to the Maryland border, was enjoying an economic boom as workers for the P.J.


pages: 443 words: 112,800

The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World by Jeremy Rifkin

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Albert Einstein, American ideology, An Inconvenient Truth, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, bike sharing, borderless world, carbon footprint, centre right, clean tech, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, Community Supported Agriculture, corporate governance, decarbonisation, deep learning, distributed generation, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, Ford Model T, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, hydrogen economy, income inequality, industrial cluster, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, job automation, knowledge economy, manufacturing employment, marginal employment, Martin Wolf, Masdar, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, new economy, off grid, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open borders, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, post-oil, purchasing power parity, Ray Kurzweil, rewilding, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, scientific worldview, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skype, smart grid, smart meter, Spread Networks laid a new fibre optics cable between New York and Chicago, supply-chain management, systems thinking, tech billionaire, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, urban planning, urban renewal, Yom Kippur War, Zipcar

Our global policy team included Alan Lloyd, the former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and current president of the International Council on Clean Transportation; Byron McCormick, former executive director for hydrogen car development at GM; and world-renowned green architects and urban planning companies, such as Boeri Studio of Italy, Acciona, and Cloud9 of Spain. Seated on the other side of the table was an equally esteemed group of experts: engineers, department heads of city agencies, representatives from the mayor’s office, and the management team of CPS energy. Our Third Industrial Revolution Global CEO Business Roundtable had found its mission.

Weatherizing single homes is a great idea and can have a significant impact on energy use, but retrofitting the Willis Tower in Chicago, for example, will save enough electricity to power 2,500 homes. It became clear that the province of Utrecht would need a plan that is inclusive and makes sense financially. Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, an urban planning firm out of Chicago and a member of our global development team, proposed a software solution for Utrecht that would involve the entire community in reaching its zero-emissions goal. The plan involves building a virtual 3-D model of the city. The first step would be to work with students and professors at the local university to conduct comprehensive energy audits of all buildings in Utrecht.

The synergies, symbiotic relationships, and feedback loops are finely calibrated to ensure the system’s ability to maintain a continuous balance of supply and demand. I note that biomimicry—the idea of studying how nature operates and borrowing best practices—is becoming an increasingly fashionable pursuit in product research and development, economic modeling, and urban planning. We’d be well-served by studying how climax ecosystems balance their budgets, and applying the lessons to balancing our own budgets within society and between society and nature. All of this is painfully obvious, which makes one wonder whether economists might be better served by being trained in thermodynamics before they take up their discipline.


pages: 302 words: 83,116

SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

agricultural Revolution, airport security, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrei Shleifer, Atul Gawande, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, Boris Johnson, call centre, clean water, cognitive bias, collateralized debt obligation, creative destruction, credit crunch, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, deliberate practice, Did the Death of Australian Inheritance Taxes Affect Deaths, disintermediation, endowment effect, experimental economics, food miles, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), John Nash: game theory, Joseph Schumpeter, Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh, longitudinal study, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, market design, microcredit, Milgram experiment, Neal Stephenson, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, patent troll, power law, presumed consent, price discrimination, principal–agent problem, profit motive, randomized controlled trial, Richard Feynman, Richard Thaler, selection bias, South China Sea, Stanford prison experiment, Stephen Hawking, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, ultimatum game, urban planning, William Langewiesche, women in the workforce, young professional

No one at the time was worried about global warming, but if they had been, the horse would have been Public Enemy No. 1, for its manure emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. In 1898, New York hosted the first international urban planning conference. The agenda was dominated by horse manure, because cities around the world were experiencing the same crisis. But no solution could be found. “Stumped by the crisis,” writes Eric Morris, “the urban planning conference declared its work fruitless and broke up in three days instead of the scheduled ten.” The world had seemingly reached the point where its largest cities could not survive without the horse but couldn’t survive with it, either.

., 16 Teller, Edward, 181 terrorism aftereffects of, 66 and banks, 89–95 bio-, 74 costs of, 65–66, 87 definitions of, 63–64 effectiveness of, 65 prevention of, 87–92 purpose of, 64 terrorists biographical background of, 62–63 goals of, 63–64 identification of possible, 90–95 and life insurance, 94 methods used by, 88 and profiles of, 90–95 revolutionaries as different from, 63–64 See also September 11, 2001 Thirty-Eight Witnesses (Rosenthal), 126 Thomas, Frank, 116 Time magazine, shark story in, 14 Title IX, 22 “To Err Is Human” (Institute of Medicine report), 204 “too big to fail,” 143 traffic deaths, 65–66, 87 trash-pickup fees, 139 trees, and climate, 186 trimmers, price of, 35 trophy wives, 52–53 Trotsky, Leon, 63 trust and altruism, 116,117 and baseball card experiment, 116,117 typical behavior, 13–14,15–16 Uganda, babies in, 57–58 Ultimatum (game), 108–9, 110, 113 unintended consequences, law of, 6–8, 12, 138–41 United Kingdom banks in, 89–95 climate change in, 166 University of Chicago List appointment at, 118 MBA study of graduates of, 45–46 urban planning conference, and horse problem, 10 users versus sellers, 25–26 Variable X, 95 Vaux, Calvert, 42 Venkatesh, Sudhir, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32–37, 38, 40–42, 70–71 Vice Commission, Chicago, 23–24, 26 Vienna General Hospital (Austria), 137–38, 203–4 Vietnam War, 146 violence and prostitutes, 38 visas, 66 volcanic eruptions, 176–77, 188–90, 192 volunteers, in experiments, 121 Vonnegut, Bernard, 191 Vonnegut, Kurt, 191 wages and gender issues, 21–22, 44, 45–47 as incentives, 46–47 and sex-change operations, 47–48 teachers and, 44 walking, drunk, 2–3, 12, 14, 96 “war on drugs,” 25 warm-glow altruism, 124 washing hands, 203–8, 209 Washington, D.C., shootings in, 64, 66 Washington Hospital Center emergency medicine at, 66–73, 75, 81 and September 11, 66–67, 68 Weber, Christopher, 167 Weitzman, Martin, 11, 12, 169 welfare program, data about, 27–28 whaling, 142–43 white slavery, 23 wind farms, 187 wind-powered fiberglass boats, 202 Wiswall, Matthew, 48 women as CEOs, 44–45 difficulties of, 20–22 discrimination against, 21–22, 45 as doctors, 80–81 as dominant in prostitution, 23–26, 40 and feminist revolution, 43–44 in India, 3–8, 14 men compared with, 20–21 as prostitutes, 54–55 shift in role of, 43–44 in sports, 22 as teachers, 43, 44 wages for, 21–22, 44, 45–46 Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), 22 Wood, Lowell, 181,182,184–85,186, 192,194,197,198–99 World Health Organization (WHO), 5 World Trade Center, 15 World War II, use of data in, 147 Yale-New Haven Hospital, monkey experiment at, 212–16 Zelizer, Viviana, 200 Zimbardo, Philip, 123 Zyzmor, Albert, 59 About the Authors STEVEN D.


pages: 142 words: 18,753

Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There by David Brooks

1960s counterculture, affirmative action, Community Supported Agriculture, David Brooks, Donald Trump, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Gilder, haute couture, haute cuisine, income inequality, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Lewis Mumford, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, PalmPilot, place-making, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Bork, scientific management, Silicon Valley, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Thorstein Veblen, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban planning, War on Poverty, Yogi Berra

After high school she went to work as a reporter for the Scranton Tribune. She lasted a year, then ventured to New York and worked in a series of jobs as a stenographer and freelance writer before landing a junior editorial position at Architectural Forum. In 1956 she gave a talk at Harvard expressing her skepticism about the High Modernist urban-planning philosophy that was sweeping away entire neighborhoods and replacing them with rows and rows of symmetrical apartment buildings, each surrounded by a windswept and usually deserted park. William H. Whyte invited her to turn her lecture into an article for Fortune, which, after some internal nervousness from the executives at Time Inc., was published as the essay “Downtown Is for People.”

She rejects the notion of the intellectual who is removed from the everyday world and lives instead in a world of ideas. As a result, she is relaxed and conversational. She is looking at things with an eye for down-to-earth details (it may be no accident that it was a woman who could exemplify this way of observing reality). The urban planning of the epoch may make Jacobs indignant, but she does not rain thunderbolts down upon her enemies. She suggests the answer is not to theorize or to rebel, but simply to sit quietly and be sensitive to our surroundings. The bourgeois epistemology often appealed to reason. The bohemian epistemology to imagination.

It is complexity she admires, the small unplanned niches where specialized activities can thrive. These are places whose use is not determined from above but grows up from small particularized needs. In the years since The Death and Life of Great American Cities was published, Jacobs’s way of seeing has been vindicated again and again. The urban plans she criticized are now universally reviled. The disastrous failure of social-engineering projects across the developing world have exposed the hubris of technocrats who thought they could reshape reality. The failure of the Communist planned economies has taught us that the world is too complicated to be organized and centrally directed.


pages: 362 words: 83,464

The New Class Conflict by Joel Kotkin

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alvin Toffler, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, back-to-the-city movement, Bob Noyce, Boston Dynamics, California gold rush, Californian Ideology, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, classic study, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, crony capitalism, David Graeber, degrowth, deindustrialization, do what you love, don't be evil, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, energy security, falling living standards, future of work, Future Shock, Gini coefficient, Google bus, Herman Kahn, housing crisis, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kevin Roose, labor-force participation, Larry Ellison, Lewis Mumford, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Mary Meeker, mass affluent, McJob, McMansion, medical bankruptcy, microapartment, Nate Silver, National Debt Clock, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, offshore financial centre, Paul Buchheit, payday loans, Peter Calthorpe, plutocrats, post-industrial society, public intellectual, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, rent control, rent-seeking, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, Richard Florida, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Solyndra, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, tech worker, techlash, technoutopianism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Thomas L Friedman, Tony Fadell, too big to fail, transcontinental railway, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban sprawl, Virgin Galactic, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, working poor, young professional

But this ignores the tendency, as the Beards noted over eighty years ago, for science to become “a kind of dogmatic religion itself whose votaries often behaved in the manner of theologians, pretending to possess the one true key to the riddle of the universe.”49 In recent times this has been particularly notable in the area of climate change, where serious debate would seem prudent not only on the root causes and effects but also on what may present the best solutions.50 Similarly, orthodoxies can be seen in issues such as gender, sexual preference, and urban planning. Issues of great import, for example, generally are deemed “settled,” and those who do not agree are simply ignored or pilloried.51 Indeed, this closing of debate is so strong that a 2010 survey of 24,000 college students found that barely a third thought it “safe to hold unpopular views on campus.”52 Various studies of the political orientation of academics have found that liberals outnumber conservatives by between eight and fourteen to one.

The total population increase in counties with under 500 people per square mile was more than 30 times that of the increase in counties with densities of 10,000 and greater.105 Much of the current justification for density lies with the notion that packing people together makes for a more productive and “creative” economy, as well as a better environment for upward mobility.106 A 2013 Harvard study widely cited as supportive of this notion, actually found the highest rates of upward mobility not in the largest metropolitan areas, like New York or Los Angeles, but in lower-density areas such as Salt Lake City and the small cities of the Great Plains, such as Bismarck, Yankton, SD, and Pecos.107 Rather than an ode to bigness, notes demographer Wendell Cox, the study found that commuting zones (similar to metropolitan areas) with average populations of less than 100,000 have the highest average upward income mobility.108 This reinforces the findings of the University of Washington’s Richard Morrill, who found the least inequality in highly dispersed, largely smaller communities in the Intermountain West, the northern Great Lakes, and parts of rural New England.109 And we shouldn’t forget the success story of the oil town Bakersfield, CA, a metropolitan area with high levels of upward mobility in the Harvard study. Columbia University urban planning professor David King wryly labeled California city “a poster child for sprawl.”110 These findings contrast with the common assertion that density leads to innovation and upward mobility. Urban boosters like Bruce Katz at Brookings, for example, contend that technological innovation will now be focused in the urban core—say, San Francisco—as opposed to the largely suburban Silicon Valley that gave birth to the computer and Internet age.

It would also build on the progress made over the last century in improving living space and homeownership for ever expanding parts of the population, something once seen as a progressive value but increasingly opposed by large sections of the Clerisy.74 In the attempts to rein in suburbs and single-family houses, the Clerisy is battling the long-held interests of the Yeomanry. For the most part the middle orders can be expected to resist the mania for “cramming” or “pack and stack” housing that has become the supreme principle of urban planning and which is widely favored among architects, who frequently define the urban future as one dominated by an ever denser, high-rise-oriented future. “Building high density,” notes Brookings scholar Robert Lang, is the “most important” tactic in the drive to “compact development” and “slow sprawl.”75 But this attempt at ordering American life likely will be resisted.


pages: 309 words: 84,038

Bike Boom: The Unexpected Resurgence of Cycling by Carlton Reid

1960s counterculture, autonomous vehicles, Beeching cuts, bike sharing, California gold rush, car-free, cognitive dissonance, driverless car, Ford Model T, Haight Ashbury, Jane Jacobs, Kickstarter, military-industrial complex, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stop de Kindermoord, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, urban planning, urban renewal, Whole Earth Catalog, Yom Kippur War

At the University of Iowa at Ames, the “three most popular subjects on campus were social change, bicycling, and sex, in that order.” These university courses—and there were others at the Universities of Texas, Utah, and Oregon—studied the creation of bikeway masterplans, including “how to get bikeway legislation passed” and “how to integrate bikeway systems into urban planning.” The term bikeology wasn’t coined in the 1970s—it dates to the 1940s as a school subject and was used even earlier than that by itinerant singer-songwriters—but the counter-cultural ecological awakening in the 1960s and 1970s gave currency to the word with its fortuitous mix of bike and ecology.

As Rouse would have seen on his visit, Stevenage had wide, smooth cycleways adjacent to the main roads, but separated from cars and pedestrians. There were well-lit, airy underpasses beneath roundabouts. Schools, workplaces, and shops were all linked by protected cycleways. Rouse’s tour would have been a well-trodden one: Stevenage attracted urban planning specialists from around the world, including high-level ones from the Netherlands. Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, Stevenage was held up as proof that the UK could build a Dutch-style cycle network. An article in New Scientist magazine in 1973 claimed that “Stevenage cycleways and cycle underpasses [are] premiere exhibits … [in a] traffic revolution.”

American author Pete Jordan moved to the Netherlands to be part of a cycling culture that, because bicycling is so normal, doesn’t even know that it’s a cycling culture (similarly, the Netherlands doesn’t have any spatula magazines or vacuum-cleaner festivals). When he’s asked by Dutch people why he moved to Amsterdam, Jordan explains how he once counted “927 cyclists in just 20 minutes.” This usually draws blank stares. “Is that a lot or something?” is a standard response. At a University of Amsterdam summer school for international urban-planning students—all mad-keen cyclists, myself included—Jordan cheered us with this story: I found myself riding behind a slow-moving pair of cyclists. Looking ahead, I saw a long line of dawdling cyclists in front of me. I was stuck. It was past midnight. What the hell were all these people doing out on their bikes?


pages: 304 words: 85,291

Cities: The First 6,000 Years by Monica L. Smith

Anthropocene, bread and circuses, classic study, clean water, diversified portfolio, failed state, financial innovation, gentrification, hiring and firing, invention of writing, Jane Jacobs, New Urbanism, payday loans, place-making, Ponzi scheme, SimCity, South China Sea, telemarketer, the built environment, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, the strength of weak ties, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, wikimedia commons

Carving the streets would have been accompanied by thoughts about the activities that took place there but couldn’t be fully represented in mere physical form, no doubt prompting the sculptor’s apprentice to let out a longing sigh or shake his head. Undaunted by the specter of incompleteness and the realities of instant obsolescence, we are still attached to physical urban plans today. London, Houston, and Manhattan, among other cities, have sprouted new, attractive maps set up in public places that serve as signposts throughout the towns and provide a tangible “you are here” moment. It’s interesting to watch visitors approach one of these maps as they compare the posted version with the paper map that they have in one hand and the smartphone map app that they have in another.

That’s not surprising given that water is one of the most undervalued commodities in the world today; at least in developed countries, we rarely have to worry about whether there is enough water or whether it is of good quality and safe to drink. And in parts of the world where water infrastructure is weak, there are enough work-arounds, like private delivery services, to address the slow slide of water from a freely available entity to one whose access is conditioned by wealth and class. Yet insights from our colleagues in urban planning help to address the many ways in which people get water in cities, enabling us to evaluate the ways that basic human needs came with a cost and were often loaded with social meaning, in ancient cities much as now. In the watery equivalent of the expansion of walls in Roman cities, the leaders of ancient Chinese cities grew networks of canals that reached across the countryside and led into the heart of urban settlements.

., Chapter 2. the walls themselves are visible: Graham Connah, “Contained Communities in Tropical Africa,” in City Walls: The Urban Enceinte in Global Perspective, ed. James D. Tracy (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 19–45; Jesse Casana and Jason T. Herrmann, “Settlement History and Urban Planning at Zincirli Höyük, Southern Turkey,” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23, no. 1 (2010): 55–80. Ishtar Gate of Babylon: Koldewey, Excavations at Babylon, 26–49. For the reconstruction, see Mirjam Brusius, “The Field in the Museum: Puzzling Out Babylon in Berlin.” Osiris (Journal of the History of Science Society, University of Chicago) 32(1) (2017), 264–85.


pages: 281 words: 86,657

The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City by Alan Ehrenhalt

anti-communist, back-to-the-city movement, big-box store, British Empire, crack epidemic, David Brooks, deindustrialization, Edward Glaeser, Frank Gehry, gentrification, haute cuisine, Honoré de Balzac, housing crisis, illegal immigration, Jane Jacobs, land bank, Lewis Mumford, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, McMansion, megaproject, messenger bag, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, Peter Calthorpe, postindustrial economy, Richard Florida, streetcar suburb, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, too big to fail, transit-oriented development, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, walkable city, white flight, working poor, young professional

Others will be in neighborhoods on the fringe of downtown, in close-in suburbs on the city border, or even in more distant suburbs trying to create an urban ambience of some sort. But the crucial component will be the desire for an atmosphere of urbanism, with the opportunity to walk between living space and commercial and recreational opportunities. Christopher Leinberger, the real estate developer and urban planning scholar, believes that a dramatic increase in middle-class central-city population will in fact take place throughout America, and today’s tract homes in the far suburbs will deteriorate into the slums of 2030. I don’t think this will happen, at least not in such extreme form; there simply are not enough lofts and townhouses to double or triple the number of people living in the center of most large American cities.

Nobody in local government predicted Clarendon’s comeback as a restaurant, nightclub, and condominium district. That would have seemed ludicrous as late as the mid-1990s. But even had someone on the county planning staff conceived such an idea, it’s difficult to see what they could have done to bring it about. The recent history of urban planning is dotted with examples of places that have created formal “entertainment districts,” and sometimes backed that decision up with generous subsidies to entrepreneurs. The number of proven long-term successes remains small. Clarendon, on the other hand, didn’t declare itself to be anything in particular.

Nelson, “The New Urbanity: The Rise of a New America,” Annals, American Academy of Political and Social Science, November 2009. 8 If you were part of the servant class: Frederic Morton, A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889 (New York: Penguin, 1980), p. 58. 9 “an endless succession of factory-town main streets”: A. J. Liebling, Chicago: The Second City (New York: Knopf, 1952), reprinted in Liebling at Home (New York: Wideview Books, 1982), p. 166. 10 Christopher Leinberger, the real estate developer and urban planning scholar: Christopher Leinberger, The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2008). CHAPTER ONE: A BACKWARD GLANCE 1 “If we are to achieve an urban renaissance”: Donald J. Olsen, The City as a Work of Art: London, Paris, Vienna (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), p. x. 2 “the nineteenth century invented modernity”: Jean-Christophe Bailly, Preface to François Loyer, Paris Nineteenth Century: Architecture and Urbanism (New York: Abbeville Press, 1988), p. 10. 3 “Apartment houses destroy private life”: Sharon Marcus, Apartment Stories: City and Home in Nineteenth-Century Paris and London (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 57. 4 “as soon as it awakes”: Alfred Delvau, Les Dessous de Paris, 1860, quoted ibid., p. 149. 5 “we find it tiresome”: Alfred Delvau, Histoire anecdotique des cafés et cabarets de Paris, 1862, quoted ibid., p. 148. 6 “the interior is going to die”: Comments by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, 1861, quoted ibid., p. 139. 7 “Gray does not have a good name”: Bailly, Preface to Loyer, Paris Nineteenth Century, p. 9. 8 “It is not an illumination but a fire”: Edmondo de Amicis, Studies of Paris, 1882, quoted in Norma Evenson, Paris: A Century of Change, 1878–1978 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 6. 9 “Everything is neat and fresh”: Ibid., p. 2. 10 “The sidewalks provided”: Evenson, Paris, p. 20. 11 “nothing can more thoroughly demoralize”: Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, quoted in Marcus, Apartment Stories, p. 160. 12 “Montmartre was to become the dynamo”: Nigel Gosling, quoted in Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization (New York: Pantheon, 1998), p. 230. 13 “The young artists”: Hall, Cities in Civilization, p. 237. 14 “the smells from the kitchen”: Fernande Olivier, Picasso and His Friends (New York: Appleton Century, 1965), quoted ibid., p. 227. 15 “the great ordering system”: James Howard Kunstler, The City in Mind: Meditations on the Urban Condition (New York: Free Press, 2002), p. 3. 16 “Second Empire Paris became”: Loyer, Paris Nineteenth Century, p. 232. 17 “For hours I could stand”: Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage, 1981), p. 46. 18 “the Minister-President or the richest magnate”: Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964), p. 15. 19 “The first glance”: Ibid., p. 14. 20 “It is a sort of democratic club”: Ibid., p. 39. 21 “dismal tenement landscape”: Frederic Morton, A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889 (New York: Penguin, 1980), p. 58. 22 “If the British empire was the most powerful”: Jonathan Schneer, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999), p.19. 23 “a true Londoner”: Ford Madox Ford, quoted in Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography (New York: Nan A.


pages: 296 words: 83,254

After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back by Juliet Schor, William Attwood-Charles, Mehmet Cansoy

1960s counterculture, Airbnb, algorithmic management, Amazon Mechanical Turk, American Legislative Exchange Council, back-to-the-land, barriers to entry, bike sharing, Californian Ideology, carbon footprint, clean tech, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, Community Supported Agriculture, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, deskilling, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, financial independence, future of work, gentrification, George Gilder, gig economy, global supply chain, global village, haute cuisine, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, jitney, job satisfaction, John Perry Barlow, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kevin Kelly, Lyft, Marshall McLuhan, Mason jar, mass incarceration, Mitch Kapor, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, peer-to-peer rental, Post-Keynesian economics, precariat, profit maximization, profit motive, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, rent gap, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ruby on Rails, selection bias, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Skype, smart cities, social distancing, Stewart Brand, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, technoutopianism, Telecommunications Act of 1996, The Nature of the Firm, the payments system, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, urban planning, wage slave, walking around money, Whole Earth Catalog, women in the workforce, working poor, Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

Wachsmuth, David, David Chaney, Danielle Kerrigan, Andrea Shillolo, and Robin Basalaev-Binder. 2018. “The High Cost of Short-Term Rentals in New York City.” Montreal: Urban Politics and Governance Research Group, School of Urban Planning, McGill University. Wachsmuth, David, Jennifer Combs, and Danielle Kerrigan. 2019. “The Impact of New Short-Term Rental Regulations on New York City.” Montreal: Urban Politics and Governance Research Group, School of Urban Planning, McGill University. www.sharebetter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Impact-of-New-STR-Regs-2019.pdf. Wachsmuth, David, and Alexander Weisler. 2018. “Airbnb and the Rent Gap: Gentrification through the Sharing Economy.”

Dillahunt, Ann Light, and Coye Cheshire. 2019. “Cooperativism and Human-Computer Interaction.” In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems—CHI EA ’19, 1–4. Glasgow, Scotland: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3311751. Ferreri, Mara, and Romola Sanyal. 2018. “Platform Economies and Urban Planning: Airbnb and Regulated Deregulation in London.” Urban Studies 55 (15): 3353–68. Ferré-Sadurni, Luis. 2018. “To Curb Illegal Airbnbs, New York City Wants to Collect Data on Hosts.” New York Times, June 26, 2018. Fischer, Claude S. 1992. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.


pages: 506 words: 133,134

The Lonely Century: How Isolation Imperils Our Future by Noreena Hertz

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Airbnb, airport security, algorithmic bias, Asian financial crisis, autism spectrum disorder, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, Broken windows theory, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, Cass Sunstein, centre right, conceptual framework, Copley Medal, coronavirus, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, dark matter, deindustrialization, Diane Coyle, digital divide, disinformation, Donald Trump, driverless car, emotional labour, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Fellow of the Royal Society, future of work, gender pay gap, gentrification, gig economy, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Greta Thunberg, happiness index / gross national happiness, housing crisis, illegal immigration, independent contractor, industrial robot, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jessica Bruder, job automation, job satisfaction, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kevin Roose, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, lockdown, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, move fast and break things, Network effects, new economy, Pepto Bismol, QWERTY keyboard, Ray Oldenburg, remote working, rent control, RFID, robo advisor, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, Second Machine Age, Shoshana Zuboff, side hustle, Silicon Valley, Skype, Snapchat, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, SoftBank, Steve Jobs, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, tech worker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Great Good Place, the long tail, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, Wall-E, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, WeWork, work culture , working poor, workplace surveillance

Yet it is essential that our current state of fear does not determine the shape our cities take in the long term and that future generations don’t pay a price for our contemporary ills. We may have built ourselves a lonely world, but now we have an opportunity to reset our thinking and our obligations to each other and build one with inclusion and community at its heart. Again, there are inspiring urban planning projects to learn from. Barcelona’s city government, for example, has embarked on an ambitious urban planning project to turn neighbourhoods into ‘superblocks’, areas in which vehicle through-traffic is banned and the space is reclaimed for free communal areas such as playgrounds, parks and open-air performance venues.49 The vision is that residents will no longer have to endure traffic noise or exhaust fumes, and neighbourhoods will become more hospitable to pedestrians and cyclists who may ‘loaf’, ‘loiter’ and ‘lurk’ to their hearts’ desire.

That sloping bus-shelter seat is not just inhospitable to ‘loiterers’, it also makes it a lot harder for the person with MS who uses a walking stick to take the bus to go shopping or meet friends. The Camden Bench that repels skateboarders also repels the elderly people who might in the past have spent a pleasant afternoon sitting in the sun, chatting with shopkeepers on their lunch breaks or passing children – those stalwart figures of community that urban-planning activist Jane Jacobs called our ‘eyes on the street’.25 In taking up the morally dubious task of protecting neighbourhoods from those deemed ‘undesirable’, hostile architecture denies us all shared spaces in which to sit together, hang out together, come together. It’s ironic that a strategy aimed to protect community may well do the very opposite.

As such they are less likely to retreat into buildings, away from the public realm, and more likely to engage with each other. Urbanites, having become accustomed during lockdown to living without the constant noise of city traffic and their air noticeably cleaner, may well have a significantly stronger appetite for this kind of urban planning now than they might have had in the past. For what recent events made clear, even to those city dwellers who might identify as citizens of nowhere, is the extent to which our wellbeing is determined by our local geography and neighbourhoods. Of course, the loneliness of the city cannot be fixed simply by what governments, architects, developers or city planners decide from on high.


pages: 340 words: 92,904

Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars by Samuel I. Schwartz

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, autonomous vehicles, bike sharing, car-free, City Beautiful movement, collaborative consumption, congestion charging, congestion pricing, crowdsourcing, desegregation, Donald Shoup, driverless car, Enrique Peñalosa, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, high-speed rail, if you build it, they will come, Induced demand, intermodal, invention of the wheel, lake wobegon effect, Lewis Mumford, Loma Prieta earthquake, longitudinal study, Lyft, Masdar, megacity, meta-analysis, moral hazard, Nate Silver, oil shock, parking minimums, Productivity paradox, Ralph Nader, rent control, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rosa Parks, scientific management, self-driving car, skinny streets, smart cities, smart grid, smart transportation, TED Talk, the built environment, the map is not the territory, transportation-network company, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, walkable city, Wall-E, white flight, white picket fence, Works Progress Administration, Yogi Berra, Zipcar

Though parking is a lot less flashy than automated electric trains, or interactive signs that help in finding routes, it’s hard to overstate its importance in building a successful multimodal transportation system or, for that matter, turning streets back into livable places. Back in 1997, Donald Shoup, then at the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA, wrote one of the most cited papers in the entire transportation literature, “The High Cost of Free Parking,” which demonstrated the flaws in setting minimum parking requirements for every land use—for every house, or store, or office building—based on peak demand. The problem with such minimal requirements is that the users of (almost) all such parking got all that parking at either zero cost or at well below the price they were willing to pay for it.

Basin-and-range geography made building a world-class regional transit system possible in Utah. It didn’t require it, though. That’s something Salt Lake City chose for itself. In 1997, after the city was picked to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, politicians, business leaders, and farmers’ associations from the four-county area surrounding Salt Lake recruited environmental and urban planning experts to host a series of public meetings that they named “Envision Utah.” The idea was to accommodate both the surge associated with the Olympics and the predicted long-term growth of the region, to do so in a way that preserved the natural environment that made it so attractive in the first place, and to keep Salt Lake City attractive to the next generation of transit-happy Millennials.

“Mass-Transit Magic: How America’s Fourth-Largest City Can Abandon Its Addiction to Cars.” Salon, May 25, 2014. Gray, Edward. American Experience: The World That Moses Built. Directed by Edward Gray. 1989. Green, Christine Godward, and Elizabeth G. Klein. “Promoting Active Transportation as a Partnership Between Urban Planning and Public Health: The Columbus Healthy Places Program.” Public Health Reports (Association of Schools of Public Health) 126, no. Supp 1 (2011): 41–49. Guevara, Carlos. “Bajar tasa de homicidios en Bogotá a un dígito es viable: expertos.” El Tiempo, January 8, 2013. Guevara-Stone, Laurie. “How Bogota Creates Social Equality Through Sustainable Transit.”


pages: 321 words: 89,109

The New Gold Rush: The Riches of Space Beckon! by Joseph N. Pelton

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Biosphere 2, Buckminster Fuller, business logic, Carrington event, Colonization of Mars, Dennis Tito, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, full employment, global pandemic, Google Earth, GPS: selective availability, gravity well, Iridium satellite, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Johannes Kepler, John von Neumann, life extension, low earth orbit, Lyft, Mark Shuttleworth, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, megastructure, new economy, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Planet Labs, post-industrial society, private spaceflight, Ray Kurzweil, Scaled Composites, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, skunkworks, space junk, SpaceShipOne, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Strategic Defense Initiative, Thomas Malthus, Tim Cook: Apple, Tunguska event, uber lyft, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, wikimedia commons, X Prize

Our survival within the next 100 years may depend on the creation of a new space-based economy that involves the mining of the Moon and asteroids, creating solar storm shields in space, and perhaps even embarking on other grand enterprises such as the colonization of the Solar System . These new space enterprises will likely involve the bringing of minerals and waters trapped in asteroids and other celestial bodies back to Earth as well as building a new global economy, largely based on renewable resources and entirely new concepts in urban planning and ecological engineering. It will also involve harnessing corporate enterprise and innovative thinking among the New Space entrepreneurs to allow all this innovation to occur rapidly and in a fair and equitable way so that the entire human race can feel they are a part of this post-industrial, New Space economy .

These sustainability rules are actually fairly simple: (1) Develop systems to sustain zero population growth at a level that sustains prosperity, regeneration of natural resource supply and potable water, clean energy supply, and genetic diversity. (2) Create living, working, recreation and culture standards in dense urban environments that achieves economic, energy, and transportation efficiency, and proximate food supply. This means avoiding super density where there is loss of community spirit and involvement. Such super density also creates major problems of response to natural or human-made disasters or terrorist attack. (3) Finally re-focus on new approaches to urban planning devoted to research to achieve more effective use of artificial intelligence and automation so as to create full employment. This new thrust would be toward achieving universal education, health care and employment systems geared to a sustainable world and coping with the global strife associated with cultural, racial, linguistic or social conflicts. 6.

Can we bend our economic, political, social and cultural wills to find a better way forward? We will have to work together as never before to put survival of the human species ahead of personal wealth. We will have to let smart machines help us find new solutions in education, health care, manufacturing, urban planning and even birth control to get us through the next five decades of incredible change. The absolute turmoil of these decisions is reflected in the stresses and strains that are showing up in the European Union, the presidential election in the United States and the economic upheavals being seen in China.


pages: 356 words: 97,794

The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories by Ilan Pappé

Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, facts on the ground, friendly fire, ghettoisation, low skilled workers, Mount Scopus, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, one-state solution, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Suez crisis 1956, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, urban planning, urban sprawl, Yom Kippur War

Apart from Jerusalem, where such control meant de jure annexation, in all other areas it was done through Judaization, primarily in the form of settling Jews, as soldiers or civilians, on Palestinian land. Jerusalem First In the typical Israeli way, the dramatic transformation of the urban and rural landscape of Jerusalem and its environs was depicted as urban planning. However, what began in 1967 and continues to this day is an ethnic cleansing operation based on land expropriation. Back in 1967 and 1968, this so-called urban planning was a military operation par excellence. It was therefore entrusted to the Chief of the Central Command, General Rehavam Ze’evi (who replaced Uzi Narkiss in the summer of 1968). This veteran of 1948 was nicknamed Gandhi, not for his peaceful policies – in every respect his philosophy was the exact opposite of the Mahatma’s – but due to his dark complexion.

This expansion soon covered the ancient hills of North and East Jerusalem with a new urban sprawl of modern housing dressed up here and there with orientalist façades that resembled the very houses demolished to build these new ‘neighbourhoods’. As Eyal Weizman elucidated so clearly in his book Hollow Land, the 1968 master plan for Jerusalem was committed to both a colonial and oriental heritage dating back to the British urban planning of 1917 – with two huge differences. The British redesign and beautification of the city was not done through the demolition of old houses and the eviction of the indigenous population, and did not involve covering Greater Jerusalem with the concrete monstrosities that characterize the new Jewish ‘neighbourhoods’.8 By 2005, 200,000 Jewish settlers lived in this area.


pages: 364 words: 102,225

Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi by Steve Inskeep

battle of ideas, British Empire, call centre, creative destruction, Edward Glaeser, European colonialism, illegal immigration, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Khyber Pass, Kibera, knowledge economy, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, McMansion, megacity, new economy, New Urbanism, urban planning, urban renewal

Los Angeles made almost anything that was wanted for a comfortable life in suburban cold war America: “furnaces, sliding doors, mechanical saws, shoes, bathing suits, underwear, china, furniture, cameras, hand tools, hospital equipment, scientific instruments, engineering services and hundreds of other things.” The city expanded as entrepreneurs produced all the things that were needed for a growing Los Angeles. Growth fed upon itself; a city grew because it grew. This was also an era of grand urban plans around the world. Whole sections of New York and Chicago were flattened to make room for towering redbrick housing projects. In Brazil, engineers and construction crews were in the midst of building a new national capital where no such city had existed before. Brasília would be inaugurated on April 21, 1960.

In Tokyo, which was flattened during World War II, planners saw a chance to erase the ancient and convoluted street grid and build what one scholar called “an entirely new urban form,” with a series of dense downtowns “nestled against a background of green space, green corridors and broad tree-lined boulevards.” It didn’t happen. American bombs destroyed buildings, but didn’t destroy the claims of property owners, who resisted giving up their land. It was quicker and easier to build along the old streets. A glance at history might have shown this would happen; the world’s most famous example of urban planning, Sir Christopher Wren’s redesign of central London after a great fire in 1666, was never put in place. Landowners rebuilt on the same properties as before. So it was with Tokyo: partly planned but also partly organic, it was swiftly growing into the largest city on earth. This was the historic moment in which Pakistan’s new ruler Mohammad Ayub Khan plunged his ceremonial shovel into the earth in December 1958.

I know who you are,” he said, begging the man to skip the introductory slides. “Please. I know everything. Show us the place where you’re sitting right now, and how is it going to be tomorrow.” As I rode with him from stop to stop, I was aware that the mayor’s construction projects drew criticism from urban planning professionals. His flyovers, they said, were merely doing what new roads have done the world over: they encouraged more traffic, and shifted tie-ups to new locations instead of addressing the fundamental problems of a city that was growing overly dependent on cars. (By 2007 the city’s auto fleet was increasing by an average of 545 cars per day, about two hundred thousand additional cars in a single year.)


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Inheritance by Leo Hollis

British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, coronavirus, Fellow of the Royal Society, forensic accounting, high net worth, housing crisis, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jeremy Corbyn, joint-stock company, Kickstarter, land bank, Leo Hollis, lockdown, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, place-making, side hustle, social distancing, South Sea Bubble, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, urban planning

The group was made up of two surveyors selected by the king, Roger Pratt, the architect of Clarendon House, and the scientist Christopher Wren, who had recently shown some interest in design; and two on behalf of the city, Peter Mills and Robert Hooke. The commission visited the damaged sites and started to consider some general principles that might determine the future for the metropolis. The commissioners devised the rudiments of what became the February 1667 Rebuilding Act, the very first set of urban planning regulations in British history. The first rule stated that no street should be so narrow that flames could jump from one side to another, also allowing for a cart or carriage to pass without hindrance. There was also a systematic programme for street widening, according to four types. In addition, there were to be four types of standardised housing.

There was one raised area, called Oliver’s Mount, which was one of the last examples of the defensive earthworks constructed by the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. The map itself represents an urban scheme of a series of nested squares and rectangles clustered around the central ‘grand place’. There are no details apart from the street names, the oval garden within the square, and a chapel to the south.12 It was Georgian urban planning by the book. Efforts were made to link the estate with its neighbours, integrating the new project with the rest of the city. Brook Street continued over the border from the Hanover Estate, while Grosvenor Street was planned to align with St George’s classical façade. Less successful was the confused junction with the Berkeley estate to the south, which turned into Berkeley Square a few decades later, and still causes traffic problems today.

A. 137–8 Hubert, Robert 55 Huguenots 48 Hyde Manor (London) 31 Hyde Park (London) 66–7 Innocent XII, Pope 152, 153 insane, see madness Ireland 23, 74, 75, 100, 102 Ireton, Henry 185 Jacobites 148, 149, 150, 151, 189 and rebellion 229, 230, 231, 249 Jacobs, Jane 257 James I of England, King 20, 21, 22, 36, 48 James II of England, King 2, 72, 73, 101, 108, 109–11 and Catholic Church 153 and death 178 and the law 188 and Paris 148, 149–50 and Rye House Plot 116 James Francis Edward Stuart 150, 178, 230, 249 James, John 232 Jenkins, Simon 8, 259 Landlords to London 252 Jennings, Will 146, 152, 198 Jerman, Edward 69 Jermyn, Henry 68, 115 Jones, Inigo 67, 82, 92 Jonson, Ben 14 Kensington (London) 10, 55 Kent, William 235 Kip, Johannes and Knyff, Leonard: Britannia Illustrata 225–6, 227 Lammas Ground 19 land 7, 8, 10–11, 138, 258–60 and America 77–8 and aristocracy 252–3 and Audley 21 and common 18–19 and compound fine 23–4 and control 16–18 and Davies 32–3 and Grosvenors 112–13 and London 113–14, 115–16 and suburbs 68, 69 and women 45–7 see also property law, the 17, 18, 209–10, 212–14 and women 45, 46, 90 Lawe’s Resolutions of Women’s Rights, The 90 Le Brun, Charles 149 Le Cleve, Thomas 178 Le Vau, Louis 149 Leicester Square (London) 30 Lely, Sir Peter 83–4, 147 Leoni, Giacomo 235 Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor 150 Lewis, Mr 4–5, 164–5 Lilly, William 35 Lincoln’s Inn Fields (London) 34, 35 Livingston, Elizabeth 91 Lloyd, Nathaniel 171, 172 Locke, John 255 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 62 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina 77–8 Lockwood, Marie 25 Lodge, Tom 146, 154, 155–6, 163–4, 165 and trial 199–200, 204 Londinum London (map) 28, 29 London 6–8, 10–11, 65–70 and anti-Catholicism 102 and Audley 15–16 and Barbon 117–19 and Bloomsbury 115–17 and Burlington Estate 234–5 and Davies 32–4 and Evelyn 29–30 and expansion 113–14, 115–16, 231–2 and Great Fire 50–8 and Grosvenor Estate 235–8, 240–7, 256–8 and housing 119–20 and maps 27–9, 30–2 and Mayfair 251–2 and ownership 252–4 and Pepys 13–14 and plague 36–43, 47 and property prices 259 and South Sea Bubble 238, 240 and speculators 121–3 and squares 232–3 Louis XIV of France, King 148, 149, 150, 151, 178 Luttrell, Narcissus 206 Lyon 155–6, 176, 177 Macclesfield, Earl of 105 Mackay, John 239, 240 Macky, John: Journey through England 235 Mad House Act (1774) 217, 221 Maddison, Charles 138, 139, 198 madness 132–3, 134–8, 216–18, 220–1 Magna Carta 17 Mainwaringe, Dr Everard 32 Manchester, Lady 150 Mandeville, Geoffrey de 22 Manor of Ebury (Westminster) 9, 10, 19, 31–2, 48, 56 and Audley 21, 22, 26–7 and Fenwick 181–2, 208 and Grosvenor, Dame Mary 123–4 and Grosvenor, Richard 222 and Parliament 229–30 and tenants 173–4, 211–12 maps 27–9, 30–2, 97, 157, 239, 240 Market Meadows 32, 33, 35, 44 Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of 108 marriage 70–2, 76, 90–1, 209, 213–14 Marriage Acts: 1653: 70 1753: 214 Mary II of England, Queen 111, 131 Massey, Edward 100, 103 Massey, William 103, 104, 106 May, Hugh 73–4, 82 May Fair 114–15 Mayfair (London) 8, 10, 251–2 melancholy 135–7 Mercator, Nicholas 82 Middleton, George 171, 172, 173, 176–7, 178–9, 180 and imprisonment 191 Miège, Guy 232 Millbank (London) 5, 28, 29, 40, 44, 235–6 and Great Fire 55 Miller, Tom 146, 152, 154, 155, 167, 213 and Hôtel Castile 161, 162, 165 and trial 192, 195, 199–200, 204 Mills, Peter 57 Misson, Henri 141, 142 Monbiot, George 260 moneylending 15–16 Monmouth, James, Duke of 104–5, 108, 109 Monument (London) 69, 102 Moore, Francis 150 More, Thomas: Utopia 19 Morris, Dr 62–4 Myddleton, Sir Richard 143, 221, 237–8 Myddleton, Robert 248 Myddleton, Thomas 85 Neate House (London) 31, 32 neoclassicism 226, 234, 244 New World, see America Newton, Sir Isaac 238 Nicholls, Dr John 138, 167, 197 Nicolson, William 212 Norman Conquest 16, 22, 79 North, Roger 118 Oates, Titus 101, 102, 185 Orton, John 181–2, 183, 208 Osbourne, Thomas 40 Oxford 23, 39 Oxford, Edward Harley, Earl of 238 Palladio, Andrea 226 Panton, Thomas 30 Papists, see Catholic Church Paris 8, 148–50, 154–5; see also Hôtel Castile; Versailles Parliament 17, 18, 22–3, 24, 99 and churches 232 and James II 109–10 and land 48 and Manor of Ebury 229–30 and power 111 and property 78–9 Parry, Henry 177 Pepys, Samuel 13–14, 50, 66, 68, 73 and Great Fire 51, 52 Perrault, Claude 149 Peterborough, Earl of 34 Peterborough, Henry Mordaunt, Lord 72 Peterborough, Lady 168, 173 Peterborough House (London) 41, 168, 236 Pevet, Margaret 155 Philip V of Spain, King 150, 151, 167, 178 Phipps, Edward 181–2, 183, 208 Piccadilly (London) 30 Piggot, Mr 169, 170, 198, 230–1 Piketty, Thomas: Capital in the Twenty-First Century 259 Pimlico (London) 10 place-making 255–7 plague 36–43, 47 Plessington, John 103–4, 106 Poole, James 103 poor, the 18–19, 37, 40, 42 Powell, Sir John 212 Powys, Sir Thomas 189–90, 194, 197, 202–3 Pratt, Roger 57, 82 Certain Heads to be Largely Treated Concerning the Undertaking of Any Building 67 pregnancy 125–7 Price, Thomas 153–4 primogeniture 17, 247 Private Eye (magazine) 252 private property 8–9, 10–11, 24, 55–7, 259 property 16–18, 138, 117–20, 181–3, 225–6 and investment 258 and London 252–4 and marriage 71 and ownership 77–9 and women 45–7, 89 see also housing; private property Property Week (magazine) 253 Protestantism 107 psychiatry 132–3, 134–7, 216 public land 259–60 Purcell, Dr John 136 Qatar 253 Queen’s Bench 180–1, 182, 188 Queen’s House (London) 92–3 Questel, Robert 213 Radcliffe, Francis 4, 154, 164, 165, 213 and trial 180, 204 Raleigh, Sir Walter 185 Ralph, James 245 rape 201, 203 Rea, John 24, 27 Rebuilding Act (1667) 57 rentier capitalism 78 Restoration 24, 29, 44, 49 Ridley, Mrs 204 Rippon, William 133, 197 Roberts, Hugh 80–1 Rolfe, Samuel 69 Rome 144, 151, 152–5 Roxburghe, Duke of 233 Royal Exchange (London) 69 Royal Society 136 Royalists 24, 26, 47, 49, 72–3 and Chester 80 and Cromwell 23, 32 Rue Saint-Dominique, see Hôtel Castile Russell, Lady Rachel 116, 117, 215, 232 Russell, William, Lord 116 Rye House Plot 116 St James’s Park (London) 50 St James’s Square (London) 68 St Paul’s Cathedral (London) 13, 25, 69–70, 89 and Great Fire 53, 54, 55 Samwell, William 82–3, 92–3 sanitation 242 Scarborough, Richard Lumley, Earl of 232–3, 237 Schlarman, Julie 246 Second Anglo-Dutch War 50 Sedgemoor, Battle of (1685) 108 Selby, Mrs 146, 152, 154, 167, 213 and Hôtel Castile 159, 160, 161–2, 163–4, 165 and trial 192–5, 199–200, 204, 205 Shaftesbury, Earl of 77, 101, 109–10 Shakespeare, William 70 Shepherd, Edward 245 Sherrington, Grace 63 Shireburn, Sir Richard 102 Showalter, Elaine 137 Shrewsbury, Earl of 124 Simmons, John 244–5 slavery 108, 188–9, 238 Sloane, Daniel 191, 194, 203 Smith, Judge John 212 South Sea Bubble 238, 240 Spain 150–1 Spanish Succession, War of the 178, 231 Sprat, Thomas 212 squares 232–3, 240–7 Stanley, Rowland 103 Stawker, Robert 33, 34 Strype, John 116–17, 123–4 Stukeley, Dr William 136 suburbs 38, 56, 68, 69, 119 Summerson, Sir John 245 Sydenham, Thomas 37 syndicates 121–3 Taswell, William 50, 52–3, 54 Tate, Francis 141 Temple, Sir William 71, 75 Test Act (1678) 101, 103 Thomas, Cadogan 122, 123 Thornton, Alice 127–8 Tonkin Liu 257 trade 13–14, 16, 100, 113 Tregonwell, John (stepfather) 47–8, 49–50, 64, 74, 78–9, 85 Tregonwell, Mary (mother) 6, 43–5, 47–8, 169, 180, 222 and daughter 144, 145, 166–7, 168, 218–19 and death 236 and Manor of Ebury 123–4 and motherhood 59–61, 63, 64, 70, 71 Trelawney, Charles 124 Trial of the Seven Bishops, The (Herbert) 187, 188 true mile 18 Turnour, Mr 139, 146, 147, 191–2 Turnour, Mrs 129–30, 139, 145, 147, 151 and trial 174, 189 urban planning 57 usury 15–16 Utrecht, Treaty of (1713) 231 Versailles 82, 149, 150, 151 Vincent, Thomas 37, 52, 53 Vitruvius Britannicus (Campbell) 234 Ward, Sir Edward 212 Ward, Ned 65–6 Watts, William 35 wealth 252 Weights and Measures Act (1593) 18 West End (London) 115–16 Westminster, Dukes of 10, 249 Westminster Abbey (London) 22, 32 Westminster Diocese 170–1 Westminster Hall (London) 5–6, 184–8 Whigs 101, 105, 109–10, 124 widows 43, 44–5 William II of England, King 185–6 William III of England, King 111, 131, 150, 153, 178 Willis, Thomas 136–7 women 43, 44–7, 88–9 and childbirth 125–9 and education 63–4 and Grosvenor Estate 246–7 and marriage 71, 90–1 and mental health 137–8, 217 and religion 106–7 Wood, Ellen Meiksins 19–20 Wood, Ralph 19 Worcester, Battle of (1651) 32 Wren, Christopher 56, 57, 68, 69–70 Wright, Nathan 173 Wyndham, Jane 229 Wyndham, William 229, 230 Wynne Rees, Peter 254 York, James, Duke of, see James II of England, King York, Robert 191 A Oneworld Book First published by Oneworld Publications in 2021 This ebook published 2021 Copyright © Leo Hollis 2021 The moral right of Leo Hollis to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved Copyright under Berne Convention A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-78607-995-4 eISBN 978-1-78607-996-1 Illustration credits: All images author’s own or Creative Commons unless otherwise stated.


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Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America by Conor Dougherty

Airbnb, bank run, basic income, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, big-box store, business logic, California gold rush, carbon footprint, commoditize, death of newspapers, desegregation, do-ocracy, don't be evil, Donald Trump, edge city, Edward Glaeser, El Camino Real, emotional labour, fixed income, fixed-gear, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, Google bus, Haight Ashbury, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, Joan Didion, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, mass immigration, new economy, New Urbanism, passive income, Paul Buchheit, Peter Thiel, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, self-driving car, sharing economy, side hustle, side project, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, software is eating the world, South of Market, San Francisco, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, vertical integration, white flight, winner-take-all economy, working poor, Y Combinator, Yom Kippur War, young professional

And even if you do stoke their outrage, how do you change policy when most of those people can’t vote in the place that is refusing to build housing for them? The first time someone asked those questions, at least the first time housing economists remember someone asking those questions, was in a 1979 book called The Environmental Protection Hustle. The author was an MIT urban planning professor named Bernard Frieden who had done his research during a one-year residency at UC Berkeley. Frieden wrote in the preface that he had gone west with the intention of writing a book about things the federal government could do to improve housing affordability for young families, and upon arriving in California and encountering the Bay Area’s rampant and toxic NIMBYism, had decided to change course and write about local housing policy instead.

What this amounted to was an argument between one set of studies that said zoning was a hugely important thing making America less equal, along with a bunch of caveats about how income inequality was also important, and a batch of separate studies that said the bifurcation of the economy was making America less equal, along with a bunch of caveats about how the lack of housing was also important. Either way, as housing became an ever-hotter topic, seemingly each new speech and study was amplified by Twitter, newspapers, and the extended urban planning blogosphere, before migrating to more official channels. In late 2015, Jason Furman, chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, gave a speech titled “Barriers to Shared Growth” and cited exclusionary zoning as a growing cause of inequality. The following year President Obama himself called out land use and zoning in a speech to the U.S.

But there was nothing careful about 827, which was designed to be a headline grabber and only brought his opponents closer. Two of the bill’s fiercest critics were a Beverly Hills city councilman named John Mirisch and a South LA anti-gentrification activist named Damien Goodmon. Mirisch described 827 as “the urban planning lovechild of Vladimir Putin and the Koch Bros.” Goodmon called it war and referred to YIMBYs as colonizers. It was a common view among YIMBYs that NIMBYs from rich cities used the auspice of social justice to defend policies that kept wealthy neighborhoods low density and exclusive, and there seemed to be no better example of this than the curious alliance of Beverly Hills and South LA.


pages: 184 words: 53,625

Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age by Steven Johnson

Airbus A320, airport security, algorithmic trading, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, call centre, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Cass Sunstein, Charles Lindbergh, classic study, cognitive dissonance, credit crunch, crowdsourcing, dark matter, Dava Sobel, David Brooks, Donald Davies, Evgeny Morozov, Fairchild Semiconductor, future of journalism, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, hive mind, Howard Rheingold, HyperCard, Jane Jacobs, John Gruber, John Harrison: Longitude, Joi Ito, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, lone genius, Mark Zuckerberg, mega-rich, meta-analysis, Naomi Klein, Nate Silver, Occupy movement, packet switching, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, pre–internet, private spaceflight, radical decentralization, RAND corporation, risk tolerance, seminal paper, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, social graph, SpaceShipOne, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, systems thinking, techno-determinism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the long tail, Tim Cook: Apple, urban planning, US Airways Flight 1549, WikiLeaks, William Langewiesche, working poor, X Prize, Yochai Benkler, your tax dollars at work

But the bureaucracies and Hayekian bottlenecks of the central planners are tolerated as a kind of necessary evil. Even the political Left works within the assumption that the private sector drives change and progress; the public sector, at best, creates safety nets. Yet within a few months of Jacobs’s launching her first volley against the titans of urban planning, a young researcher across the country was sketching a diagram that would ultimately find a way around Hayek’s bottleneck. — In the mid-1950s, a Polish-born engineer named Paul Baran took a job at Hughes Aircraft while working on his graduate degree in engineering through night classes at UCLA.

The sports fans would cluster together, as would the anti-traffic constituency. Local business owners would petition their patrons to transfer their votes to them. If you followed the debate closely, you’d be free to vote directly on the stadium. But if you were busy with other priorities, you could pass your vote along to your friend who is obsessed with urban-planning issues. In fact, your friend might have a standing proxy from you for all urban-development votes—while another friend might represent you on any education initiatives, and another on fiscal reform. The interesting thing about liquid democracies is that we already use this proxy strategy in our more casual lifestyle decisions.


pages: 211 words: 55,075

Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life by David Sim

A Pattern Language, active transport: walking or cycling, anti-fragile, autonomous vehicles, car-free, carbon footprint, Jane Jacobs, megaproject, megastructure, New Urbanism, place-making, smart cities, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the market place, transit-oriented development, urban planning, urban renewal, walkable city

It was in conversation with Professor Toshio Kitahara, the translator of Jan Gehl’s books to Japanese, that the term soft city was identified. Professor Kitahara remarked on my frequent combination of these seemingly contradictory words. Soft city is about moving closer getting together, connecting people to one another and to all of the aspects of life around them. For decades, so much of urban planning has been focused on devising ways to reorganize human activity into distinct silos, to separate people and things and, by so doing, reduce the risk of conflict. I would like, instead, to focus on how potentially conflicting aspects of everyday existence can be brought together and connected to deliver better quality of life.

Rather than finding ways of affording and accommodating more things into our lives, we might instead consider solutions to give us better ways of spending our precious time, lightening our load in life rather than burdening it, and helping change the daily stresses and conflicts of working, raising children, staying fit, shopping, running a home, and dealing with neighbors into everyday pleasures. Perhaps the biggest challenge to living well is the physical separation of the different components of everyday life. Urban planning in the second half of the twentieth century hasn’t helped this, separating and spreading different activities. It is hard to live locally when so many of the things we need and want are so spread out. The detached suburban house, the industrial estate, the out-of-town shopping center, the office park, the educational campus are all in different places.


The Rough Guide to New York City by Martin Dunford

Anton Chekhov, Berlin Wall, Bonfire of the Vanities, Buckminster Fuller, buttonwood tree, car-free, Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, clean water, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, David Sedaris, desegregation, Donald Trump, East Village, Edward Thorp, Elisha Otis, Exxon Valdez, Frank Gehry, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, machine readable, market bubble, Michael Milken, Multics, Norman Mailer, paper trading, post-work, rent stabilization, retail therapy, Saturday Night Live, subprime mortgage crisis, sustainable-tourism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, transcontinental railway, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, white flight, Yogi Berra, young professional

Halloween Parade Page 421 • One of the more inventive and outrageous of New York’s many annual parades. 03 | AC TIVITIE S | CONSUM E | E V E NTS | NATURE | S I GHTS | 12 Grand Central Terminal Page 133 • Take a free Wednesday lunchtime tour of this magnificent building to learn the history of the station’s majestic concourse. 02 Central Park Page 152 • The world’s most iconic swathe of green: take a boat ride, watch Shakespeare in the Park, or enjoy a Conservatory Garden picnic after a morning spent in a museum. 04 Statue of Liberty Page 44 • There’s no greater symbol of the American dream than the magnificent statue that graces New York Harbor. 05 Brooklyn Bridge Page 69 • Take the less-than-a-mile walk across the bridge to see beautiful views of the downtown skyline and the Harbor Islands. Rockefeller Center Page 128 • If anywhere can truly claim to be the center of New York, this elegant piece of twentieth-century urban planning is it. 07 Live music Page 352 • New York’s music scene is legendary, and it’s undergoing a renaissance: catch anything from garage punk and electro to Afrobeat and jazz. 08 | AC TIVITIE S | CONSUM E | E V E NTS | NATURE | S I GHTS | 06 13 Staten Island Ferry Page 58 • Savor Manhattan’s skyline and the Statue of Liberty from a boat’s-eye view–absolutely free. 09 | AC TIVITIE S | CONSUM E | E V E NTS | NATURE | S I GHTS | 10 14 Metropolitan Museum of Art Page 161 • You could easily spend a whole day at the Met, exploring everything from Egyptian artifacts to modern masters.

.& "4 45 " &3: & - *; 3& & :45 00 ." 45 5)4 53& &5 $ ) 4 5 "#&5 &5 $)3 #3 5 &/ (4 3& % 3 , 3*/ 41 45 5) 5 THE L OWE R E AS T S I DE $& 5)4 53& '*3 '7 #08 4PIP -*55-& *5"-: 3*/ &"4 5 '0- 5 4 5 .05 &BTU7JMMBHF 5)&-08&3 &"454*%& 1 &"4 $PSMFBST )PPL1BSL 3&45"63"/54$"'²4 $POHFF7JMMBHF %PVHIOVU1MBOU &M$JCBP *M-BCPSBUPSJPEFM(FMBUP ,BU[}T%FMJ ,PTTBST 5IF1JDLMF(VZT 3VTT%BVHIUFST 4BNNZ}T3PVNBOJBO4UFBLIPVTF 4DIJMMFS}T-JRVPS#BS 4IPQTJOT&TTFY4U.BSLFU 4UBOUPO4PDJBM 5FBOZ 7BOFTTB}T%VNQMJOHT 8% :POBI4DIJNNFM}T #"34 #BDL3PPN #BSSBNVOEJ #BSSJP$IJOP %FMBODFZ-PVOHF )BQQZ&OEJOH-PVOHF ,JOH4J[F#BS ,VTI -JCBUJPO .BHJDJBO .BY'JTI 3PDLXPPE.VTJD)BMM and life expectancy low: in 1875, the infant mortality rate was forty percent, mainly due to cholera. It was conditions like these that spurred reformers like Jacob Riis and Stephen Crane to record the plight of the city’s immigrants in writing and photographs, thereby spawning not only a whole school of journalism but also some notable changes in urban planning. The Chinese and Dominicans moved into the area in the 1980s, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that the Lower East Side saw high-end development when Retro clubs, chic bars, gourmet restaurants, and unique boutiques sprouted up all over. Things have mellowed a bit since then, with the more bleeding-edge cool-seekers having decamped for less well-trammeled parts of Brooklyn.

Ironically, two of the most impressive structures in the city – the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire State Building (1931) – went up just after the 1929 Wall Street Crash. The Rockefeller Center complex, which was worked on throughout the 1930s, is perhaps the apogee of this selfcontained urban planning. Looming over the center, the GE Tower marks the zenith of Art Deco style in New York. The 1950s and 1960s saw the Modernist style further refined with the arrival of European architectural movements like Bauhaus and Le Corbusier, whose mantra of form following function influenced the glass-curtain-wall buildings of Mies van der Rohe: the United Nations Complex (1950), Lever House (1952), and the Seagram Building (1958), all in Midtown East.


pages: 1,797 words: 390,698

Power at Ground Zero: Politics, Money, and the Remaking of Lower Manhattan by Lynne B. Sagalyn

affirmative action, airport security, Bear Stearns, Bonfire of the Vanities, clean water, conceptual framework, congestion pricing, corporate governance, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, estate planning, financial engineering, Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao, high net worth, high-speed rail, informal economy, intermodal, iterative process, Jane Jacobs, megaproject, mortgage debt, New Urbanism, place-making, rent control, Rosa Parks, Rubik’s Cube, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, the built environment, the High Line, time value of money, too big to fail, Torches of Freedom, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, value engineering, white flight, young professional

FIGURE 6.4 The players at Ground Zero, April 12, 2002: Joseph Seymour, executive director, Port Authority; Peter Kalikow, chairman, Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Marilyn Jordan Taylor and David Childs, architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; John Whitehead, chairman, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; Monica Iken, founder, September’s Mission; Madelyn Wils, chair, Community Board 1; Larry Silverstein, developer; Robert Yaro, president, Regional Plan Association. Martin Schoeller/August In appointing Burden to chair the City Planning Commission, Mayor Bloomberg chose a top urban planning professional, an established New Yorker known for her meticulous attention to detail and design and careful threading of planning politics. She had been a member of the Planning Commission for more than a decade. She held a graduate degree in urban planning from Columbia University and had managed planning and design for the Battery Park City Authority, where she oversaw the development and implementation of design guidelines for the ninety-two-acre site, as well as the design of all open spaces and parks.

That’s a very big issue,” said Westfield’s vice chairman.11 That configuration, however, was what the city and community groups had been advocating from the very beginning of the planning process as a means to enliven the street scene around the site. Consistent with his graduate education in urban planning, Seymour personally believed in the street-level retail concept. Street-facing retail was part and parcel of the plan to reinsert the street grid into the superblock, which Westfield also disfavored because, in its view, that too was not in the best interests of retail profitability. The high-grossing retail spaces underground at the original World Trade Center had generated average annual sales of $900 a square foot at the time of the attack, and Westfield was not confident that the current proposal for retail space would meet that benchmark.

The LMDC’s trusted and respected lawyer, Ira Millstein, had told the LMDC board that its mandate, at least on paper, was total planning control over the Trade Center site. Roland Betts, head of the site planning committee, asked himself how the LMDC could actually exercise this control given the fact that the Port Authority owned the site. When on its own the development corporation put out a request for proposals (RFP) for urban planning and transportation consulting services for the site and surrounding areas in April 2002, he found out: Port Authority officials “went crazy,” according to a source for the New York Observer; they were livid. “It’s our site,” PA executive director Seymour told the press; issuing the RFP was “premature.”


pages: 202 words: 59,883

Age of Context: Mobile, Sensors, Data and the Future of Privacy by Robert Scoble, Shel Israel

Albert Einstein, Apple II, augmented reality, call centre, Chelsea Manning, cloud computing, connected car, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Edward Thorp, Elon Musk, factory automation, Filter Bubble, G4S, gamification, Google Earth, Google Glasses, Internet of things, job automation, John Markoff, Kickstarter, lifelogging, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, Mars Rover, Menlo Park, Metcalfe’s law, New Urbanism, PageRank, pattern recognition, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Metcalfe, Salesforce, Saturday Night Live, self-driving car, sensor fusion, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart grid, social graph, speech recognition, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Tesla Model S, Tim Cook: Apple, TSMC, ubercab, urban planning, Zipcar

All sorts of municipal plans, records and urban modeling are being moved from locked vaults into the open cloud, where citizens can access far more than ever before and they can do it on mobile apps. Compare that with the traditional way of finding public information. Formerly, a citizen had to spend an afternoon entombed in the Hall of Records poring over blueprints, thick manila folders and microfilm. Now, new developments are built in 3D models, where anyone can see an urban plan as it will stand on the ground—and below it. Citizens can see how a new development will impact surrounding areas. They can understand how lowering an elevated stretch of highway into a tunnel will provide new open spaces and let formerly isolated neighborhoods connect and interact. Of course, physical models will still be put on display, but it’s much more convenient to view the renderings online whenever you want.

These predictive capabilities help first responders plan rescue operations. Educators can see where young families are moving and forecast when and where new schools will be needed. Retailers and healthcare professionals can see where new shops and offices are likely to flourish. These first-ever omnibus views of urban plans provide a path to better communications, collaboration and trust among government officials, contractors and constituents. History shows that relationships between these disparate groups have a great deal of room for improvement. We do not argue that 3D modeling is a panacea, but we do say that it creates a better platform and a more positive starting point.


Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", A Pattern Language, Alvin Toffler, AOL-Time Warner, augmented reality, barriers to entry, battle of ideas, Brewster Kahle, Burning Man, business climate, citizen journalism, computer vision, conceptual framework, creative destruction, Dennis Ritchie, digital divide, disinformation, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, experimental economics, experimental subject, Extropian, Free Software Foundation, Garrett Hardin, Hacker Ethic, Hedy Lamarr / George Antheil, Herman Kahn, history of Unix, hockey-stick growth, Howard Rheingold, invention of the telephone, inventory management, Ivan Sutherland, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Joi Ito, Joseph Schumpeter, Ken Thompson, Kevin Kelly, Lewis Mumford, Metcalfe's law, Metcalfe’s law, more computing power than Apollo, move 37, Multics, New Urbanism, Norbert Wiener, packet switching, PalmPilot, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer model, pez dispenser, planetary scale, pre–internet, prisoner's dilemma, radical decentralization, RAND corporation, recommendation engine, Renaissance Technologies, RFID, Richard Stallman, Robert Metcalfe, Robert X Cringely, Ronald Coase, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, seminal paper, SETI@home, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, skunkworks, slashdot, social intelligence, spectrum auction, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, the scientific method, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, ultimatum game, urban planning, web of trust, Whole Earth Review, Yochai Benkler, zero-sum game

One school of community design suggests looking for ways to enable people to use resources at hand to create different pathways, instead of trying to predesign their paths through the community.41 Virtual villages, in this view, create themselves. In Chapter 4 I look more closely at “digital cities” pervaded by sensors, beacons, computers, and communicators. Arena 2000 and HVV might be the earliest representatives of two opposite schools of virtual urban planning: the “grassroots, open system, emergent use” school and the “centrally planned, proprietary system, planned use” school. Finnish innovators have made significant contributions to Internet technology. Internet Relay Chat, the online social channel connecting countless real-time tribes, was invented in 1988 by Jarkko Oikarinen, a computer science student.

Professor Rafael sees the SMS-linked crowd that assembled in Manila as the manifestation of a phenomenon that was enabled by a technical infrastructure but that is best understood as a social instrument: The power of the crowd thus comes across in its capacity to overwhelm the physical constraints of urban planning in the same way that it tends to blur social distinctions by provoking a sense of estrangement. Its authority rests on its ability to promote restlessness and movement, thereby undermining the pressure from state technocrats, church authorities and corporate interests to regulate and contain such movements.

In this sense, the crowd is a sort of medium if by that word one means the means for gathering and transforming elements, objects, people and things. As a medium, the crowd is also the site for the generation of expectations and the circulation of messages. It is in this sense that we might also think of the crowd not merely as an effect of technological devices, but as a kind of technology itself. . . . Centralized urban planning and technologies of policing seek to routinize the sense of contingency generated in crowding. But at moments and in areas where such planning chronically fails, routine can at times give way to the epochal. At such moments, the crowd . . . takes on a kind of telecommunica-tive power, serving up channels for sending messages at a distance and bringing distances up close.


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City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco by Chester W. Hartman, Sarah Carnochan

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Bay Area Rapid Transit, benefit corporation, big-box store, business climate, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, housing crisis, illegal immigration, John Markoff, Loma Prieta earthquake, manufacturing employment, megaproject, new economy, New Urbanism, Peoples Temple, profit motive, Ralph Nader, rent control, rent stabilization, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco homelessness, Savings and loan crisis, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, strikebreaker, union organizing, urban planning, urban renewal, very high income, young professional

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution to this book provided by the General Endowment Fund of the Associates of the University of California Press. City for Sale OTHER BOOKS BY CHESTER HARTMAN Between Eminence and Notoriety: Four Decades of Radical Urban Planning Housing: Foundation of a New Social Agenda (with Rachel Bratt and Michael Stone) Challenges to Equality: Poverty and Race in America Double Exposure: Poverty and Race in America Paradigms Lost: The Post Cold War Era (with Pedro Vilanova) Housing Issues of the 1990s (with Sara Rosenberry) Winning America: Ideals and Leadership for the 1990s (with Marcus Raskin) Critical Perspectives on Housing (with Rachel Bratt and Ann Meyerson) The Transformation of San Francisco America’s Housing Crisis: What Is to Be Done?

In a Minneapolis study, for example, 70 to 80 percent of the displacees moved within a one-mile radius, and in a New Jersey study 74 percent of the displacees moved within six blocks. See Chester W. Hartman, “The Housing of Relocated Families,” Journal of the American Institute of Planners (November 1964), 266 – 86, reprinted in Chester Hartman, Between Eminence and Notoriety: Four Decades of Radical Urban Planning (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Center for Urban Policy Research, 2002), 74– 104. The Assault on South of Market / 55 The concern expressed at the public hearings about proper relocation was handled with similar pamphleteering. Several weeks before the January 1966 Planning Commission hearings on the YBC plan, the agency distributed to area residents a brochure headed, “Of course Urban Renewal wants you out, but into safe, decent, comfortable housing you can afford.”

Evelyn Nieves, “For Patrons of Prostitutes, Remedial Instruction,” New York Times, 18 March 1999. 11. “Pained by Quotas, Body Piercers Organize,” Washington Post, 17 January 1998. 12. R. B. Cohen, “The New International Division of Labor, Multinational Corporations and Urban Hierarchy,” in Urbanization and Urban Planning in 403 404 / Notes to Pages 3–7 Capitalist Society, ed. Michael Dear and Allen J. Scott (New York: Methuen, 1981), 303. 13. State of California, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, “Projections—June 1998,” “Occupational Employment Projections, 1995 –2002, San Francisco County,” table 6. 14.


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Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup by Andrew Zimbalist

airline deregulation, business cycle, carbon footprint, East Village, en.wikipedia.org, full employment, gentrification, Gini coefficient, income inequality, longitudinal study, megaproject, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, price elasticity of demand, principal–agent problem, race to the bottom, selection bias, Suez crisis 1956, urban planning, young professional

In Brazil, golf is exclusively the domain of the wealthy. Of Rio's two golf courses, neither is open to the public. Rather than preserving the natural beauty of the coastal land, the Olympics will yield a legacy of a third golf course for the city's elite. Christopher Gaffney, a mega-event and urban planning expert at Rio's Federal Fluminense University, concludes: “One of the few remaining areas of environmental protection in the Barra da Tijuca region has been appropriated by the government, opened up for toxic land use patterns and handed over to a private development firm for recreational and real-estate purposes.”22 In September 2014 a court in Rio de Janeiro ordered the local organizing body to make changes in their plans for the golf course.

The improvised revision of the city's master plan has been accompanied by an extensive list of executive decrees that have “flexibilized” urban space in order for Olympic related projects to occur. These measures have undermined Rio's fledgling democratic institutions and reduced public participation in urban planning processes.62 More growth or less? More equity or less? More democracy or less? Time will tell. London The 2012 London Olympic Games distinguished themselves in several ways. Most significant, the legacy planning was more detailed and more ambitious than in any previous Olympics. The central legacy goal was to rejuvenate five depressed boroughs in East London—Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, and Greenwich.


pages: 251 words: 63,630

The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends That Will Disrupt the World by Shaun Rein

business climate, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, facts on the ground, glass ceiling, high net worth, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income per capita, indoor plumbing, job-hopping, Maui Hawaii, middle-income trap, price stability, quantitative easing, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, Steve Jobs, thinkpad, trade route, trickle-down economics, upwardly mobile, urban planning, women in the workforce, young professional, zero-sum game

For instance, many street-level Chinese stores are ramshackle and do not have nice fittings. The reason? Shop owners do not want to waste money because they fear real estate redevelopment will force them to move. Brands that create a comfortable ambiance move to high-priced malls or recently developed zones. Once urban planning gets more settled, Chinese brands will spend more on nicer shopping environments. In the meantime, smart ones save their money. For instance, right now most Chinese buyers of luxury products like to do their shopping abroad. Recent initiatives to make Hainan Island a duty-free zone and to reduce tariffs on imported goods could change the luxury retail landscape overnight.

Key Action Item Company executives need to keep abreast of potential new regulations that could severely impact their businesses. If they do not, they could suddenly find that they have invested in the wrong sectors and locations. Real Estate Is Intentionally Ramshackle Many Westerners say Chinese real estate companies exhibit poor urban planning. A common complaint by visiting Westerners is that malls are not built attractively, or that parking lots are constructed in prime building locations, like on a riverside, while shopping complexes and restaurant zones are built across the street without good river views. Criticism like this does not survive basic analysis.


pages: 145 words: 40,897

Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps by Gabe Zichermann, Christopher Cunningham

airport security, business logic, future of work, game design, gamification, Ian Bogost, lateral thinking, minimum viable product, pattern recognition, power law, Ruby on Rails, SimCity, social graph, social web, systems thinking, urban planning, web application

is among the best-selling educational games of all time, and was popular among teachers, parents, and students alike. So, where in the world is the next big hit? Games aligning entertainment and education like Civilization and SimCity have taught millions of people history lessons and the basics of urban planning. These are not pedagogical games. They weren’t designed to be educational. But they use history and real city schema as a backdrop to explain ideas; thus, education becomes a byproduct of fun. This is precisely the opposite of what has happened to educational software. In fact, once teachers and parents got involved, they systematically extracted the fun from the game.

Surprise and Unexpected Delight United Airlines, frequent-flyer program, Beating the Boss Level university levels, Enduring leveling systems update_attribute method, user object, Extending the User Model to Scores and Levels update_info URL endpoint (Badgeville), Step 4: Register and Track Players update_score_and_level method, user object, Extending the User Model to Scores and Levels urban planning game (SimCity), Fun Is Job #1 user activity, displaying, Step 8: Displaying Rewards User model, Adding Scores and Levels to the User Model, Awarding bonus points for replying to posts, Awarding a login bonus, Awarding a login bonus, Awarding a login bonus, Badges, Awarding the First Badge, Optimizing Leaderboard Output, Optimizing Leaderboard Output, Listing the Badges That a Player Has Not Yet Earned adding scores and levels to, Adding Scores and Levels to the User Model after_create award_signup_bonus private method, Awarding bonus points for replying to posts awarding first badge, Awarding the First Badge award_badge model, Badges award_login_bonus method, Awarding a login bonus Controller#index method, Optimizing Leaderboard Output last_login_bonus_awarded_at attribute, Awarding a login bonus named scope on, Optimizing Leaderboard Output seen!


The Origins of the Urban Crisis by Sugrue, Thomas J.

affirmative action, business climate, classic study, collective bargaining, correlation coefficient, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, deindustrialization, desegregation, Detroit bankruptcy, Ford paid five dollars a day, gentrification, George Gilder, ghettoisation, Gunnar Myrdal, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, indoor plumbing, informal economy, invisible hand, job automation, jobless men, Joseph Schumpeter, labor-force participation, low-wage service sector, manufacturing employment, mass incarceration, military-industrial complex, New Urbanism, oil shock, pink-collar, postindustrial economy, Quicken Loans, rent control, restrictive zoning, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, side project, Silicon Valley, strikebreaker, technological determinism, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Chicago School, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, white flight, working-age population, Works Progress Administration

Over a two- year period, the nonprofit group that prepared the report held community meetings, conducted interviews with city residents, set up a hotline, and appeared at community markets and neighborhood events to get suggestions. The Detroit Future Cityreport reflected city planners’ emphasis on the need for density and infrastructure development. Still, its emphasis on quality of life issues, including improving housing, creating jobs, and improving city services, suggest a starting point for urban planning from the neighborhoods in, rather than from the downtown out. The Kresge Foundation, one of the region’s largest, pledged $150 million to help implement the report’s recommendations. Forthe first stages, the goals seem modest: shoring up neighborhoods that still have some density, demolishing buildings that detract from those neighborhoods, and planning improvements to city’s transportation infrastructure, including a light rail line along Woodward Avenue.

On federal policy and race, see Jill Quadagno, The Color of Welfare (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); on urban policy, see Kenneth T. Jackson, “Race, Ethnicity, and Real Estate Appraisal: The Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration,” Journal of Urban History 6 (1980): 419–52; John Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920–1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987); Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 212–75; for an overview, see Raymond A. Mohl, “Shifting Patterns of American Urban Policy Since 1900,” in Hirsch and Mohl, Urban Policy in Twentieth-Century America, 1–45. 19.

Orum, and Gideon Sjoberg, The Case for the Case Study (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991). 22. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, and “Massive Resistance in the Urban North: Chicago’s Trumbull Park, 1953–1966,” Journal of American History 82 (1995): 522–50; Cumbler, A Social History of Economic Decline, 153; John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920–1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987); Charles E Casey-Leininger, “Making the Second Ghetto in Cincinnati: Avondale, 1925–1970,” in Race and the City: Work, Community, and Protest in Cincinnati, 1820–1970, ed. Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 239–40, 247–48. 23.


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To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism by Evgeny Morozov

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, algorithmic bias, algorithmic trading, Amazon Mechanical Turk, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrew Keen, augmented reality, Automated Insights, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, big data - Walmart - Pop Tarts, Buckminster Fuller, call centre, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, citizen journalism, classic study, cloud computing, cognitive bias, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data acquisition, Dava Sobel, digital divide, disintermediation, Donald Shoup, driverless car, East Village, en.wikipedia.org, Evgeny Morozov, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Filter Bubble, Firefox, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, frictionless, future of journalism, game design, gamification, Gary Taubes, Google Glasses, Ian Bogost, illegal immigration, income inequality, invention of the printing press, Jane Jacobs, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, Julian Assange, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, license plate recognition, lifelogging, lolcat, lone genius, Louis Pasteur, machine readable, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, moral panic, Narrative Science, Nelson Mandela, Nicholas Carr, packet switching, PageRank, Parag Khanna, Paul Graham, peer-to-peer, Peter Singer: altruism, Peter Thiel, pets.com, placebo effect, pre–internet, public intellectual, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, Richard Thaler, Ronald Coase, Rosa Parks, self-driving car, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Slavoj Žižek, smart meter, social graph, social web, stakhanovite, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stuxnet, surveillance capitalism, systems thinking, technoutopianism, TED Talk, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the medium is the message, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas L Friedman, transaction costs, Twitter Arab Spring, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, Vannevar Bush, warehouse robotics, WikiLeaks, work culture , Yochai Benkler

—this quest is likely to have unexpected consequences that could eventually cause more damage than the problems they seek to address. I call the ideology that legitimizes and sanctions such aspirations “solutionism.” I borrow this unabashedly pejorative term from the world of architecture and urban planning, where it has come to refer to an unhealthy preoccupation with sexy, monumental, and narrow-minded solutions—the kind of stuff that wows audiences at TED Conferences—to problems that are extremely complex, fluid, and contentious. These are the kinds of problems that, on careful examination, do not have to be defined in the singular and all-encompassing ways that “solutionists” have defined them; what’s contentious, then, is not their proposed solution but their very definition of the problem itself.

The paradox is that, while technocracy itself is an ideology, most technocrats try their best to distance themselves from any insinuation that they might be driven by anything other than pragmatism and the pursuit of efficiency. Unfortunately, Crick’s attack on technological thinking has received less attention than several other similar attacks by his contemporaries: Jane Jacobs’s attack on unimaginative urban planning, Isaiah Berlin’s attack on “procrusteanism,” Friedrich Hayek’s attack on central planning, Karl Popper’s attack on historicism, and Michael Oakeshott’s attack on rationalism come to mind. Most of these important critiques of the arrogance and self-conceit of the planner and the reformer are united by a common theme: something about the experience of living in the polis with other human beings is essentially irreducible to formulaic expression and optimization techniques.

Second, a driver would have no way to overstay the posted time limit by paying several times: the sensors would identify each car and, once the permitted time was up, tell the meter not to accept further payments. Many would welcome even these two changes. Why not block those who want to trick the system and overstay the limit? After all, free parking is anything but free. As Donald Shoup, professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, shows in his The High Cost of Free Parking, if people paid the fair market price for parking, they might drive less, and the perpetually cash-deprived cities might raise more money too. Seems like a win-win. But ought we to consider other aspects of the Santa Monica initiative?


pages: 735 words: 165,375

The Survival of the City: Human Flourishing in an Age of Isolation by Edward Glaeser, David Cutler

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, Alvin Toffler, Andrei Shleifer, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, British Empire, business cycle, buttonwood tree, call centre, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, Columbian Exchange, contact tracing, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, coronavirus, COVID-19, crack epidemic, defund the police, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, discovery of penicillin, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Elisha Otis, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, future of work, Future Shock, gentrification, George Floyd, germ theory of disease, global pandemic, global village, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, Honoré de Balzac, income inequality, industrial cluster, James Hargreaves, Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, job automation, jobless men, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Snow's cholera map, knowledge worker, lockdown, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, mass incarceration, Maui Hawaii, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, new economy, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, out of africa, place-making, precautionary principle, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, remote working, Richard Florida, Salesforce, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, social distancing, Socratic dialogue, spinning jenny, superstar cities, Tax Reform Act of 1986, tech baron, TED Talk, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, trade route, union organizing, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, working poor, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game, zoonotic diseases

Horses provided transportation. Dairies and piggeries were ubiquitous. The poor kept free-ranging sheep and goats for food and sustenance. For many urban health advocates, the fight to control animals was as important as the fight for clean water. Catherine Brinkley and Domenic Vitiello, two scholars of urban planning at the University of Pennsylvania, write that “boards of health were created first and foremost to regulate animal agriculture, and most of their work across the nineteenth century involved policing animals.” Philadelphia passed a law in 1705 that tried to restrict the roaming of stray cattle and hogs, but a century later, the pigs were still freely eating their way through the streets of the City of Brotherly Love.

As Jane Jacobs would warn twenty years later, replacing dense slums with new projects often transformed functional, if gritty, urban spaces into crime-ridden no-man’s-lands. These projects have had their share of fire bombings, but the magnificent murals that adorn their walls remind us that urban creativity can survive even postwar urban planning. The federal government’s largest investments in Boyle Heights were highways that sliced through the neighborhood and polluted its air. Constructing the interstate highway system was uncontroversial and relatively inexpensive in rural Iowa, but putting massive concrete edifices into already built-up urban spaces was more complex, just as the railroad had been in the southern portion of nineteenth-century Manhattan.

Some technology companies: Haag, “Manhattan Emptied Out During the Pandemic. But Big Tech Is Moving In.” grew by more than seven million: Data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics, “All Employees, Total Nonfarm.” In about one fourth: Ryan, “United States Office Outlook—Q3 2020.” Thomas Menino launched: ECPA Urban Planning, “Case Study: The Boston Waterfront Innovation District.” “cheap and makeshift”: Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 397. CHAPTER 8: THE BATTLE FOR BOYLE HEIGHTS AND THE CLOSING OF THE METROPOLITAN FRONTIER At 2:35 p.m.: “New York’s Governor and Mayor of New York City Address Concerns of the Damage.”


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The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square by James Traub

Anton Chekhov, Broken windows theory, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Lindbergh, delayed gratification, Donald Trump, fear of failure, gentrification, intangible asset, It's morning again in America, Jane Jacobs, jitney, Lewis Mumford, light touch regulation, megastructure, New Urbanism, Peter Eisenman, plutocrats, price mechanism, rent control, Robert Durst, Ronald Reagan, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal

In 1807, the city appealed to the state to settle the issue, and the state agreed to appoint a commission that would have “exclusive power to lay out streets, roads and public squares,” and to “shut up” streets already built by private parties. Whatever the original intention, the commissioners chose to interpret their charge as a mandate to utterly transform the map of the city. In 1811, they published one of the most audacious documents in the history of urban planning. It was a work that bore the stamp of the new republic —though it was Benjamin Franklin’s rationalism and unsentimental materialism, rather than Thomas Jefferson’s sense of romance and grandeur, that infused this extraordinary design. In remarks accompanying the plan, the commissioners noted that they had wondered “whether they should confine themselves to rectilinear and rectangular streets, or whether they should adopt some of those supposed improvements, by circles, ovals and stars, which certainly embellish a plan, whatever may be their effects as to convenience and utility.”

The aesthetic and intellectual critique of the project had hit home, but produced only modest changes, whereas the lawsuits had been shaky, even frivolous; yet the suits had succeeded where criticism had failed. 11. SAVING BILLBOARD HELL THE REDEVELOPMENT OF 42nd STREET, whatever its flaws, was an act of urban planning, a conscious re-creation of a bounded urban space almost from the ground up; but the rest of Times Square, seedy but not pathological, was for many years permitted to develop, or not, according to the fluctuations of the marketplace. No large structure had gone up along the great spillways of Broadway and Seventh Avenue since the 1930s.

And the process does not inevitably lead either to paralysis or to mediocrity: it was another city-state entity that chose the acclaimed architect Daniel Libeskind to design a new complex on the site of the World Trade Center in 2003. The competition over the rebuilding of the World Trade Center offers a model for urban planning that does not submit to the whim either of the developer or of the government functionary, and that allows the public will to express itself without descending into chaos. Of course, the city-state body overseeing the development process at the World Trade Center site agreed to stage a worldwide architectural competition only after an impassioned public rejected the unimaginative choices that were initially offered.


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The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream by Christopher B. Leinberger

addicted to oil, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, asset allocation, big-box store, centre right, commoditize, credit crunch, David Brooks, desegregation, Donald Shoup, Donald Trump, drive until you qualify, edge city, Ford Model T, full employment, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, McMansion, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, New Urbanism, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, postindustrial economy, RAND corporation, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, reserve currency, Richard Florida, Savings and loan crisis, Seaside, Florida, the built environment, transit-oriented development, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, value engineering, walkable city, white flight

Another means of tilting the playing field is to provide government assistance in developing the overlay zoning for a walkable urban area. The state or federal government could provide planning incentive grant money to local governments to do the required research, seek community input, and hire the urban planning consultants to create these walkable urban places. This work needs to be done before the private development and finance industry will be attracted to these districts. Very few developers are interested in spending their money and time planning a district, and it is the responsibility of the local government to determine their future land use.

The public housing schemes that replaced these troubled high-rise projects in the 1990s are almost all mixed-use, mixed-income walkable urbanism. This approach was pioneered during the Clinton administration under the direction of Henry Cisneros, secretary of housing and urban development. Following the New Urbanism planning approach, many of these Hope VI housing projects were built with sixty percent market-rate housing and forty percent affordable housing in a 192 | NOTES 5. 6. 7. 8. low-rise but high-density plan. As of 2006, these projects have proven to be quite successful in reducing crime and integrating families with different incomes, although management is the key to this experiment, so only time will tell if this is a long-term solution.


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Working by Robert A. Caro

carbon footprint, desegregation, Ford Model T, ghettoisation, rent control, Southern State Parkway, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty

It wasn’t until I became a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard that I finally had the time to think. I was already twenty-nine years old. The Nieman fellowship is for mid-career journalists who want to spend a year at Harvard learning more about the areas they cover, and I was taking courses on urban planning. One of my courses was taught by two professors who had written a well-regarded textbook on highways, including an analysis, in great detail, of highway location: why highways get built where they’re built. They were doing this by means of a mathematical equation. There were factors such as population density, traffic patterns, elevation of grades—that sort of thing.

I would raise a subject, and Moses would thereupon embark on a discourse about it that might take an hour or more, and if I attempted to interrupt to clarify a point, the interruption might or might not be acknowledged. But, at least at first, who wanted to interrupt? I had thought I understood something—had thought I understood quite a bit, in fact—about the inner processes of political decision-making, and about urban planning and government in general. From the moment Robert Moses started talking, I never thought that again. He seemed to remember every vote—even votes from forty years before—and why it had been cast. “On the Jones Beach appropriation, it was eight to seven against us in Ways and Means,” he would say.


pages: 212 words: 69,846

The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World by Rahm Emanuel

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Big Tech, bike sharing, blockchain, carbon footprint, clean water, data science, deindustrialization, disinformation, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Enrique Peñalosa, Filter Bubble, food desert, gentrification, high-speed rail, income inequality, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Kickstarter, Lyft, megacity, military-industrial complex, new economy, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, payday loans, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, transcontinental railway, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, War on Poverty, white flight, working poor

When we were looking to fund this idea, we noticed a line item within the Chicago Housing Authority budget regulations that was called “community investments.” We researched it and discovered that libraries qualify. The New York Times has cited these co-located libraries as “striking new civic architecture,” an advertisement for the city, and a source of community pride. Co-location was also just plain good urban planning. In fact, we convinced President Obama to locate a neighborhood library inside his new presidential library in Hyde Park. These libraries function as resource centers and quiet spaces where kids can study. And within those new libraries and all of the other seventy-nine in the city, we’ve provided free tutoring in every subject for three hours after every school day.

Our major cities had lower life expectancy rates than the country as a whole. It didn’t help that city planners from decades earlier had been misguided in some of their approaches. Jane Jacobs, in her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, wrote about one of the biggest problems cities faced: Most urban planning had been focused on business districts and not on building and strengthening the neighborhoods and communities that form the glue that holds cities together. It also didn’t help that some of the mayors of that period were not up to the task. New York City mayor John Lindsay, who served from 1966 to 1973, never could rein in the city’s costs.


pages: 695 words: 189,074

Fodor's Essential Israel by Fodor's Travel Guides

bike sharing, call centre, coronavirus, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, Mount Scopus, New Urbanism, Pepto Bismol, sensible shoes, starchitect, stem cell, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, Wall-E, Yom Kippur War, young professional

It was here that the Romans crucified Jesus (circa AD 29), and here, too, that the Great Jewish Revolt against Rome erupted, ending in AD 70 with the destruction (once again) of the city and the Temple. From the Romans to the British The Roman emperor Hadrian built a redesigned Jerusalem as the pagan polis of Aelia Capitolina (AD 135), an urban plan that became the basis for the Old City of today. The Byzantines made it a Christian center, with a massive wave of church building (4th–6th centuries AD), until the Arab conquest of AD 638 brought the holy city under Muslim sway. Except during the golden age of the Ummayad Dynasty, in the late 7th and early 8th centuries, Jerusalem was no more than a provincial town under the Muslim regimes of the early Middle Ages.

., Jewish Quarter j At end of line of eateries before descent to Western Wall P 02/626–5906 wwww.rova-yehudi.org.il A From NIS 10 C Closed Sat. and Jewish religious holidays. Cardo STREET | Today it’s known for shopping, but the Cardo has a long history. In AD 135, the Roman emperor Hadrian built his town of Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem, an urban plan essentially preserved in the Old City of today. The cardo maximus, the generic name for the city’s main north–south street, began at the present-day Damascus Gate, where sections of the Roman pavement have been unearthed. With the Christianization of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, access to Mount Zion and its important Christian sites became a priority, and the main street was eventually extended south into today’s Jewish Quarter.

These new, urban arrivals—unlike the pioneers from earlier immigrant waves—brought with them an appreciation for the arts and a penchant for sidewalk cafés, and left a strong social and cultural mark on Tel Aviv. The wave of immigration included some of the world’s leading architects of the time, who saw their new home as virtually a blank slate on which they could realize their innovative and exciting ideas about urban planning. Scottish urban planner Patrick Geddes developed the 1929 plan for a functionalist, humanistic Garden City, and architects from Germany’s Bauhaus School designed and built modern buildings for the growing city. Today Tel Aviv’s many Bauhaus-style buildings, now protected as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site, are a major attraction for architecture lovers.


pages: 265 words: 74,941

The Great Reset: How the Post-Crash Economy Will Change the Way We Live and Work by Richard Florida

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, big-box store, bike sharing, blue-collar work, business cycle, car-free, carbon footprint, collapse of Lehman Brothers, company town, congestion charging, congestion pricing, creative destruction, deskilling, edge city, Edward Glaeser, falling living standards, financial engineering, financial innovation, Ford paid five dollars a day, high net worth, high-speed rail, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, if you build it, they will come, income inequality, indoor plumbing, interchangeable parts, invention of the telephone, Jane Jacobs, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, McMansion, megaproject, Menlo Park, Nate Silver, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, oil shock, Own Your Own Home, pattern recognition, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, post-industrial society, postindustrial economy, reserve currency, Richard Florida, Robert Shiller, scientific management, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, social intelligence, sovereign wealth fund, starchitect, the built environment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, total factor productivity, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, white flight, young professional, Zipcar

Greater Detroit has seen a streaming outmigration of its young, talented, and ambitious people. Many of those who remain either lack the skills and resources to move or are trapped by houses that are so far underwater, they’re unable to get out. “If you no longer can sell your property, how can you move elsewhere?” asked Robin Boyle, an urban planning professor at Wayne State University. But then he answered his own question: “Some people just switch out the lights and leave—property values have gone so low, walking away is no longer such a difficult option.”12 As difficult as it is to even imagine, other Rust Belt cities have fared even worse than the Motor City: the greatest pain has been felt in the smaller, second- and third-tier communities in this industrial belt.

Could this be just the tip of the iceberg? Could the once-desirable suburban and exurban communities—with their endless cul-de-sacs and gated McMansions—be on their way to becoming the blighted and abandoned communities of tomorrow? “The future is not likely to wear well on suburban housing,” wrote the urban planning expert Christopher Leinberger in an attention-getting essay in the Atlantic, “The Next Slum?”16 Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to withstand being broken up into apartments and requiring relatively little upkeep.


pages: 258 words: 77,601

Everything Under the Sun: Toward a Brighter Future on a Small Blue Planet by Ian Hanington

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Anthropocene, biodiversity loss, Bretton Woods, carbon footprint, carbon tax, clean water, Climategate, Climatic Research Unit, Day of the Dead, disinformation, do what you love, energy security, Enrique Peñalosa, Exxon Valdez, Google Earth, happiness index / gross national happiness, Hedy Lamarr / George Antheil, hydraulic fracturing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Medieval Warm Period, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, planned obsolescence, precautionary principle, stem cell, sustainable-tourism, the scientific method, University of East Anglia, urban planning, urban sprawl

The cascading consequences of such an event could be catastrophic. Just think what we could do with $4.1 trillion! Instead of giving companies these huge sums of money so that they can continue business as usual, buying and selling, merging, and paying their executives obscene salaries and bonuses, we could put it toward renewable energy, sustainable urban planning, and research into ways to lessen the impact of climate change—things that really would stimulate economies. But the focus continues to remain on the false dichotomy of economy versus environment. Eminent economist Lord Stern said that meeting the challenge of climate change could cost about 1 per cent of annual GDP, but doing nothing could destroy the global economy.

Politicians need to support local agriculture by implementing policies and laws that protect farmland, ensure that farmers receive a fair price for the food they grow, and remove regulatory barriers that hinder farm-gate sales. The protection of rich agricultural soil from urban sprawl, roads, industrial development, and other land use must be central to any government local food strategy. Study after study has shown that valuable agricultural land around the world is being chewed up and paved over because of poor urban-planning decisions that value parking lots, new highways, and larger strip malls over keeping our precious bank of fertile soil for current and future generations of farmers to steward—for our benefit. A report by the David Suzuki Foundation, “Ontario’s Wealth, Canada’s Future,” found that an alarming 16 per cent of farmland in the Greater Toronto Area was lost to urban encroachment between 1996 and 2001.


pages: 325 words: 73,035

Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida

Abraham Maslow, active measures, assortative mating, back-to-the-city movement, barriers to entry, big-box store, blue-collar work, borderless world, BRICs, business climate, Celebration, Florida, correlation coefficient, creative destruction, dark matter, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, demographic transition, edge city, Edward Glaeser, epigenetics, extreme commuting, financial engineering, gentrification, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, happiness index / gross national happiness, high net worth, income inequality, industrial cluster, invention of the telegraph, Jane Jacobs, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, low skilled workers, megacity, new economy, New Urbanism, Peter Calthorpe, place-making, post-work, power law, Richard Florida, risk tolerance, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Seaside, Florida, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, superstar cities, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the strength of weak ties, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tyler Cowen, urban planning, World Values Survey, young professional

As Ricardo famously theorized, discretely defined countries have incentive to specialize in different kinds of industries, which would allow them to gain and maintain “comparative advantage” over others.1 The first person to see this was the great urbanist Jane Jacobs, who is best known for her scathing critique of urban planning, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and two other very important books, The Economy of Cities and Cities and the Wealth of Nations.2 In The Economy of Cities (1969) Jacobs refutes the long-standing theory that cities emerged only after agriculture had become sufficiently productive to create a surplus beyond what was needed to survive.

personality categories of regions in University College London University of Arizona University of California-Berkeley University of California-Davis University of California-San Diego University of California-San Francisco University of Chicago University of Maryland University of Michigan University of Pennsylvania University of Texas University of Tokyo University of Toronto University of Waterloo Urban areas clustering in education in families and megaregions and rural settings v. Urban independents Urban metabolism Urban mosaic Urban planning Urban tribes Urbanism messy U.S. Census Bureau U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Utica, New York Utrecht Valparaiso Values in Action (VIA) Van Lear Rose (album) Vancouver, British Columbia (fig.)(fig.) Venice, Clara Venture capital Veolia Urban Observatory Verhagen, Evert VIA.


pages: 206 words: 9,776

Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution by David Harvey

Alan Greenspan, Bretton Woods, business cycle, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, creative destruction, David Graeber, deindustrialization, financial innovation, Garrett Hardin, gentrification, Guggenheim Bilbao, Hernando de Soto, high-speed rail, housing crisis, illegal immigration, indoor plumbing, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, market fundamentalism, means of production, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Murray Bookchin, New Urbanism, Ponzi scheme, precariat, profit maximization, race to the bottom, radical decentralization, Robert Shiller, Savings and loan crisis, special economic zone, the built environment, the High Line, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, transcontinental railway, urban planning, We are the 99%, William Langewiesche, Works Progress Administration

Consider, for example, the question of scale within which we move from the question of local neighb orhoods and politi­ cal organ ization to the m etrop olitan region as a whole. Traditionally, questions of the commons at the metropolitan level have been handled through mechanisms of state regional and urban planning, in recognition of the fact that the common resources required for urban populations to function effectively, such as water provision, transportation, sewage disposal, and open space for recreation , have to be provided at a met­ ropolitan, regional scale. But when it comes to bundling together issues of this kind, left-analysis typically becomes vague, gesturing hopefully towards some magical concordance of local actions that will be effec­ tive at a regional or glob al level, or simply noting this as an important T H E C R EATI O N OF TH E U R BAN C O M M O N S 81 problem before moving back to that scale- usually the micro and the local-at wh ich th ey feel most comfortable.

Richard Bookstaber, A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation, New York: Wiley, 2007; Frank Partnoy, Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted Financial Markets, New York: Henry Holt, 2003. Harvey, A Brief History ofNeoliberalism; Thomas Edsall, The New Politics of Inequality, New York: Norton, 1 985. Jim Yardley and Vikas Bajaj, "Billionaires' Ascent Helps India, and Vice Versa;' New York Times, July 27, 20 1 1 . Marcello Balbo, "Urban Planning and the Fragm ented City of Developing Countries:' Third World Planning Review 1 5: 1 ( 1 993}: 23-5. Friedrich Engels, The Housing Question, New York: International Publishers ( 1 935}: 74-7. Marshall Berman, A ll That Is Solid Melts Into A ir, London: Penguin, 1 988. Friedrich Engels, The Housing Question: 23.


pages: 246 words: 76,561

Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture by Justin McGuirk

A Pattern Language, agricultural Revolution, dark matter, Day of the Dead, digital divide, Donald Trump, Enrique Peñalosa, extreme commuting, facts on the ground, gentrification, Guggenheim Bilbao, Hernando de Soto, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income per capita, informal economy, it's over 9,000, Jane Jacobs, Kickstarter, lateral thinking, Leo Hollis, mass immigration, megaproject, microcredit, Milgram experiment, neoliberal agenda, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, place-making, Silicon Valley, starchitect, technoutopianism, unorthodox policies, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, value engineering, Washington Consensus

In the mid 1990s, long before Fajardo appeared on the scene, there was a keen sense among Medellín’s citizenry that an intensive programme of reforms had to be put in place. ‘The whole of society was talking about this, and we built a social project together,’ says Jorge Pérez, who was head of urban planning for the metropolitan area under Mayor Fajardo. Pérez is at pains to make clear that, while architecture was the most visible tool in this process, what really mattered was the commitment of a network of politicians and entrepreneurs to building – and paying for – a new future for Medellín. This process, as much as the result, has come to be known as ‘social urbanism’.

‘From the technical point of view, three processes were important: the Bogotá process, the Rio de Janeiro process – especially the Favela-Bairro programme – and the reality here in Medellín.’ When Fajardo was elected, he made Echeverri head of the EDU and heaped special powers on him to make the EDU independent of the city’s urban planning department, which was both inefficient and corrupt. In effect, the mayor treated the EDU as strategically as Mockus did his Urban Observatory – it was the crucible of his most significant policies. ‘When he won the election we decided we had to move very fast,’ says Echeverri, ‘and to do that we had to have some autonomy, because if we went into the old planning structure it was very difficult to change things.’


pages: 273 words: 76,786

Explore Everything by Bradley Garrett

airport security, Burning Man, call centre, creative destruction, Crossrail, deindustrialization, double helix, Dr. Strangelove, dumpster diving, failed state, Gabriella Coleman, gentrification, Google Earth, Hacker Ethic, Jane Jacobs, Julian Assange, late capitalism, megacity, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, place-making, shareholder value, Stephen Fry, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, urban planning, white flight, WikiLeaks

In the language of the ‘new’ promise of freedom from suffering, in the efficient language of architects like Le Corbusier, ‘the perfect house became individual, clear, pure, functional and safe for the inhabitant, protected from the anomie and the antinomies of the outside and the underneath, the urban’.39 Rouge, Marc and I walked through Paris in helmets and fishing waders, past highway overpasses and old railroad tracks, into a dark alley frequented by graffiti artists and underage kids drinking cheap wine, into a hole in the wall with a four-foot drop behind it, and voilà; we had crossed the liminal zone of the ‘known’ city into a realm of illicit encounter, raw experience, playful exuberance and corporeal terror. We crawled on all fours through the mud into the darkness. In the Paris catacombs, we found ourselves in a spatial gap, perhaps even a negative space, where stone had been quarried to build the city and then the city had been built over it. In architecture and urban planning, this is sometimes referred to as space left over after planning – SLOAP.40 In work like Iain Borden’s research on skateboarding,41 we find that these negative spaces are used for various urban subversions, but we rarely imagine SLOAP being as vast as the underground in Paris. Entrance to the catacombs has been forbidden since 1955.

., Situationist International Anthology (Berkeley, CA: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981), p. 25. 37 Gandy, ‘Paris Sewers’. 38 Hollingshead, Underground London. 38 Kaika and Swyngedouw, ‘Fetishizing the Modern City’, p. 134. 40 Tseira Maruani and Irit Amit-Cohen, ‘Open Space Planning Models: A Review of Approaches and Methods’, Landscape and Urban Planning 81: 1–2 (2007). 41 Borden, Skateboarding, Space and the City. 42 Neil Shea (2011), ‘Under Paris’, National Geographic, February 2011. 43 Kathleen Stewart, ‘Atmospheric Attunements’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29: 3 (2011). 44 Edensor, ‘Ghosts of Industrial Ruins’, pp. 23, 6. 45 ‘That Parisien Loop’, at thewinch.net/?


pages: 1,136 words: 73,489

Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal

Amazon Web Services, Apollo 11, barriers to entry, Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL), Big Tech, bitcoin, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, commoditize, commons-based peer production, context collapse, continuous integration, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, David Heinemeier Hansson, death of newspapers, Debian, disruptive innovation, Dunbar number, en.wikipedia.org, eternal september, Ethereum, Firefox, Free Software Foundation, Guido van Rossum, Hacker Ethic, Hacker News, Induced demand, informal economy, information security, Jane Jacobs, Jean Tirole, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Kubernetes, leftpad, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, node package manager, Norbert Wiener, pirate software, pull request, RFC: Request For Comment, Richard Stallman, Ronald Coase, Ruby on Rails, side project, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, social graph, software as a service, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, tacit knowledge, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Nature of the Firm, TikTok, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, two-sided market, urban planning, web application, wikimedia commons, Yochai Benkler, Zimmermann PGP

Yet I’m asked to speak about it, and the work I’m actually *paid* to do no one really wants to hear about. ”240 Even as software’s purchase value is being driven dramatically down, its social value seems to be going dramatically up. We can’t live without software anymore, but we also don’t want to pay for it. How is this the case? The author Jane Jacobs explores these conflicting views in her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, in which she tries to explain why urban planning policy failed cities. Jacobs’s major critique of urban planning in the 1950s is that the planners treated cities—the layout of their buildings, parks, and roads—as static objects, which were only developed at the outset, rather than continuously revised according to how people used them. To make her case, Jacobs cites Dr. Warren Weaver’s 1958 Annual Report of the Rockefeller Foundation, which explores three “stages of development in the history of scientific thought”: problems of simplicity, disorganized complexity, and organized complexity.


My Shit Life So Far by Frankie Boyle

airport security, banking crisis, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Brixton riot, credit crunch, dark matter, David Attenborough, Jon Ronson, Live Aid, out of africa, pez dispenser, Russell Brand, Saturday Night Live, sexual politics, traveling salesman, urban planning

I managed to get on a similar course at Sussex University but I had to wait a year to start. I desperately wanted to get away from home so I took a place on clearing at Aston University, just so that for that year I could have a grant and get out of the house. The course I went on was inexplicably terrible. ‘Urban Planning and Policy’ or something like that. I just did absolutely nothing. I know people say they did nothing on a course and really they mean they didn’t work hard enough to do themselves justice. I literally did nothing. It was such a grisly subject, filled with people who’d got it as a booby prize in clearing, but they never threw you out.

Youths rampaged through the town centre like they were in a zombie movie designed to promote tracksuits. I was getting a train home on a Saturday and all the Celtic and Rangers fans got off the incoming train from the matches they’d been at, formed an orderly group at one end of the station and had a punch-up. It was like a regular chore they had to get through. I know I never got far with my urban-planning course, but I’ve always thought that Kilmarnock was a good example of why you should always build a town around a river, rather than a bus station. I used to read all the time while I was drinking—you absorb information quite well in that relaxed state. That’s probably why a lot of alcos get into horse racing and so on—there’s a slight drunkenness that’s almost like a trance state for taking in information.


pages: 342 words: 72,927

Transport for Humans: Are We Nearly There Yet? by Pete Dyson, Rory Sutherland

Abraham Maslow, Alan Greenspan, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, bitcoin, Black Swan, Boeing 747, BRICs, butterfly effect, car-free, carbon footprint, Charles Babbage, choice architecture, cognitive bias, cognitive load, coronavirus, COVID-19, Crossrail, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, decarbonisation, demand response, Diane Coyle, digital map, driverless car, Dunning–Kruger effect, Elon Musk, fake news, functional fixedness, gender pay gap, George Akerlof, gig economy, global supply chain, Goodhart's law, Greta Thunberg, Gödel, Escher, Bach, high-speed rail, hive mind, Hyperloop, Induced demand, informal economy, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, lockdown, longitudinal study, loss aversion, low cost airline, Lyft, megaproject, meta-analysis, Network effects, nudge unit, Ocado, overview effect, Paul Samuelson, performance metric, pneumatic tube, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, remote working, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, Rory Sutherland, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, selection bias, Skype, smart transportation, social distancing, South Sea Bubble, systems thinking, TED Talk, the map is not the territory, The Market for Lemons, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Malthus, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, Veblen good, When a measure becomes a target, yield management, zero-sum game

For instance, if too many people are using the Central Line on the London Underground network, there are two options: either engineers can build another east–west Tube line, at a cost of more than £100 billion; or behavioural scientists can create a service that informs passengers that the same journey taken via the Circle Line would take ten minutes longer but that the time would be spent on carriages with air conditioning and ample seating. Digital journey planners enable choices to be presented with almost limitless creativity: quiet routes, scenic routes, step-free routes – even mobile-signal-friendly routes. City and urban planning draws us a map In 1965 Jan Gehl and Ingrid Gehl, an architect and a psychologist, secured a grant from the New Carlsberg Foundation in Copenhagen to study how people mingled and worked in public spaces in Rome and its surrounding towns. Their work built on that of Jane Jacobs, who published The Life and Death of American Cities in 1961: a meticulous critique of Planning Commissioner Robert Moses’s strategy for New York.

It is hard to overstate how much impact that map has had on Londoners’ perception of travel. One participant in a 2008 study said: I probably know London better by Tube than I do above ground, because when I’m walking without a map and then I hit a Tube stop, then I know where I am. So, I sort of live in an underground world.6 In 2011 Zhan Guo, an academic who specializes in urban planning, analysed 20,000 recorded trips on London Underground and found that the Tube map had between two and three times as much influence on passengers when they chose their route as the actual travel time did.7 The use of only vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines is the stylistic innovation.


pages: 428 words: 134,832

Straphanger by Taras Grescoe

active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airport security, Albert Einstein, big-box store, bike sharing, Boeing 747, Boris Johnson, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, City Beautiful movement, classic study, company town, congestion charging, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, correlation does not imply causation, David Brooks, deindustrialization, Donald Shoup, East Village, edge city, Enrique Peñalosa, extreme commuting, financial deregulation, fixed-gear, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, indoor plumbing, intermodal, invisible hand, it's over 9,000, Jane Jacobs, Japanese asset price bubble, jitney, Joan Didion, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, laissez-faire capitalism, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, McMansion, megacity, megaproject, messenger bag, mortgage tax deduction, Network effects, New Urbanism, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Own Your Own Home, parking minimums, peak oil, pension reform, Peter Calthorpe, Ponzi scheme, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, streetcar suburb, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, transit-oriented development, union organizing, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, white flight, working poor, young professional, Zipcar

Downtown Los Angeles requires, at minimum, fifty times more parking than downtown San Francisco allows at maximum. Which means that while most San Franciscans ride transit to get to work, in Los Angeles land is gobbled up for the needs of the car, creating pedestrian-repelling dead zones. “What sets downtown L.A. apart from other cities is not its sprawl,” writes UCLA urban planning professor Donald Shoup, “or its human density, but its high human density combined with its high parking density.” The math is simple: an office worker requires, on average, 250 square feet of space, whereas his car requires 400 square feet. A downtown where most people commute by automobile needs to set aside one and a half times as much land for cars as for people.

In Japan, unlike North America, the burgeoning of the suburbs wasn’t accompanied by the withering of “downtown”: the exurbs attracted residents, but the jobs remained within the Yamanote line. Even Yokohama, 16 miles from Shibuya and a separate city whose population rivals Los Angeles’s, is now largely a bedtown of Tokyo. “One thing about a rail-based system in terms of urban form is that it reinforces the center,” urban planning historian André Sorensen told me. “Tokyo is hugely monocentric for its size, and that’s only possible because of the rail system. Tokyo’s network reinforces centrality because, like all rail systems, it’s radial: all the lines feed into the central Yamanote line.” Major government agencies have always clustered around the Imperial Palace, and corporations still build their headquarters as close to these centers of influence as possible.

And, thanks to Mayor Michael Nutter, an extensive network of bike paths means that on any given day in Philadelphia, more people get to work by bicycle than in any other city in the United States. Philadelphia, it turns out, is a city ideally suited for a transit-led revival. Its bones aren’t just good: they’re great. The First City owes its structure to one of the New World’s most influential urban plans. In 1682, the wealthy English Quaker William Penn platted out a “green country towne,” divided into quadrants by two broad avenues, on the flatlands between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. His plan was a reproach to such crowded Old World cities as London, which had recently been razed by fire: the generous gridwork of streets included four substantial squares and a major park; each detached home was to sit in the center of its plot, surrounded by ample gardens and orchards.* Penn’s grid, which would be replicated in countless towns in the upper South and Midwest, was soon overwhelmed by mass immigration.


pages: 441 words: 135,176

The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful--And Their Architects--Shape the World by Deyan Sudjic

Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, bread and circuses, British Empire, call centre, colonial rule, Columbine, cuban missile crisis, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Frank Gehry, glass ceiling, Great Leap Forward, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, haute cuisine, megastructure, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, oil shock, Peter Eisenman, Ronald Reagan, Socratic dialogue, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, Victor Gruen

Speer and Hitler selected the crossing point between the two axes to position the prodigious new Chancellery, which would have occupied the most privileged site in the whole city. Whether the plan was genuinely an attempt to design a real city, rather than create a parade ground realized on the scale of a city, is open to question. Certainly Speer had no obvious expertise or experience of urban planning before he began the project. The axis would have spanned the Spree, curving around the dome and the old Reichstag with a new bridge. Beyond that was a vast rectangular artificial lake, three-quarters of a mile long, which would have formed a reflecting pool for the dome and the setting for another group of public buildings: the city hall on one side of the water, designed by German Bestelmeyer from Munich in a manner derived from Stockholm’s town hall, the admiralty on the other.

The timing of the attacks on the twin towers certainly made it seem as if the terrorists had been listening to the debate and had got the message about the symbolic significance of high-rise architecture. One of the hijackers who led the 11 September attacks, Mohammed Atta, was himself a graduate of Cairo’s school of architecture, and a postgraduate urban planning student in Hamburg. If he had been a lawyer or an engineer, or a software designer, it would simply have suggested that this was another disaffected middle-class radical. But the architectural connection seemed to suggest something else. It was as if he had recognized that the opposite side of the will to build is the attempt to delete.

The idea of asking a single firm of architects to produce no fewer than six different ways of rebuilding the World Trade Center, then whittling them down to three preferred options, and finally incorporating their least unpopular features into a single master plan, could have come straight from the White House staff’s modus operandi for explaining plans to effect a regime change in Baghdad to a president with a short attention span. As a strategy, it’s bad enough applied to global realpolitik. As an instrument of urban planning for one of the most highly charged sites in the world, it was nothing short of a disaster. Things started badly enough when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation held a competition to find an architect for the job – not on the basis of their ideas, but on a credentials pitch. They picked Beyer Blinder Belle, a firm best known for its restoration of such nineteenth-century New York landmarks as Grand Central Station but without much of a track record in new thinking.


pages: 306 words: 82,765

Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

anti-fragile, availability heuristic, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Bernie Madoff, Black Swan, Brownian motion, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Cass Sunstein, cellular automata, Claude Shannon: information theory, cognitive dissonance, complexity theory, data science, David Graeber, disintermediation, Donald Trump, Edward Thorp, equity premium, fake news, financial independence, information asymmetry, invisible hand, knowledge economy, loss aversion, mandelbrot fractal, Mark Spitznagel, mental accounting, microbiome, mirror neurons, moral hazard, Murray Gell-Mann, offshore financial centre, p-value, Paradox of Choice, Paul Samuelson, Ponzi scheme, power law, precautionary principle, price mechanism, principal–agent problem, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, random walk, rent-seeking, Richard Feynman, Richard Thaler, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, Rupert Read, Silicon Valley, Social Justice Warrior, Steven Pinker, stochastic process, survivorship bias, systematic bias, tail risk, TED Talk, The Nature of the Firm, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, urban planning, Yogi Berra

This explains the more severe problems of landscaping and architecture: architects today build to impress other architects, and we end up with strange—irreversible—structures that do not satisfy the well-being of their residents; it takes time and a lot of progressive tinkering for that. Or some specialist sitting in the ministry of urban planning who doesn’t live in the community will produce the equivalent of the tilted ledge—as an improvement, except at a much larger scale. Specialization, as I will keep insisting, comes with side effects, one of which is separating labor from the fruits of labor. Simplicity Now skin in the game brings simplicity—the disarming simplicity of things properly done.

He believes that GMOs are “science,” that their “technology” is in the same risk class as conventional breeding. Typically, the IYI get first-order logic right, but not second-order (or higher) effects, making him totally incompetent in complex domains. The IYI has been wrong, historically, about Stalinism, Maoism, GMOs, Iraq, Libya, Syria, lobotomies, urban planning, low carbohydrate diets, gym machines, behaviorism, trans-fats, Freudianism, portfolio theory, linear regression, HFCS (High-Fructose Corn Syrup), Gaussianism, Salafism, dynamic stochastic equilibrium modeling, housing projects, marathon running, selfish genes, election-forecasting models, Bernie Madoff (pre-blowup), and p-values.


pages: 345 words: 86,394

Frequently Asked Questions in Quantitative Finance by Paul Wilmott

Abraham Wald, Albert Einstein, asset allocation, beat the dealer, Black-Scholes formula, Brownian motion, butterfly effect, buy and hold, capital asset pricing model, collateralized debt obligation, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency risk, delta neutral, discrete time, diversified portfolio, Edward Thorp, Emanuel Derman, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, financial engineering, fixed income, fudge factor, implied volatility, incomplete markets, interest rate derivative, interest rate swap, iterative process, lateral thinking, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, Louis Bachelier, mandelbrot fractal, margin call, market bubble, martingale, Myron Scholes, Norbert Wiener, Paul Samuelson, power law, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, random walk, regulatory arbitrage, risk free rate, risk/return, Sharpe ratio, statistical arbitrage, statistical model, stochastic process, stochastic volatility, transaction costs, urban planning, value at risk, volatility arbitrage, volatility smile, Wiener process, yield curve, zero-coupon bond

(Thanks to ckc226.) 100 kg of berries You have 100 kg of berries. Ninety-nine percent of the weight of berries is water. Time passes and some amount of water evaporates, so our berries are now 98% water. What is the weight of berries now? Do this one in your head. (Thanks to NoDoubts.) Urban planning There are four towns positioned on the corners of a square. The towns are to be joined by a system of roads such that the total road length is minimized. What is the shape of the road? (Thanks to quantie.) Closer to the edge or the centre? You have a square and a random variable that picks a random point on the square with a uniform distribution.

Solution The unexpected, yet correct, answer is 50 kg. It seems like a tiny amount of water has evaporated so how can the weight have changed that much? There is clearly 1 kg of solid matter in the berries. If that makes up two percent (100 less 98%) then the total weight must be 50 kg. Urban planning There are four towns positioned on the corners of a square. The towns are to be joined by a system of roads such that the total road length is minimized. What is the shape of the road? (Thanks to quantie.) Solution One is tempted to join the towns with a simple crossroad shape but this is not optimal.


pages: 254 words: 14,795

Poorly Made in China: An Insider's Account of the Tactics Behind China's Production Game by Paul Midler

barriers to entry, corporate social responsibility, currency peg, deal flow, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, full employment, illegal immigration, Kickstarter, language acquisition, new economy, out of africa, price discrimination, unpaid internship, urban planning

They did not understand how the interior of China was unlivable, that mountainous regions and other geographic barriers did not lend themselves to agricultural or even residential development. They also failed to take into account cultural differences in urban planning. Chinese do not have the same desire for elbowroom but instead had a preference for renao—the hustle and bustle associated with urban living. American urban planning was characterized by suburban sprawl. One neighborhood blended into another. In China, where they built with density in mind, you could drive from downtown Shanghai and, within half an hour, find yourself amid open fields with few signs of actual life.


pages: 398 words: 86,023

The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia by Andrew Lih

Albert Einstein, AltaVista, barriers to entry, Benjamin Mako Hill, Bill Atkinson, c2.com, Cass Sunstein, citation needed, commons-based peer production, crowdsourcing, Debian, disinformation, en.wikipedia.org, Firefox, Ford Model T, Free Software Foundation, Hacker Ethic, HyperCard, index card, Jane Jacobs, Jason Scott: textfiles.com, jimmy wales, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, Marshall McLuhan, Mitch Kapor, Network effects, optical character recognition, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Stallman, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, slashdot, social software, Steve Jobs, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the long tail, The Wisdom of Crowds, Tragedy of the Commons, urban planning, urban renewal, Vannevar Bush, wikimedia commons, Y2K, Yochai Benkler

Serving as “janitors” were roughly 1,000 active administrators, tending to the duties of deleting, blocking, and protecting resources. Urban Jungle The plight of Wikipedia growing from small community to larger digital metropolis is something both Joseph Reagle in his Ph.D. work on Wikipedia and Steven Johnson in Emergence note as being similar to problems of urban planning. There is no better historical example than that explored in Jane Jacobs’s book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, her critique of the modernist planning policies of the 1950s and 1960s, an era when New York City developer Robert Moses was razing entire swaths of neighborhoods for planned housing projects and communities.

., 43, 85, 172–73, 175 Nupedia-L, 63 Reagle, Joseph, 82, 96, 112 Nupedia Open Content License, 35, 72 Rec.food.chocolate, 84–85 RickK, 120, 185–88 rings, Web site, 23, 31 objectivism, 32, 36–37 robots, software, 88, 99–106, 145, 147, OCR (optical character recognition), 35 177, 179 Open Directory Project (ODP), 30–31, Rosenfeld, Jeremy, 45 33, 35 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 15 Ota, Takashi, 146 Russell, Bertrand, 13, 81 Oxford English Dictionary (OED), 70–72 Russian language, 152 peer production, 108–9 Sandbox, 97, 115 Pellegrini, Mark (Raul654), 180–81 Sanger, Larry, 6–7, 32–34, 36–38, Perl, 56, 67, 101, 140 40–41, 43–45, 61–65, 67, 88, 89, Peul language, 158 115, 184, 202, 210–11 phantom authority, 175–76 boldness directive and, 91, 113 Philological Society, 70 Citizendium project of, 190, 211–12 PHP, 74, 101 Essjay and, 197 Pike, Rob, 144 memoir of, 174, 190, 225 piranha effect, 83, 106, 109, 113, 120 resignation from Wikipedia, 174–75, Plautus Satire, 181 210 Pliny the Elder, 15 on rules, 76, 112 Poe, Marshall, 171 Spanish Wikipedia and, 9, 136–38 Polish Wikipedia, 146, 147 trolls and, 170–75, 189–90 Popular Science, 126 Wikipedia license and, 72 Portland Pattern Repository, 59 Y2K bug and, 32–33 Portuguese language, 136 San Jose Mercury News, 126 PostScript, 52 Schechter, Danny, 8–9 “Potato chip” article, 136 Schiff, Stacy, 196 Professor and the Madman, The Schlossberg, Edwin, 46 (Winchester), 70, 71 schools, 177–78 Project Gutenberg, 35 Scott, Jason, 131, 189 public domain content, 26, 111 search engines, 11, 22, 34 Pupek, Dan, 58 Google, see Google Seigenthaler, John, 9–10, 191–94, 200, 220 Quickpolls, 126–27 Senegal, 158 Quiz Show, 13 Serbian Wikipedia, 155–56 Index_243 servers, 77–79, 191 Tagalog language, 160 Sethilys (Seth Anthony), 106–11 Taiwan, 150, 151, 154 Shah, Sunir, 59–60, 64 “Talossan language” article, 120 Shaw, George Bernard, 135 Tamil language, 160 Shell, Tim, 21–22, 32, 36, 66, 174, Tawker, 177, 179, 186 184 Tektronix, 46, 47, 50, 55, 56 sidewalks, 96–97 termites, 82 Sieradski, Daniel, 204 Thompson, Ken, 143–44 Signpost, 200 Time, 9, 13 Silsor, 186 Torvalds, Linus, 28–29, 30, 173, 175 Sinitic languages, 159 Tower of Babel, 133–34 see also China tragedy of the commons, 223 Skrenta, Rich, 23, 30 Trench, Chenevix, 70 Slashdot, 67–69, 73, 76, 88, 205, trolls, 170–76, 179, 186, 187, 189–90 207, 216 Truel, Bob, 23, 30 Sanger’s memoir for, 174, 190, 225 2channel, 145 Sneakernet, 50 Snow, Michael, 206–7 Socialtext, 207 “U,” article on, 64 sock puppets, 128, 178–79 Unicode, 142, 144 software, open-source, 5, 23–28, 30, 35, UTF-8, 144–45 62, 67, 79, 216 UTF-32, 142, 143 design patterns and, 55, 59 UNIX, 27, 30–31, 54, 56, 143 Linux, 28–30, 56, 108, 140, 143, 173, Unregistered Words Committee, 70 216, 228 urban planning, 96–97 software robots, 88, 99–106, 145, 147, URL (Uniform Resource Locator), 53, 54 177, 179 USA Today, 9, 191, 220 Souren, Kasper, 158 UseModWiki, 61–63, 66, 73–74, 140–41 South Africa, 157–58 Usenet, 35, 83–88, 114, 170, 190, 223 spam, 11, 87, 220 Usenet Moderation Project (Usemod), 62 Spanish Wikipedia, 9, 136–39, 175, 183, USWeb, 211 215, 226 squid servers, 77–79 Stallman, Richard, 23–32, 74, 86, 217 vandalism: GNU Free Documentation License of, on LA Times Wikitorial, 207–8 72–73, 211–12 on Wikipedia, 6, 93, 95, 125, 128, GNU General Public License of, 27, 72 176–79, 181, 184–88, 194, 195, GNU Manifesto of, 26 202, 220, 227 GNUpedia of, 79 Van Doren, Charles, 13–14 Steele, Guy, 86 verein, 147 Stevertigo, 184 VeryVerily, 128 stigmergy, 82, 89, 92, 109 Vibber, Brion, 76 Sun Microsystems, 23, 27, 29–30, 56 Viola, 54 Sun Tzu, 169 ViolaWWW, 54–55 Swedish language, 140, 152 Voltaire, 15 244_Index WAIS, 34, 53 Wik, 123–25, 170, 180 Wales, Christine, 20–21, 22, 139 Wikia, 196, 197 Wales, Doris, 18, 19 Wiki Base, 62 Wales, Jimmy, 1, 8, 9, 18–22, 44, 76, Wikibooks, 216 88, 115, 131, 184, 196, 213, 215, Wikimania, 1–3, 8, 146, 147–48 220 WikiMarkup, 90 administrators and, 94, 185 Wikimedia Commons, 216 background of, 18–19 Wikimedia Foundation, 146, 157, 183–84, at Chicago Options Associates, 20, 196, 199, 213–15, 225–26, 227 21, 22 Wikipedia: Cunctator essay and, 172 administrators of, 67, 93–96, 119, 121, and deletion of articles, 120 125, 127, 148, 178, 185–86, dispute resolution and, 179–80, 181, 195–96, 224–25 223 advertising and, 9, 11, 136–38, 215, Essjay and, 197, 199 226 languages and, 139, 140, 157–58 amateurs and professionals in, 225 neutrality policy and, 6, 7, 113 Arbitration Committee of, 180–81, 184, objectivism and, 32, 36–37 197, 223 Nupedia and, 32–35, 41, 43–45, “assume good faith” policy in, 114, 187, 61–63 195, 200 on piranha effect, 83 blocking of people from, 93 role of, in Wikipedia community, 174–76, boldness directive in, 8, 91, 102, 179–80, 223 113–14, 115, 122, 221 Seigenthaler incident and, 192, 194 categories in, 97–98, 221 Spanish Wikipedia and, 137, 175 “checkuser” privilege in, 179, 196, 199 Stallman and, 30–32 database for, 73–74, 77, 78, 94 three revert rule and, 127–28 discussions in, 7–8, 65–66, 75–76, 89, Wikimania and, 146 121–22 Wikipedia license and, 72 DMOZ as inspiration for, 23 Wikitorials and, 206–7 five pillars of, 113, 216 Wales, Jimmy, Sr., 18 future of, 213–17, 219–29 Wall Street Journal, 126 growth of, 4, 9, 10, 77, 88–89, 95–97, “War and Consequences” Wikitorial, 99–100, 126, 184, 215, 219, 220 206–7 how it works, 90–96 wasps, 82 influence of, 201–212 Weatherly, Keith, 106 launch of, 64, 69, 139, 171 Web browsers, 51–55 legal issues and, 94, 111, 186, 191–92, Weblogs Inc., 215 227; see also copyright; libel WebShare, 209 linking in, 66–67, 73 Webster, Noah, 70, 133 mailing list for, 89, 95 Web 2.0, 68, 111, 114, 201 main community namespace in, 76 Wei, Pei-Yan, 54–55 main page of, 95 Weinstock, Steven, 202–3 MeatballWiki and, 60, 114, 119, 187–88 “Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its mediation of disputes in, 180, 181, 195 Anti-Elitism” (Sanger), 189–90 meta pages in, 91 Index_245 name of, 45 “diff” function and, 74, 75, 93, 99 namespaces in, 75–76 edit histories of, 64–65, 71, 82, 91–93 number of editors in, 95–96 editing of, 3–4, 6, 38, 64–66, 69, 73, Nupedia and, 64–65, 88, 136, 171, 172 88, 114–15, 131, 194 openness of, 5–6, 9 edit wars and, 95, 122–31, 136, 146 origins of, 43–60 eventualism and, 120–21, 129, 159 policies and rules of, 76, 112–14, first written, 64 127–28, 170, 171, 192, 221, flagged revisions of, 148–49, 215–16, 224–25 227 popularity of, 4 inclusion of, 115–21 Quickpolls in, 126–27 inverted pyramid formula for, 90 Recent Changes page in, 64–65, 82, license covering content of, 72–73, 98, 104, 109, 176–77 211–12 schools and, 177–78 locking of, 95 servers for, 77–79, 191 maps in, 107, 109–11 Slashdot and, 69, 73, 76, 88 neutral point of view in, 6–7, 82, 89, 111, sock puppets and, 128, 178–79 112–13, 117, 140, 174, 203–4, 217, SOFIXIT directive in, 114–15, 122, 221 228 software robots and, 88, 99–106, 145, news and, 7 147, 177, 179 original research and, 112–13, 117, 174 spam and self-promotion on, 11, 220 protection and semi-protection of, 194, talk pages in, 75–76, 89, 93, 98 216 templates in, 97–98, 113, 221 reverts and, 125, 127–28 trolls and, 170–76, 179, 186, 187, single versions of, 6 189–90 spelling mistakes in, 104–5 user pages in, 76, 89 stability of, 227–28 vandalism and, 6, 93, 95, 125, 128, stub, 92, 97, 101, 104, 148 176–79, 181, 184–88, 194, 195, talk pages for, 75–76, 89, 93, 98 202, 220, 227 test edits of, 176 watchlists in, 74, 82, 98–99, 109 “undo” function and, 93 wiki markup language for, 221–22 uneven development of, 220 wiki software for, 64–67, 73, 77, 90, 93, unusual, 92, 117–18 140–41, 216 verifiability and, 112–13, 117 Wikipedia articles: watchlists for, 74, 82, 98–99, 109 accuracy of, 10, 72, 188–89, 194, 208 Wikipedia community, 7–8, 81–132, 174, attempts to influence, 11–12 175, 183–200, 215–17, 222–23 biographies of living persons, 192, Essjay controversy and, 194–200 220–21 Missing Wikipedians page and, 184–85, census data in, 100–104, 106 188 citations in, 113 partitioning of, 223 consensus and, 7, 94, 95, 119–20, 122, Seigenthaler incident and, 9–10, 222–23 191–94, 220 consistency among, 213 stress in, 184 creation of, 90–93, 130–31, 188–89 trolls and, 170 deletion of, 93–94, 96, 119–21, 174 Wales’s role in, 174–76, 179–80, 223 246_Index Wikipedia international editions, 12, 77, Wikitorials, 205–8 100, 131–32, 133–67 Wikiversity, 216 African, 157–58 WikiWikiWeb, 44–45, 58–60, 61, 62 Chinese, 10, 141–44, 146, 150–55 Willy on Wheels (WoW), 178–79 encoding languages for, 140–45 Winchester, Simon, 70, 71 French, 83, 139, 146, 147 Wizards of OS conference, 211 German, 11, 139, 140, 147–49, 215, Wolof language, 158 220, 227 Wool, Danny, 3, 158, 199 Japanese, 139, 140, 141–42, 144, World Book, 16–19 145–47 World Is Flat, The (Friedman), 11 Kazakh, 155–57 World Wide Web, 34, 35, 47, 51–55 links to, 134–35, 140 Web 2.0, 68, 111, 114, 201 list of languages by size, 160–67 WYSIWYG, 222 Serbian, 155–56 Spanish, 9, 136–39, 175, 183, 215, 226 Yahoo, 4, 22, 23, 30, 191, 214 Wikipedia Watch, 192 “Year zero” article, 117 Wikipedia Weekly, 225 Yeats, William Butler, 183 wikis, 44, 51 Yongle encyclopedia, 15 Cunningham’s creation of, 2, 4, 56–60, “You have two cows” article, 118 62, 65–66, 90 YouTube, 58 MeatballWiki, 59–60, 114, 119, 175, Y2K bug, 32–33 187–88 Nupedia and, 61–65 Wikisource, 216 ZhengZhu, 152–57 About the Author Andrew Lih was an academic for ten years at Columbia University and Hong Kong University in new media and journalism.


pages: 338 words: 85,566

Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy by Jonathan Haskel, Stian Westlake

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Andrei Shleifer, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, book value, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, business cycle, business process, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, Charles Lindbergh, charter city, cloud computing, cognitive bias, cognitive load, congestion charging, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, decarbonisation, Diane Coyle, Dominic Cummings, Donald Shoup, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, equity risk premium, Erik Brynjolfsson, Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science, facts on the ground, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, general purpose technology, gentrification, Goodhart's law, green new deal, housing crisis, income inequality, index fund, indoor plumbing, industrial cluster, inflation targeting, intangible asset, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, job-hopping, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, lockdown, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Marc Andreessen, market design, Martin Wolf, megacity, mittelstand, new economy, Occupy movement, oil shock, patent troll, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, postindustrial economy, pre–internet, price discrimination, quantitative easing, QWERTY keyboard, remote working, rent-seeking, replication crisis, risk/return, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Sam Peltzman, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, six sigma, skeuomorphism, social distancing, superstar cities, the built environment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, total factor productivity, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber for X, urban planning, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, work culture , X Prize, Y2K

Explorations in Economic History 69: 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2018.03.003. Moretti, Enrico. 2012. The New Geography of Jobs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Myers, John. 2020. “Fixing Urban Planning with Ostrom: Strategies for Existing Cities to Adopt Polycentric, Bottom-Up Regulation of Land Use.” Mercatus Research, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Arlington, VA, February. https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/myers_-_mercatus_research_-_fixing_urban_planning_with_ostrom_-_v1.pdf. Nanda, Ramana, and William Kerr. 2015. “Financing Innovation.” Annual Review of Financial Economics 7 (1): 445–62. National Audit Office. 2002.


pages: 409 words: 145,128

Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City by Peter D. Norton

clean water, Frederick Winslow Taylor, garden city movement, Garrett Hardin, General Motors Futurama, invisible hand, jitney, new economy, New Urbanism, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, scientific management, Silicon Valley, smart transportation, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, urban renewal

Copper was director of research for the Los Angeles Railway and takes the street railways’ point of view. 52. Munn v. Illinois (1877); Chief Justice Morrison Waite was quoting Lord Chief Justice Hale, De Portibus Maris (c. 1670, first published 1776). 53. See Keith Revell, “Beyond Efficiency: Experts, Urban Planning, and Civic Culture in New York City, 1898–1933” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, Jan. 1994), chapter 6 (300–377). For a convenient abridgment, see Revell, Building Gotham: Civic Culture and Public Policy in New York City, 1898–1938 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), chapter 5 (185–226). 54.

By “negative regulation” I mean regulation that checks individual abuses but leaves social goals and the means of reaching them to “natural law,” leaving the state in the role of umpire. 57. See Robert M. Fogelson, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–1950 (Yale University Press, 2001), esp. chapter 3 (112–182); Keith Revell, “Beyond Efficiency: Experts, Urban Planning, and Civic Culture in New York City, 1898–1933” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, Jan. 1994), chapter 6 (300–377). Notes to Chapter 4 311 58. Lord Chief Justice Hale introduced the idea of the “public interest” in De Portibus Maris (c. 1670, first published 1776). See also Ford P.

See Foster, From Streetcar to Superhighway: American City Planners and Urban Transportation, 1900–1940 (Temple University Press, 1981); Fairfield, The Mysteries of the Great City: The Politics of Urban Design, 1877–1937 (Ohio State University Press, 1993), chapter 4 (119–157); Fairfield, “The Scientific Management of Urban Space: Professional City Planning and the Legacy of Progressive Reform,” Journal of Urban History 20 (Feb. 1994), 179–204. 17. See esp. Fairfield, Mysteries of the Great City, chapter 4 (119–157); Keith Revell, “Beyond Efficiency: Experts, Urban Planning, and Civic Culture in New York City, 1898–1933” (dissertation, University of Virginia, 1994), chapter 5 (235–299); and Revell, Building Gotham: Civic Culture and Public Policy in New York City, 1898–1938 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 185–226. 18. Charles B. Ball, Chicago City Club Bulletin; reprinted as “Why Zoning Pays” in American City 26 (March 1922), 279. 320 Notes to Chapter 5 19.


Barcelona by Damien Simonis

Berlin Wall, call centre, carbon footprint, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, Frank Gehry, gentrification, haute couture, haute cuisine, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Kickstarter, land reform, Murano, Venice glass, New Urbanism, North Sea oil, retail therapy, Suez canal 1869, sustainable-tourism, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl

MEDITERRANEAN EMPIRE THE RISE OF PARLIAMENT DECLINE & CASTILIAN DOMINATION WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION A NEW BOOM BARCELONA REBORN MAYHEM THE CIVIL WAR FROM FRANCO TO PUJOL A LEFTWARD LURCH & TUNNEL VISION ARTS ARCHITECTURE PAINTING & SCULPTURE LITERATURE MUSIC CINEMA THEATRE DANCE ENVIRONMENT & PLANNING THE LAND GREEN BARCELONA URBAN PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT GOVERNMENT & POLITICS MEDIA FASHION LANGUAGE TIMELINNE * * * Return to beginning of chapter HISTORY SIGNS FROM THE DISTANT PAST The area around present-day Barcelona was certainly inhabited prior to the arrival of the Romans in Catalonia in 218 BC. By whom, and whether or not there was an urban nucleus, is open to debate.

That said, the same town hall enthusiastically backed the construction of a giant roller coaster in the Parc d’Atraccions, to the consternation of some neighbours. About 35% of the trees that line Barcelona’s streets and parks are plane trees. Others include acacias and nettle trees. Return to beginning of chapter URBAN PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT The eminent British architect and town planner, Lord Richard Rogers, declared in 2000 that Barcelona was ‘perhaps the most successful city in the world in terms of urban regeneration’. That process, which got under way in earnest with the 1992 Olympic Games, thunders ahead. No sooner is one area given a new look, than another becomes the subject of modernisation.

Long shunned as a place to live, its warehouse lofts and big apartments have increasingly attracted homebuyers’ attention since the late 1990s. Crowds flock to the nearby beaches that stretch northeast of Port Olímpic. The strands peter out in El Fòrum, a residential, business and pleasure district where skyscrapers sprouted out of nothing in the first years of the 21st century. The last time Barcelona went on such an urban-planning drive was towards the end of the 19th century, with the creation of L’Eixample. Its Modernista treasures, from La Pedrera to La Sagrada Família, attract hordes of visitors to its gridded streets, which also hide countless gems for foodies, drinkers and shoppers. L’Eixample filled the gap between Barcelona, Gràcia and Park Güell.


pages: 356 words: 91,157

The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class?and What We Can Do About It by Richard Florida

affirmative action, Airbnb, back-to-the-city movement, basic income, Bernie Sanders, bike sharing, blue-collar work, business climate, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, Columbine, congestion charging, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, East Village, edge city, Edward Glaeser, failed state, Ferguson, Missouri, gentrification, Gini coefficient, Google bus, high net worth, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, jitney, Kitchen Debate, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, land value tax, low skilled workers, Lyft, megacity, megaproject, Menlo Park, mortgage tax deduction, Nate Silver, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, occupational segregation, off-the-grid, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paul Graham, plutocrats, RAND corporation, rent control, rent-seeking, restrictive zoning, Richard Florida, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, SimCity, sovereign wealth fund, streetcar suburb, superstar cities, tech worker, the built environment, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, white flight, young professional

We all care deeply about where we live and want others to respect our right to be there. When they do not, anger and anxiety mount, and tensions flare. Yet a number of experts who have researched the subject see the standard complaints about gentrification as overblown and inaccurate. Lance Freeman, an urban planning professor at Columbia University who has studied the gentrification of Harlem and other New York neighborhoods extensively, thinks that the concern over the direct displacement of poor residents by wealthy gentrifiers is based more on myth than reality. Douglas Massey, a sociologist at Princeton University and a leading expert on racial and economic segregation, argues that gentrification is a proverbial “drop in the bucket” compared to the broader movement of people into and out of cities.

Data on Ferguson are from Elizabeth Kneebone, “Ferguson, MO, Emblematic of Growing Suburban Poverty,” Brookings Institution, August 15, 2014, www.brookings.edu/blogs/the-avenue/posts/2014/08/15-ferguson-suburban-poverty; James Russell, “Ferguson and Failing Suburbs,” Jamessrussell.net, August 17, 2015, http://jamessrussell.net/ferguson-and-failing-suburbs; Stephen Bronars, “Half of Ferguson’s Young African-American Men Are Missing,” Forbes, March 18, 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2015/03/18/half-of-fergusons-young-african-american-men-are-missing. 13. On the connection between commuting time and economic mobility, see Reid Ewing, Shima Hamidi, James B. Grace, and Yehua Dennis Wei, “Does Urban Sprawl Hold Down Upward Mobility?” Landscape and Urban Planning 148 (April 2016): 80–88. 14. On the delivery of local services to the suburbs, see Arthur Nelson as cited in Leigh Gallagher, The End of the Suburbs: Where the American Dream Is Moving (New York: Portfolio Penguin, 2013). For the UCLA study, by the California Center for Sustainable Communities, see Laura Bliss, “L.A.’s New ‘Energy Atlas’ Maps: Who Sucks the Most Off the Grid,” CityLab, October 6, 2015, www.citylab.com/housing/2015/10/las-new-energy-atlas-maps-who-sucks-the-most-off-the-grid/409135.


pages: 346 words: 89,180

Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy by Jonathan Haskel, Stian Westlake

23andMe, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, Andrei Shleifer, bank run, banking crisis, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, book value, Brexit referendum, business climate, business process, buy and hold, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, cloud computing, cognitive bias, computer age, congestion pricing, corporate governance, corporate raider, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, dark matter, Diane Coyle, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, endogenous growth, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial engineering, financial innovation, full employment, fundamental attribution error, future of work, gentrification, gigafactory, Gini coefficient, Hernando de Soto, hiring and firing, income inequality, index card, indoor plumbing, intangible asset, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, Kanban, Kenneth Arrow, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, liquidity trap, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Marc Andreessen, Mother of all demos, Network effects, new economy, Ocado, open economy, patent troll, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, pets.com, place-making, post-industrial society, private spaceflight, Productivity paradox, quantitative hedge fund, rent-seeking, revision control, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Sand Hill Road, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, six sigma, Skype, software patent, sovereign wealth fund, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, sunk-cost fallacy, survivorship bias, tacit knowledge, tech billionaire, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, total factor productivity, TSMC, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, urban planning, Vanguard fund, walkable city, X Prize, zero-sum game

Good public policy should be just as assiduous about creating the conditions for knowledge to spread, mingle, and fructify as it is about creating property rights for those who invest in intangibles. Despite frequent predictions that the Internet will lead to the death of distance, for the time being the spillovers between intangibles happen in specific places where people congregate, especially in cities. This makes good urban planning and land-use policies extremely important. There is of course a vast literature on what constitutes good policy for cities, but in the context of intangibles, there are two important principles. On the one hand, city rules should not make it hard to build new workplaces and housing. Cities should have freedom to grow to make the most of the ever-increasing synergies arising from intangibles.

Firms using intangibles become more authoritarian; those generating intangibles will need more leadership; financial investors will have to find information well beyond the current financial statements that purport to describe current businesses. 6. The shift also changes the public policy agenda. Policymakers will need to focus on facilitating knowledge infrastructure—such as education, Internet and communications technology, urban planning, and public science spending—and on clarifying IP regulation but not necessarily strengthening it. It is worth reviewing in what respect these points are controversial—and where the balance of proof lies. The first point, that there has been a shift from tangible to intangible spending, is relatively widely accepted.


pages: 313 words: 92,053

Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life by Colin Ellard

Apollo 11, augmented reality, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Broken windows theory, Buckminster Fuller, carbon footprint, classic study, cognitive load, commoditize, crowdsourcing, data science, Dunbar number, Frank Gehry, gentrification, Google Glasses, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, Howard Rheingold, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, Lewis Mumford, mandelbrot fractal, Marshall McLuhan, Masdar, mass immigration, megastructure, mirror neurons, Mondo 2000, more computing power than Apollo, Oculus Rift, overview effect, Peter Eisenman, RFID, Richard Florida, risk tolerance, sentiment analysis, Skinner box, smart cities, starchitect, TED Talk, the built environment, theory of mind, time dilation, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen

Perhaps for U.S. visitors the appearance of these streets conjures a vision of a simpler and happier time in the United States than in more recent years. But in addition to the historical associations that might be set into play by the sight of Main Street, there is an appealing order, scale, and structure to the street.6 Just as Koolhaas argues that Coney Island technology of the fantastic had an influence on serious urban planning in Manhattan, the design of Disney’s Main Street can also be said to have had an influence on town planning in the United States. This influence was made explicit in the Disney-designed town of Celebration in Florida, which employs similar principles to those perfected on the Main Street of the nearby theme park DisneyWorld.

We are much more likely to be circumspect at night than we are during the daytime. Women and the elderly have lower thresholds for anxiety or avoidance, and this is perfectly in keeping with their greater vulnerability to threat. The gender difference in both perception of and vulnerability to risk is difficult to overemphasize and should be a key element of successful urban planning. In 1991, A Viennese survey found that the daily routes of men and women through the city was markedly disparate: men tended to drive or take public transit twice a day, once on the way to work and once on the way home again, whereas women took varied routes related to childcare, household shopping, and a variety of other activities.


pages: 327 words: 88,121

The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community by Marc J. Dunkelman

Abraham Maslow, adjacent possible, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, assortative mating, Berlin Wall, big-box store, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, Broken windows theory, business cycle, call centre, clean water, company town, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, David Brooks, delayed gratification, different worldview, double helix, Downton Abbey, Dunbar number, Edward Jenner, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Filter Bubble, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gentrification, George Santayana, Gini coefficient, glass ceiling, global supply chain, global village, helicopter parent, if you build it, they will come, impulse control, income inequality, invention of movable type, Jane Jacobs, Khyber Pass, Lewis Mumford, Louis Pasteur, Marshall McLuhan, McMansion, Nate Silver, obamacare, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, Peter Thiel, post-industrial society, Richard Florida, rolodex, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, social intelligence, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, telemarketer, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the medium is the message, the strength of weak ties, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, urban decay, urban planning, Walter Mischel, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

It was difficult, perhaps impossible, to see from afar, but in the daily interactions of neighborhood life—shopkeepers holding a spare key for the tenants upstairs, mothers keeping an eye on the gaggle of children playing in the alley—a web of social interactions grew organically. And beyond any seeming messiness, the familiarity that arose out of those interactions was the most effective salve for social isolation. Jacobs wasn’t arguing that any mass of people would develop a sense of community naturally; that, she contended, was the problem with bad urban planning. Certain structural elements were necessary, if not sufficient, to cultivate gemeinshaft. At the core, she argued, well-functioning cities needed to be divided organically into internally diverse districts of between eighty thousand and two hundred thousand people. “The chief function of a successful district,” she wrote, “is to mediate between the indispensable, but inherently politically powerless, street neighborhoods, and the inherently powerful city as a whole.”21 The success of each district hinged in turn on its capacity to embrace several axioms of vibrant urban life.

Jamaica, 180–81 shifts in, xii–xx, 75, 129, 134–35, 143–44, 146, 151, 194, 211, 212–13, 217, 247n social brain hypothesis, 91–92 social capital, 98–112, 114, 170, 173 Putnam’s use of term, 115 removed from middle rings, 113–26, 129, 138–39, 143, 145, 148, 189–90, 208, 213, 239 social character, 4–8, 12 social diversity, 79, 81, 86, 232 Chinatown Bus effect and, 38–41, 43–44, 46–48 social ethic, 5 social gaming, 121–22 social mobility, 21–24, 26 social networking, 18, 37–38, 115, 125, 209 Chinatown Bus effect and, 38, 45 social networks, 48, 109–10, 144, 195, 237 brain size and, 91–92 social safety net, xviii, xix, 198, 200–205, 209–10, 227, 234 Social Security, xv, 198, 230 social structure, 11, 92–98 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 109 Soviet Union, 6, 51, 52, 233 Spanish-American War, 188 special interests, 183, 186, 187, 229 spirituality, 71–72, 74 sports, 8–12, 108 Srivastava, Sameer, 119–20 Stand by Me (film), 123–24, 126 statistics, 7–11, 119 globalization and, 17–18 on organizations, 44–45 Stevenson, Adlai, 190 Stewart, Jon, 232 Stiglitz, Joseph, 22, 23 strangers, x, 11, 107, 134, 135, 142, 150, 188–89, 240 Strauss, Levi, 162–63 subcultural theory of urbanism, 87 suburbs, xiii, 3–5, 17, 39–40, 48, 50, 56, 83, 84, 129, 145, 147, 153 business in, 175–76 flight to, 56, 138 mobility and, 25, 104 success, 215–18, 224, 230 support clique, 96 Survivor (TV show), 64 Swinton, Ernest, 162 sympathy group, 96 teamwork (team chemistry), 9, 164, 165.11–12 Tea Party, 109–10, 182, 228, 230 technology, xi, xv, 8, 10, 25, 173–74, 195, 237 Chinatown Bus effect and, 35–38 First Wave and, 16 gerrymandering and, 183–84 information, see information technology merging of, 160, 162 mobile, 104, 260n Second Wave and, 16 Third Wave and, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21 telephone calls, xi, 7–8, 104, 123 television, 34–37, 54, 60, 148, 152 reality, 63–64 terrorism, 55–56, 227 That Used to Be Us (Friedman), 240 theory, decline of, 6–8 Thiel, Peter, 174 Thinking Fast and Slow (Kahneman), 13 Third Wave society, 16–32, 75, 89, 101, 105, 126, 171 Chinatown Bus effect and, 34–35, 40, 43, 44–45, 48 home life and, 17, 26–31 mobility and, 17, 21–26 This American Life (radio show), 180 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 66, 80, 81, 115, 139, 151, 187, 228, 234, 239, 258n township and, xiii, 80, 88, 127, 142, 176–77, 191, 247n To Dwell Among Friends (Fischer), 128–29 Toffler, Alvin, 14–17, 31–32, 88, 89 Toffler, Heidi, 14–17, 31–32, 88, 89 Tough, Paul, 216, 222 township, xiii, xviii, xix, 79–82, 88–89, 126, 142–49, 174, 176, 194, 195, 213, 217, 232–37, 239, 247n decline of, 127–32, 134–39, 153 durability of, 138, 144, 151, 152, 153 health care and, 201–2, 208, 209, 210 politics of, 189–90, 191 prejudice and, 146, 148 tribes, 93, 95, 96, 97 Truman, Harry, 65 trust, 165 community, 150–51 social, 98–99, 134–35, 173, 193 Turkle, Sherry, 111 Twitter, 45, 108, 110, 114, 143 Unwinding, The (Packer), 235 urbanism, xiii, 4–5, 16, 56, 83–88, 127–29, 222 depravity associated with, 83, 84, 87, 127–28 subcultural theory of, 87 urban planning, bad vs. good, 86 Uzzi, Brian, 165 vaccination, 51, 59, 157–59, 174, 265n “valuable inefficiency,” 168 variolation, 157, 158 video games, 120–22 villages, 92–95, 116, 127, 135, 144, 153, 213, 236 global, 16, 142–43 violence, 55–56, 61, 134 voluntary organizations, 80, 116–18, 130–31, 187, 201, 228, 239 Wachtel, Eleanor, 57 Wade, Dwyane, 8–9 wages, 11, 22, 55, 180 Warren, Rick, 72 Washington, D.C., 3, 19, 113, 188–89 Chinatown in, 33–35 lack of diversity in, 46 see also government, U.S.


There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years by Mike Berners-Lee

air freight, Anthropocene, autonomous vehicles, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, call centre, carbon footprint, carbon tax, cloud computing, dematerialisation, disinformation, driverless car, Easter island, Elon Musk, energy security, energy transition, fake news, food miles, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global village, Hans Rosling, high-speed rail, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jevons paradox, land reform, microplastics / micro fibres, negative emissions, neoliberal agenda, off grid, performance metric, post-truth, profit motive, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, smart cities, Stephen Hawking, systems thinking, TED Talk, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trickle-down economics, urban planning

32, 147–48, 227 big picture perspective 186, 191, 195–97 biodiversity 44, 53–54, 101–3, 102–3, 103–4, 214 big picture perspective 195–96 pressure on land 78–79, 91 Bioregional, One Planet Living 160–62, 162 boats/shipping 114–16, 235–36 Brazil 69–70, 70 278 Brexit 214 Buddhism 193, 208 bullshit 179, 214; see also fake news; truth Burning Question (Berners-Lee and Clark) 4, 92, 215 business as usual 8, 128, 204 businesses 158, 215 environmental strategies 163–64 fossil fuel companies 223 perspectives/vision 159 role in wealth distribution 138–39 science-based targets 164–66 systems approaches 159–62, 161–62 technological changes 166–68 useful/beneficial organisations 158–59 values 159, 174 see also food retailers call centres, negative effect of performance metrics 125–26 calorific needs 12, 242–43 carbohydrates, carbon footprint 23–25, 25 carbon budgets 51–52, 88, 146, 169–70, 201–2, 204–5 carbon capture and storage (CCS) 91–92, 141, 211, 215 carbon dioxide emissions, exponential growth 202–4, 203, 220; see also greenhouse gas emissions carbon footprints agriculture 22–25, 23, 29–30 carbohydrates 25 local food/food miles 30–32 population growth 149 protein 24 sea travel 114–16 vegetarianism/veganism 27 INDEX carbon pricing 145–47, 209–10 carbon scrubbing 211, 216 carbon taxes 142–43 CCS see carbon capture and storage celebrities 182 change, embracing see openmindedness chicken farms 25–26 Chilean seabass (Patagonian toothfish) 33–34 China 216 global distribution of fossil fuel reserves 89–90 sunlight/radiant energy 69–70, 70 choice//being in control 266 cities, urban planning and transport 104–6 citizen’s wages 136–39, 153–54 Clark, Duncan: Burning Question (with Berners-Lee) 4, 92, 215 climate change 3–4, 51, 55, 216 big picture perspective 195 biodiversity impacts 53–54 evidence against using fossil fuels 64–66 ocean acidification 54–55 plastics production/pollution 55–58, 56–57 rebound effects 52, 128, 165–66, 206–7, 206 science-based targets 164–66 scientific facts 51–53, 200–11, 203, 206 systems approaches 159–62, 161 values 169–70 coal 216; see also fossil fuels comfort breaks, performance metrics 125–27 Common Cause report (Crompton) 129 community service 174 Index commuting 217; see also travel and transport companies see businesses competence 266 complexity 189, 191, 221; see also simplistic thinking consumption/consumerism 217 ethical 147–48, 168 personal actions 174–75 risks of further growth 121 values 173 corporate responsibility 219; see also businesses critical realism 176 critical thinking skills 188–89, 191 Crompton, Tom (Common Cause report) 129 cruises 115–16 cultural norms big picture perspective 197 values 171–72 cultures of truth 177–79 cumulative carbon budgets 51, 201–2 cycling 4–5, 99–102, 116, 217 dairy industry 230–31; see also animal sources of food democracy 141, 218, 240–41; see also voting denial 198, 227 Denmark, wealth distribution 130–35 Desai, Pooran 161–62 desalination plants, energy use 94 determinism 95, 218 developed countries 218–19 energy use 93 food waste 13, 39–40, 241 diesel vehicles 107–9, 109 diet, sustainable 219; see also vegetarianism/veganism 279 digital information storage, and energy efficiency 84–85 direct air capture, carbon dioxide 211, 216 distance, units of 243 double-sided photocopying metaphor 219 driverless cars 109–10 e-transport e-bikes 101–2, 116 e-boats 115 e-cars 101–2, 106, 220 e-planes 111 investment 141 economic growth 119, 219 big picture perspective 196–97 carbon pricing 145–47 carbon taxes 142–43 consumer power through spending practices 147–48 GDP as inadequate metric 123–24, 126–27 investment 140–42 market forces 127–30 need for new metric of healthy growth 124–27 risks and benefits of growth 120–23, 121 trickledown of wealth 130–31, 130 wealth distribution 130–35, 131–40, 132, 134 education 173–74, 219 efficiency 219–20 digital information storage 84–85 energy use 82–85 investment 141 limitations of electricity 73–86, 85–87 meat eating/animal feed 212–13 rebound effects 84, 207 280 electric vehicles see e-transport electricity, limitations of use 73–86, 85–87; see also renewable energy sources empathy 172, 186–87, 191 employment see work/employment enablement, businesses 163–64 energy in a gas analogy of wealth distribution 136–39 energy use 59, 87, 95–96 current usage 59–60 efficiency 82–85 fracking 79–81, 81 growth rates over time see below inequality 60, 90–91, 131 interstellar travel 117–18 limitations of electricity 73–86, 85–87 limits to growth 67–69, 68, 94–95, 208 nuclear fission 75–77 nuclear fusion 77 personal actions and effects 97 risks of further growth 120–21 sources 63–64 supplied by food 12 UK energy by end use 62, 62 units of 242–43 values 169–70 see also fossil fuels; renewable energy sources energy use growth 1–2, 60–62, 61, 220 and energy efficiency 84 future estimates 93–94 limits to growth 67–69, 68, 94–95 and renewables 81–82 enhanced rock weathering 92 enoughness 221; see also limits to growth environmental strategies, businesses 163–64 science-based targets 164–66 INDEX ethical consumerism 147–48, 168 ethics see values evolutionary rebalancing 6, 221 expert opinion 221 exponential growth 120, 121, 149, 202–4, 220–21 extrinsic motivation and values 143–44, 170–73 facts 222 climate change 51–53, 200–11, 203, 206 meaning of 175–76 media roles in promoting 179–80 see also misinformation; truth fake news 170, 175, 222; see also misinformation farming see food and agriculture fast food 238 feedback mechanisms 272; see also rebound effects fish farming 33 fishing industry 32–36, 222–23 flat lining blip, carbon dioxide emissions 203–4, 220 flexibility see open-mindedness flying see air travel food and agriculture 11, 50, 222–23 animal farming 16–21, 29 biofuels 44 carbon footprints 22–25, 23–25, 27 chicken farming 25–26 employment in agriculture 44–45, 222 feeding growing populations 46–47 fish 32–36 global surplus in comparison to needs 12, 13 human calorific needs 12 investment in sustainability 48–50, 141 Index malnutrition and inequalities of distribution 15–16 overeating/obesity 16 personal actions 30, 34–35, 40, 43, 50 research needs 49 rice farming 29–30 soya bean farming 21, 22 supply chains 48 technology in agriculture 45–46 vegetarianism/veganism 26–29 see also waste food food imports, and population growth 150 food markets 130–31 food miles 30–32, 230 food retailers fish 35–36 food wastage 40–42 rice 30 vegetarianism/veganism 28 fossil fuel companies 223 fossil fuels 63–64, 216, 223 carbon pricing 145–47, 209–10 carbon taxes 142–43 evidence against using 64–66 global deals 87–91, 161, 205–6, 208–9 global distribution of reserves 89, 89–90 limitations of using electricity instead 73–86, 85–87 need to leave in the ground 87–91, 161, 205–6, 208–9, 223 sea travel 115 using renewables instead of or as well as 81–82 fracking 79–81, 81, 224 free markets 127–30, 172, 228 free will 95, 167 frog in a pan of water analogy 236, 241 fun 224 281 fundamentalism 176, 192 future scenarios aims and visions 8–9 climate change lag times 204–5 energy use 93–94 planning ahead 204–5 thinking/caring about 187, 191, 229 travel and transport 100–1, 109–10 gambling industry 139–40, 152, 265 gas analogy of wealth distribution 136–39 gas (natural gas) 224; see also fracking; methane GDP big picture perspective 196–97 as inappropriate metric of healthy growth 123–24, 126–27 risks of further growth 121–22 genetic modification 45–46 genuineness 172 geo engineering solutions 224–25 Germany, tax system 145 Gini coefficient of income inequality 144 global cultural norms 171–72, 197 global deals 163 fossil fuels 87–91, 208–10 inequity 210 global distribution, fossil fuels 89–91, 89 global distribution, solar energy 69–71, 70, 89 global distribution, wind energy 74, 74 global food surplus 12, 13 global governance 127–30, 141, 225 global solutions, big picture perspective 196 global systems 5–6, 186, 225 global temperature increases 200–1 282 global thinking skills 186 global travel, by mode of transport 100 global wealth distribution 130–35, 132, 132, 134, 144, 145 governmental roles big picture perspective 196 climate change policies 51–53, 200–11 energy use policies 59, 97 fishing industry 36 promoting culture of truth 178–80 sustainable farming 29, 45 technological changes 168 wealth distribution 138 see also global governance greed 225–26; see also individualism greenhouse gas emissions 209 exponential growth curves 202–4, 203, 220 food and agriculture 23 market forces 128 measurement 127 mitigation of food waste 42, 43, 43 risks of further growth 120 scientific facts 51–53 units 243 see also carbon dioxide; carbon footprints; methane; nitrogen dioxide greenwash 215, 226 growth 226; see also economic growth; energy use growth; exponential growth hair shirts 212, 224, 226–27 Handy, Charles 236 Happy Planet Index 126 Hardy, Lew 143 Hawking , Stephen 2, 166–67 Hong Kong, population growth 149–50 INDEX How Bad Are Bananas?

(Berners-Lee) 32, 147–48, 227 hydrocarbons/hydrogen 72 hydroelectric power 75 hydro storage 72 ice 228 ICT (information and communication technology), impacts 84–85, 113–14 imperial units 242–44 income tax see tax system India, global distribution of fossil fuel reserves 89–90 individual actions see personal actions and effects individualism 119, 225–26, 228 indoor farming 45–46, 67–68 inequality 228 and citizen’s wage 154 energy use 60, 90–91, 131 food distribution 15–16 global deals 210 population growth 150–51 prisons/prisoners 156 tax system 142–45, 144 trickledown of wealth 130–31, 130 and values 169–71 wealth distribution 130–35, 131–40, 132, 134 insecurity 172–73 interdependencies, global/societal 189–90 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 229 interstellar travel, impracticality of 117–18, 195, 237 interventionist economies 127–30 intrinsic motivation and values 143–44, 170–73 investment 140–42, 228–29 renewable energy sources 73, 87 sustainable farming 48–50 Index iodine, malnutrition 15 IPCC see Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Iraq, global distribution of fossil fuel reserves 89–90 Ireland, tax system 145 iron animal sources of food 19–20 malnutrition and inequalities of distribution 15 irrigation technology 45–46 Italy, wealth distribution 130–35, 133 Japan nuclear energy 76 sunlight/radiant energy 70, 70–71 Jevons paradox, energy efficiency 82–83 jobs see work/employment joined up perspectives 189–92, 221 journalists see media roles Kennedy, Bobby: speech on GNP 124 Keys to Performance (O’Connor) 180 kids 6–8, 187, 191, 229 kilocalories 12, 242–43 kinetic energy in a gas analogy 136–39 laboratory grown meat 45–46, 67–68 lag times, climate change 204–5 land requirements, sustainable travel 101–3, 102–3, 103–4 leadership 229–30 life expectancy, benefits of growth 123 life-minutes per person lost, diesel vehicles 109 lifestyles 4–5; see also personal actions and effects 283 limits to growth 221 big picture perspective 195 energy use 67–69, 68, 94–95, 208 21st century thinking skills 187–88 and values 170 local activities, appreciation of 123, 187–88, 191 local food, pros and cons 30–32, 230 luxury cruises 115–16 Maldives 210, 230 malnutrition 15–16 Marine Stewardship Council 33 market economies 127–30 materialistic values 174; see also consumption/consumerism maturity, need for 93, 121 Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution 136–38, 230, 265 measurement see metrics meat eating see animal sources of food media roles 231 promoting culture of truth 179–80 trust 182 messages, societal 172–74; see also values methane 79–81, 208–9, 231 metric units 242–44 metrics healthy economic growth 124–27 prisons/prisoners 156 and values 174 work/employment 151 micro-nutrients animal sources of food 19–20 malnutrition 15 Microsoft, carbon pricing scheme 147 mindfulness 174–75, 191, 193 284 misinformation 222 and trust 182, 184 and truth 175 and values 170 mitigation strategies, businesses 163–64 models, climate change 200–1, 204–5 molecular analogy of wealth distribution 136–39 Monbiot, George 236 motivation extrinsic/intrinsic 143–44, 172–73 and trust 181, 184 Musk, Elon 167 natural gas 224; see also fracking; methane neoliberalism 45, 129, 131, 172, 228, 232; see also free market Netherlands 70, 70–71, 149–50 neuroscience 232 nitrogen dioxide 108, 208–9 Norway 130–35, 138, 155–56 nuclear fusion 77, 232 nuclear power (fusion) 75–77, 231–32 obesity 16 ocean acidification 54–55, 232 O’Connor, Tim: Keys to Performance 180 oil 233; see also fossil fuels One Planet principles 160–62, 162 open-mindedness neuroscience 232 respect for 180 spirituality/belief systems 192 and trust 181–82, 184 optimism bias 233 over-simplification 182; see also complexity overeating 16 INDEX parental responsibility 233 Paris climate agreement 165–66 particulate air pollution 107–9 Patagonian Toothfish 33–34 pay rates 173; see also wealth distribution personal actions and effects 198–99, 233–34 air travel 112–13 antibiotics resistance 21 climate change 55 energy 97 feelings of insignificance in global systems 5–6 food/agricultural issues 30, 34–35, 40, 43, 50 population growth 150–51 promoting culture of truth 178–79 technological changes 168 values 174–75 wealth distribution 139 work/employment 153 ‘personal truths’ 176–77 perspectives big picture 186, 191, 195–97 businesses 159 joined up 189–92, 221 photocopying metaphor 219 photovoltaic technology 63–64, 66–67; see also solar energy physical growth mind-set 120 Planet B, lack of 117–18, 195, 237 planned economies 127–30 planning ahead, future scenarios 204–5 planning, urban 104 plastics 55–58, 56–57, 234 politicians see governmental roles; voting pollution, chicken farming 25–26; see also air pollution Index population growth 149–50, 234 feeding growing populations 46–47 investment in control measures 141, 150–51 personal actions and effects 150–51 risks of further growth 122 positive feedback mechanisms, climate change 200–1, 239 power, units of 242–43 prisons/prisoners 154–57, 157, 174, 234 problem-solving methods 5 profit-motive 159, 174 protein animal sources 17–18, 18 carbon footprints 23–25, 24 psychology 227–28 public service 174 questions and answers, reader contributions 194 reader contributions 9–10, 194 ready meals 238 rebalancing, evolutionary 6, 221 rebound effects 213, 235, 272 business strategies 163 climate change 52, 128, 165–66, 206–7, 206 energy efficiency 84, 207 virtual meetings 113–14 reductionism 189–90, 193 refugees 234–35 relatedness/belonging 266 religion 192–93 renewable energy sources 64, 208, 235 hydroelectric power 75 investment 141 limitations relative to fossil fuels 73–86, 85–87 285 using instead of/as well as fossil fuels 81–82 wind energy 73–74 see also biofuels; carbon capture and storage; solar energy respect 171, 180, 197 responsibility corporate 219 parents 233 super-rich 134–35 restaurants role food wastage 40 vegetarianism/veganism 28 retailing, food see food retailers revenge, prisoners 155–56 rice farming 29–30, 45–46, 235 rock weathering, carbon capture and storage 92 Rogers, Carl 172 Russia 210, 235 global distribution of fossil fuel reserves 89–90 sunlight/radiant energy 69–70, 70 Rwanda 70, 70–71, 172 salaries 173; see also wealth distribution Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) 164–66 scientific facts see facts scientific fundamentalism 176 scientific reductionism 189–90, 193 seabass, rebadging Patagonian toothfish as 33–34 sea travel 114–16, 235–36 self-awareness of simple/small/local 123, 187–88, 191 and trust 181, 184 self-reflection, 21st century thinking skills 188 286 sentient animals, treating decently 11, 17 shared-use vehicles 105–6 shareholder profits 159, 174 sharing 146 shifting baseline syndrome 236 shipping 114–16, 235–36 shock 236 simple things, appreciation of 123, 187–88, 191 simplistic thinking 182; see also complexity slavery and citizen’s wage 154 and employment 151 fishing industry 32, 34–35 slowing down 187–88, 196 small scale, appreciation of 123, 187–88, 191 Smith, Adam: The Wealth of Nations 129 social support structures, and values 173–74 solar energy 236 amount falling on earth 66 coping with intermittent sunlight 71–73 countries with highest radiant energy 69–71 countries with least radiant energy 70–71 relative to fossil fuel reserves 89 global distribution of radiant energy 69–71, 70 harnessing 66–67 South Korea, sunlight/radiant energy 70, 70–71 soya beans 21, 22, 236–37 space tourism 94, 100 spaceflight, impracticality of interstellar travel 117–18, 195, 237 INDEX Spain, wealth distribution 130–35, 133 spending practices, ethical consumerism 147–48, 168 spirituality/belief systems 192–93, 237 status symbols 173 sticking plasters (band aids) 237–38 storage of renewable energy 71–73 sunlight see solar energy supermarkets see food retailers super-rich responsibilities 134–35 taxation 145 wealth distribution 137 supply chains ethical consumerism 147–48 food and agriculture 48 science-based targets 165–66 systems approaches big picture perspective 196 businesses 159–62, 161 One Planet Living principles 160–62, 162 Taiwan, tax system 145 takeaways 238 tax system 238 carbon taxes 142–43 wealth distribution 138, 142–45 technological changes 239 agricultural 45–46 big picture perspective 195–96 business strategies 166–68 and economic growth 122–23 thinking skills big picture perspective 197 twenty-first century 185–92, 190–91 tipping points see trigger points town planning 104 transmission of renewable energy 73 Index travel and transport 99 air travel 110–14 autonomous cars 109–10 commuting 217 current rates 99–100, 100 cycling 116 diesel vehicles 107–9, 109 e-cars 106 food miles 30–32 future demands 100–1, 109–10 land needed for sustainable 101–3, 102–3, 103–4 sea travel 114–16 shared-use vehicles 105–6 spaceflight 117–18 urban 104–6 trickledown of wealth 130–31, 130, 239 trigger points, step changes in climate 2, 200–2 trust 180–84 truth 175–76, 239 big picture perspective 197 importance of seeking 177 media roles 179–80 ‘personal truths’ 176–77 promoting culture of 177–79 respect for 171 and trust 180–84 tsunami, December 2004 2 twenty-first century thinking skills 185–92, 190–91, 197 2-degree ‘safe limit’ for temperature rise 52, 200–1, 204–5, 239 unconditional positive regard 172 United Kingdom energy by end use 62, 62 gambling industry 139–40 nuclear energy 76 population growth 149–50 prisons/prisoners 155 287 sunlight/radiant energy 70, 70–71 wealth distribution 136–37 United States global distribution of fossil fuel reserves 89–90 prisons/prisoners 155–56 sunlight/radiant energy 69–70, 70 tax system 145 wealth distribution 130–35, 132–35 units, metric/imperial 242–44 urban planning 104 urban transport 104–6 value of human life 240 values 6–8, 169 big picture perspective 197 businesses 159, 174 changing for the better 172–75 and economics 119 evidence base for values choices 169–71 extrinsic/intrinsic 170–73 global cultural norms 171–72, 197 prisons/prisoners 156 technological changes 168 wealth distribution 132–33 work/employment 152–53 see also ethical consumerism vegetarianism/veganism 26–29 Venezuela, global distribution of fossil fuels 89–90 violent deaths 240 virtual travel 113–14 visions of future 8–9 businesses 159 vitamin A 15, 19–20, 247 voting, power of 240–41 climate change policies 51–53, 200–11 288 voting, power of (cont.) energy policies 59, 97 promoting culture of truth 178–80 see also democracy waking up 241 Wallis, Stewart 145 waste food 36–43, 241 mitigation 42–44, 43, 43 as proportion of food grown 12–15, 14 by region/type/processing stage 37, 38–39, 39 water use technology, in agriculture 45–46 watts 12, 242–43 wealth distribution economics 130–35, 131–40, 132, 134 tax system 138, 142–45, 144 see also inequality The Wealth of Nations (Smith) 129 INDEX weapons industry 152 weight, units of 244 wellbeing 241 benefits of growth 123 businesses, role of 158–59 and citizen’s wage 154 metrics of healthy growth 126 work/employment 151–52 Wellbeing Economy 267 wind energy 73–74 wisdom, need for 93, 121 work/employment 229 agricultural work 44–45, 222 and citizen’s wage 153–54 investment in sustainability 49–50 personal actions and effects 153 useful/beneficial 151–52 values 152–53 zinc 15, 19–20


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Bricks & Mortals: Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made by Tom Wilkinson

Berlin Wall, British Empire, cuban missile crisis, Donald Trump, double helix, experimental subject, false memory syndrome, financial independence, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, gentrification, Google Glasses, housing crisis, Kitchen Debate, Lewis Mumford, Mahatma Gandhi, mass incarceration, megacity, neoliberal agenda, New Urbanism, nudge theory, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, scientific management, starchitect, traveling salesman, trickle-down economics, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, vertical integration

The Letters of Gertrude Bell, vol. 2 (1927). http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400461h.html 22 Bernhardsson, 105. 23 Ibid. 108. 24 Jean-Claude Maurice, Si vous le répétez, je démentirai: Chirac, Sarkozy, Vilepin (Paris, 2009). 25 Daniel Brook, ‘The Architect of 9/11’, Slate, September 10 2009. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/features/2009/the_architect_of_911/what_can_we_learn_about_mohamed_atta_from_his_work_as_a_student_of_urban_planning.html Chapter 2: The Golden House 1 Wolfgang Kayser, The Grotesque in Art and Literature (Bloomington, IN, 1963) 20. 2 Suetonius, vol. 2, trans. J.C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA, 1914). http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Nero*.html 3 Tacitus, The Annals, trans.

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pages: 322 words: 89,523

Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community by Karen T. Litfin

active transport: walking or cycling, agricultural Revolution, Anthropocene, back-to-the-land, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, collaborative consumption, Community Supported Agriculture, complexity theory, congestion pricing, corporate social responsibility, degrowth, glass ceiling, global village, hydraulic fracturing, intentional community, megacity, new economy, off grid, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, planetary scale, publish or perish, Silicon Valley, systems thinking, the built environment, the scientific method, The Spirit Level, urban planning, Zipcar

I met Lara Morrison, an ecologist, a Christian and a self-described “mystic by nature,” in the LAEV permaculture courtyard. Lara graduated in the mid-seventies from the University of Washington, where I teach. Back then, UW had no environmental studies major so she designed her own by combining forestry, biology, geology, and urban planning. Definitely a woman ahead of her time. Today, environmental studies is UW’s fastest growing major. I asked Lara if there is a connection between her scientific training and her mysticism. She said yes. “For me, the universe is self-revealing. It’s a matter of listening to reality and attending to both our internal and external experience.

(Dr Ari) 28, 170 Arkin, Lois 30, 114–15, 143 art 8, 13, 58, 88, 119, 122, 138, 141, 183–4 Asia 12, 13, 15, 45, 71, 195 atheism 10, 150, 159, 162 atmosphere (Earth’s) 45, 113, 155, 169, 189 attunement 22, 128–9, 156 Auroville 10, 19, 27, 30–1, 38, 45–6, 63, 71, 88, 104, 114, 133, 137–40, 142, 150, 155, 177, 180–4 Auroville Village Action Group 181 Aurum earth-brick machine 46 Australia 13, 15, 26–7, 46, 53, 73, 181 Ba, Djibril (Jiby) 59, 72, 91 back-to-the-land 11, 22, 56 backyard 73, 97, 127, 189, 190, 205 backyard farm 97, 205 bacteria 29, 51, 60–1 Balde, Djibril 59 Bangladesh 107, 201 Barrel Cluster (Findhorn) 40 Bayer Corporation 199 beauty 25, 39, 47, 75, 78, 82, 89, 101, 108, 147, 163, 174–5, 205 bees 54, 74 belonging (sense of) 14, 30, 31, 136, 144, 146–8, 150, 152, 185 culture of 146–8, 152, 192 story of 185 Berlin 23, 64, 84, 86, 88, 177 Berry, Thomas 154–5 Berry, Wendell 170 Bible (New Testament) 163, 173 bicycle 1, 8, 27, 43, 63–7, 127, 192–4 Big Bang 154–5 bike trains 189 biodiversity 27, 71 see also wildlife biogeochemical cycles 201 biology 4, 25, 36, 51, 53, 57, 72, 135, 154, 159, 162, 163 birds 34, 73, 152, 155 Block, Peter 192 blocking (in consensus decision-making) 8, 41, 64–5, 117–19 Bokaer, Joan 54 Bott, Gabi 166 Brazil 13, 195 Brooks, Joss 181–3 Buddhism 28, 85, 149, 150, 151, 159, 162, 164, 165, 171, 177 building codes 40, 44, 53, 194 bus stop 24, 63, 131, 191 Business Alliance for Local Living Economies 89, 199 Caddy, Peter and Eileen 128, 156 Calera Creek Water Recycling Plant 194 California 6, 29, 43, 69, 74, 111–12, 166, 169, 194 car culture 27, 46, 62, 65–6, 145, 193 Camara, Lamin 90–1 Canada 197 capitalism 79, 88, 106, carbon dioxide 45, 71, 161 Caron, Paul 175–6 Carruba, Capra 16, 125 Catholicism 189 cell phones 70 cement 45, 116 charcoal 33, 72–3 Chennai 181–2 child-rearing practices 11, 17, 18, 24, 94, 111–12, 114, 116, 119, 133–8, 168, 191 children 8, 17, 21–2, 24, 30, 46, 66, 69, 85, 88, 94, 111, 114, 116, 119, 124–5, 127, 131–8, 140–1, 143–4, 147, 153, 163, 168, 180, 189, 193 absence of 30, 137 education of 23, 66, 88, 132, 140, 153, 163, 189 participation of in ecovillage culture 13, 134, 137, 143–5, 147 raised in ecovillages returning 116, 135–7 wellbeing of 24, 30, 46, 111–12, 116, 119, 127, 131, 147, 153 China 36, 59, 62–3, 193 choir 98, 138, 141, 145 Christian, Diana Leafe 113, 119, 206 Christianity (Christian) 149, 150, 151, 159, 162, 168, 185 circle of life 33–4, 74–7, 79, 109–11, 146, 148–9, 188, 202 circus 64, 88–9, 124 Cities for Climate Protection 194 citizenship 35, 49, 75, 92, 100, 122, 124, 136, 189, 202 City Repair 191 climate change 1, 5, 16, 34, 49, 50, 70, 75, 111, 130, 155, 161, 169, 172, 188, 190, 194, 195, 201, 204–5, 211 Club 99 (Sieben Linden) 43, 56–7, 70, 171 cogeneration 40, 49 co-housing 11, 21, 46–7, 93, 127, 207 Cold War 23, 88 collaborative consumption 34, 68–70, 92, 146 collective intelligence 175–9, 185 Colufifa 25–6, 31, 58–60, 66, 90–1, 105, 114, 120, 125, 150, 167–9, 196, 199 common house 17, 27, 43, 46, 50, 69, 70, 92–3, 97, 113, 127, 139, 143, 171 common property 69–70, 80, 92–4, 97, 191, 197, 199 Commoner, Barry 75 commons 191, 197, 199 see also common property commune 95–7, 127, 163 communication 18, 25, 78, 112, 119, 121–3, 125–8, 139, 147, 166, 174–5, 192, 201 communism 95, 106 community meals 70, 83, 162, 195 Community Sustainability Assessment 10, 132 Compassionate Listening 147, 192 complementary currency 99–103, 110 compost 5, 8–9, 32, 34, 54, 59, 128, 129, 137, 146–7, 207 composting toilet 15, 20, 41, 53, 61, 133, 147, 207 compressed-earth building 27–8, 46 conflict 11, 18, 106, 112, 114, 117–23, 137–8, 147, 150, 176, 205 conflict resolution 18, 106, 114, 137–8, 205 connection (sense of) 25, 69, 115, 123–4, 152, 155, 162–3, 166, 171 connectivity 185–6, 202–3 consensus 2, 6, 18, 20, 116–20, 125, 177, 180 consumerism 80, 97, 176 see also consumer society; overconsumption consumer society 15, 80, 92, 102 see also consumerism; overconsumption contraction and convergence 105 cooperative(s) 93, 100–2, 106, 191, 199 Copenhagen 133, 194 corporate lobbying 197–8 cottage industries 27, 87–8, 181–2 Council of Sustainable Settlements of the Americas (CASA) 200–1 courtyard 29, 46, 73, 84, 162 credito 100–3 crisis 3–4, 9, 11, 16, 18, 26, 36, 59, 108, 116, 120, 150, 153, 172, 176, 191, 203 ecological 1–5, 9, 11, 16, 150, 153, 172, 176 extinction 203 of meaning (existential) 150, 153 within ecovillages 18, 26, 108, 116–20 cult 115–16 currency (monetary) 12, 79–80, 98–103 da Silva, Arjuna 48 dairy 56, 83–4, 87 Damanhur 16, 18, 25, 30, 36–40, 42, 46, 57, 63, 87, 100–3, 115, 120, 122–5, 130, 133, 135–6, 150, 155, 157–60, 163, 171, 174, 177, 180, 183 Damanhur Crea 101 Dawson, Jonathan 11, 14, 68, 82, 124, 129, 130, 132 decision-making 17–18, 94, 116–17, 120, 135, 147, 177, 199 Dee, Bhavana 180–1 degrowth 196–7 democracy 66, 94, 106, 116, 117, 120, 177, 185, 188–9, 191, 193 Denmark 12, 22, 49, 92, 95, 97, 134, 197 dinosaurs 153, 155, 203–4 do-it-yourself politics 190 Dongtan (China) 193 downsizing 63, 105, 107, 197 drought-resistant plants 53 Duhm, Dieter 115–16 E2C2 30–5, 76, 80, 110, 151, 188, 191, 193, 195, 199, 203, 207 Earth community 76, 202 Earth System Governance 201 Earthaven 17. 20, 36, 38, 40, 43, 47–9, 53, 57–8, 77–8, 93, 100, 105, 108, 113–21, 129, 141, 150, 160, 165–6 Ecker, Achim 115 eco-home 42, 77, 108 ecological economics 196–7 ecological footprint 7, 21, 24, 26, 34–5, 43, 57, 68, 70, 73, 171, 183 ecology (defined) 34–5 eco-neighborhood 201 see also neighborhoods, sustainability practices in ecosystem 27, 34, 71, 74, 89, 109, 158. 182 ecovillage (defined) 3, 12 Ecovillage at Ithaca (EVI) 17, 21, 36, 41, 46, 50, 54, 63, 69, 83, 86, 93, 107–8, 111–14, 127, 138–9, 152, 194, 198 Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) 38, 132, 195 Ecovillage Network of the Americas 12 EcoYoff (Senegal) 179 Edinburgh 195 education 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 23, 25, 67, 78, 89, 94, 119, 131–2, 135, 179, 181–2, 198 Effective Micro-organisms 29, 60, 182 efficiency 34, 36, 39–42, 64, 66, 81, 108, 121, 147 ego-village 42, 176 electric cars 36, 81 embodied energy 36, 42 energy 3, 20, 25, 27, 30, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40–5, 47, 48–9, 50–3, 58, 62, 63, 66, 69, 70, 74–5, 78, 82–3, 86, 88, 92, 99, 101, 111, 115, 122, 127, 130, 154–5, 156, 164, 176, 182, 183, 188, 189, 190, 193, 195, 197, 202, 205 cogeneration 40, 49 descent 70, 83, 92, 130, 189–90, 195, 202 fossil fuel 34, 42, 49, 51, 58, 62–3, 74, 92, 161, 167, 171, 192, 197, 200 micro-hydro 48 natural gas 48–9, 63 nonrenewable 5, 15, 49, 83 renewable 3, 38, 40, 48, 49, 63, 78, 82, 83, 88, 135, 156, 190, 197, 205 solar 9, 15, 25, 27, 28, 36, 40–5, 48–9, 63, 81–6, 101, 108, 111, 113, 133, 147, 183, 191, 193, 198, 205 wind 27, 48–51, 63, 73, 133 wood 33–4, 40–2, 48–9, 72, 141, 161 energy return on energy investment (EROEI) 62–3 engineer 43, 69, 84, 111 enlightenment (spiritual) 164, 183 entropy 155, 159 Estonia Ecovillage Network 179 Ethiopia 60 ethnic diversity 115, 155 Europe 4, 5, 12, 13, 15, 19, 26, 44, 49, 50, 55, 56, 58–60, 65–6, 105, 117, 122, 132, 163, 167–8, 178–9, 194, 197 European Union 5, 55–6, 189, 195, 198 evolution 3–4, 146, 148, 149, 152, 154–5, 157, 159–60, 162–3, 166, 175, 178, 185, 203–4 biological 3, 146, 154, 159, 161, 162, 166, 185, 203–4 cosmological 154–5, 159, 163 cultural 4, 148–9, 160, 166, 175, 188, 203–4 evolutionary intelligence 151, 154, 157, 163, 203 exponential growth 92, 102, 186 Falco (Oberto Airaudi) 25, 122, 158 Farmer, Chris 47–8, 58, 118, 141, 160 fermentation 141, 192 Field of Dreams (Findhorn) 42 Findhorn 12–13, 21–2, 30–1, 40, 42, 49, 51–2, 63, 68, 82, 89, 100, 115, 124, 128–9, 133, 138, 142, 150, 155–7, 177–8, 180, 194–5 Findhorn Consultancy Service 98 Findhorn Foundation 98 fish 58, 77–8, 90, 99,106, 188, 198 focalizer 22, 128, 156 forest (include forestry) 20, 33–4, 37, 55, 58, 71–2, 77, 90, 92, 116, 119, 125, 134, 162, 181, 183, 198 Forum (ZEGG practice) 24, 121–2, 132, 147, 192 fossil fuels 34, 42, 49, 51, 58, 62–3, 74, 92, 161, 167, 171, 192, 197, 200 freedom 6, 86, 95, 97, 121, 131, 178 friendship 6, 9, 42, 81, 108, 129, 134, 164, 185 frugality 51, 105 full-cost accounting 80–2, 189, 197–9 funeral 24, 144–5 Furuhashi, Michiyo 95, 176 Gaia 5, 31, 155–6, 163, 201 Gaia Education 10, 31, 132, 155, 190, 195, 198 Gaia Trust 12 Galle (Sri Lanka) 170–1 Gambia 35, 59, 90, 140, 167–8 Game of Life (at Damanhur) 124–5 Gandhi, Mahatma 81, 106 garbage 5, 9, 88–9, 194 Gateway Farm 57–8, 77, 108, 118, 160–1 GEN-Africa 200–1 gender relations 27, 72, 120, 126, 168 GEN-Europe/Africa 12 GEN-Oceania/Asia 12 genetically modified food 16, 25, 36, 54, 57 Germany 23–4, 33, 40, 44, 48–9, 56, 105, 115–16, 129, 143, 166, 177, 193, 197 gift economy 103–4, 147, 191–2, 199 Gilman, Robert and Diane 12 Gilmore, Jeff 69, 111–13, 138 global civilization 189, 200–2 global economy 12, 16, 34, 62, 79, 80, 82, 107, 109 Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) 10–12, 26, 38, 132–3, 179, 200–1 global governance 200–2 global inequality 35, 105, 167–9 global injustice 35, 169 globalization 12, 60, 63, 75, 107, 133, 139, 170, 186, 200–2 goat(s) 60–1, 207 God 61, 102, 136, 149–50, 164, 168–9, 173, 176, 182 Goura (Damanhurian) 57, 171 governance 18, 20, 28, 114, 116–17, 119, 120–1, 125, 134, 188, 190, 198, 200–1 government 72, 73, 83, 92, 94, 102, 106, 183, 190–1, 195–200 see also subsidies Great Depression 102 Great Reskilling 192 Great Unfoldment 152–61, 162–5, 172–4, 177, 178, 185, 186 green building 13, 36, 39–44, 45–8, 75, 175, 182 greenhouse gas emissions 45, 48, 62, 67–8, 71, 167, 169, 184, 193 see also carbon dioxide Greer, John 103 Groundswell Training Center 198 guesthouse 27, 117 guests in ecovillages 20–1, 23, 28, 40, 65, 68, 71, 87, 100, 117, 128, 132, 140, 144 see also visitors Gunambil (Sri Lanka) 106 Guneskoy Village (Turkey) 179 Halbach, Dieter 164 Hall of Metals (Damanhur) 158–60 Harris, Martha 93, 108 Hanover (Germany) 193 Hawken, Paul 200 Higa, Teruro 60 high school 8, 11, 77, 136 high-density building 46, 194 high-tech approaches in ecovillages 16, 25, 36, 40, 47, 113 Hinduism (Hindu) 149, 150, 151, 159 holistic approach 36–9, 126, 155, 166, 170 see also systemic thinking Hollywood 29, 65–7, 193 homeowners’ association 93, 191 Honduras 65 Høngsmark, Kirsten 96–7 horses 36, 56, 134, 143, 145 Hubble Telescope 188 Hübl, Thomas 177–9, 189 human excrement 8, 34, 182 human manure 33–4, 53 see also human waste; urine human subjects review 11 human waste 33–4 , 53, 182 hunger 10, 25–6, 31, 58–60, 69, 84–5, 97, 130, 141, 185, 196 hybrid cars 36 hyper-individualism 29, 185, 192, 193, 203 idealism 6, 17, 47–8, 86, 89, 99, 118, 120, 136 income (ecovillagers’) 16, 20, 22, 88, 95–6, 98, 101, 164; see also salary India 19, 27, 35–6, 57, 59, 62, 81, 140, 165, 169, 180–3 individualism 29, 46, 116, 176, 178, 185, 192, 193, 203 Indus Valley Restaurant 104 industrialized agriculture 105 infrastructure 35, 48, 51, 62, 63, 69, 86, 186, 194, 202 insulation 41–3 integrity 9, 80, 86, 149, 181, 201 intention (in ecovillages) 114–16, 123, 164, 207 see also purpose (sense of) intentional community 12, 93, 123, 164, 207 interdependence 4–5, 9, 17, 27, 28, 46, 49, 75, 79, 108, 117, 152, 184, 185–6, 199–202 ecological 4–5, 9, 36, 75, 108, 117, 184, 185–6 global (planetary) 4–5, 9, 27, 46, 75, 79, 117, 184, 185–6, 199–202 social 4–5, 9, 17, 36, 49, 117, 152, 184, 185–6 interest (monetary) 12, 17, 23, 35, 54, 76, 79, 80, 83, 100, 102–3, 112, 129 internal economy 64, 100 internalizing costs 197 see also full-cost accounting International Consortium of Local Environmental Initiatives 190 international institutions 189, 200 international law 3, 189, 194, 200 International Training Center for Local Authorities (CIFAL) 195 internet 12, 36, 64, 70, 99, 189, 191, 199, 201 interreligious sensitivity 149–50, 168 Isadon (Furuta Isami) 29, 61, 121, 172–3 Islam (Muslim) 26, 149, 150, 151, 159, 162, 168 Italy 16, 18, 25, 49, 100–2, 136, 157 Jackson, Ross 12 Japan 28–9, 60–1, 92, 94, 123, 172 jobs 79, 85–8, 96, 100, 111, 117, 166, 197 joining fee 93, 95 Judaism (Jew) 149, 159, 162 kibbutz 12, 13 Kibbutz Lotan (Israel) 179 Kidokoro, Yuki 84, 123, 143 Kitao, Koichi 60–1, 74 Kloster, Jørgen 55–6 Konohana 28–9, 60–1, 74, 92, 94–5, 121, 150, 155, 172–3, 176–7, 180 laboratory (ecovillage as) 13, 18, 27, 79, 86, 131, 149, 151, 164, 175, 180, 185–6, 205 LA County Bicycle Coalition 65 Læssø, Bø 55–6 Lagoswatte 28 laundry 46, 47, 50, 69 laws 25, 27–8, 93, 97, 106, 155, 170, 191, 197–9 learning author’s 2, 5–9, 13–16, 20, 39, 45, 67, 94. 102, 110, 141, 143, 153, 165, 168, 174–5, 179, 181, 205–7 from ecovillages 11, 14, 18–19, 60–1, 121, 131–4, 141–2, 147, 150, 187–204 in ecovillages 11, 14, 18–19, 28, 47, 51, 53, 60–1, 88, 108, 111, 113, 121, 131–4, 136–8, 147, 164, 177 legal and financial structure 92–7 lessons (from ecovillages) 9, 13, 15, 32, 69, 81, 110, 151, 187–204 libertarianism 190 Lietaer, Bernard 99–100 Lindegger, Max 26, 28, 84 linear model (economic) 33–4, 53, 75, 203 literacy 25, 106, 168, 181 Living Building Challenge 194 Living Machine 51–2, 194 living system 5, 53, 166, 173 Lizama, Jimmy 65–6, 193 localization 16, 54–5, 73–80, 84, 87–9, 97, 99, 110–11, 130, 141, 189–96, 198–9, 201–2 Los Angeles 13, 15, 29–30, 65, 67, 84, 93, 114, 150, 162, 193–4 riots in 30, 114–15 Los Angeles Eco-Village (LAEV) 29–30, 65, 67, 84, 93, 114–15, 123, 127, 137, 142, 150, 162, 193 Love, Brian 58, 77–8, 108 Lovelock, James 155 low-income housing 108 low-tech approaches in ecovillages 16, 36, 40, 47, 70 MacLean, Dorothy 156 Macy, Joanna 154, 165–6 magic 25, 124, 127, 159, 160–1, 163 malaria 25, 181 Marland, Angus 156–7 mass extinction 1, 75, 155, 172, 203 mass transit 23, 63–4, 66, 92, 127, 167, 206 Matrimandir (Auroville) 183–4 Mbackombel (Senegal) 198 meat 22, 25, 55–8, 83 medicine 59–60, 136 meditation 7, 25, 122, 128, 136, 151–2, 156–64, 165, 171, 177 Sarvodaya’s peace 151–2, 165 meetings 7, 17, 27, 46, 92, 95, 98, 105, 107, 112, 115, 117, 119, 120–1, 126, 132, 134, 138–40, 164, 172, 176–7, 179 membership process 22, 93–4, 96 microfinance 25, 59, 106–7, 168, 181, 185, 199 Middle America 21, 108, 194 Middle East 59, 197 Ministry of Ecovillages (Senegal) 198 misanthropic temptation 153 molecular biology lab 25, 36, 57 monasteries 11, 171 Monbiot, George 67–8 money 6, 8, 11, 13, 16, 49, 55, 77–80, 86–7, 98–103, 109–20, 140–1, 161, 168, 169, 180, 192, 198 see also currency (monetary); complementary currency monogamy 24, 115 Morrison, Lara 162 Mount Fuji 28, 172, 174 multinational corporation 112, 161, 200 music 8, 23, 86, 139, 142, 174–5, 185 see also song(s) Music of the Plants (Damanhur) 174–5 mysticism 115, 156, 162, 177, 183, 185 nation-state 117, 200 Nature-Spirit Community 126 Ndao, Babacar 198 neighborhood skills map 64, 70, 87, 192 neighborhoods 6, 21, 29, 32, 43, 54, 46, 50, 52, 56, 64, 67, 70, 87, 97, 108, 109, 110, 114, 138, 141, 146, 167, 171, 187, 188, 190, 191–6, 201, 205 sustainability practices in 80, 87, 97, 109–10, 114, 138, 141, 146, 188, 191–2, 205 New Age 21, 88, 162 New Rural Reconstruction Movement (China) 196 New York City 193 Nonviolent Communication (NVC) 112, 119, 123, 125, 147, 192 Nygren, Kristen 111–13, 138 Obama, Michelle, 199 oikos 74–5, 79 oneness 162, 186 organic food 2, 6, 9, 21, 29, 54–60, 73, 75, 81, 84, 87, 97, 128–9, 133, 191 overconsumption 4–5, 35, 36, 105, 107, 112, 167, 202 see also consumerism; consumer society Owen, David 193 ownership 11, 18, 64, 70, 80, 101–2, 92, 94, 97–8, 146, 199 Pacific Northwest 187 park (public) 73, 92. 97, 189 participatory development 10, 12 particle consciousness 178, 189 passive solar design 40–5, 48, 82, 108, 113 patriarchy 26, 115, 117, 120 Peace Contract with Animals (Sieben Linden) 24, 56 Peace Corps 198 peace movement 164 peak oil 5, 50, 62–3, 130 Pepe, Lucertola 174–5 permaculture 20, 26, 34, 36–9, 54, 58, 73, 75, 117, 162, 188, 195, 200, 205 personal growth 89, 113, 120, 148, 149, 175, 206 pets 73, 127 pioneer species 19 planetary citizen 189, 202 planetary interdependence 9, 27, 46, 186, 189 plants, communication with 162, 174–5 pocket neighborhood 194 policy making 189 polis 74–6, political activism 6, 11, 16, 23, 89, 133, 157, 164, 166 political science 35, 50, 85, 99, 116 politics 1–6, 35, 66, 88–9, 102–4, 113, 117, 129–30, 133, 141, 151, 157, 164–7, 189–90, 196 polyamory 23, 115 Portland (Oregon) 191, 193 postmodern 117, 125, 171 poultry 55, 58–61, 77, 84, 134, 168, 192, 207 Pour Tous Distribution Service (Auroville) 104 poverty 30–1, 43, 60, 81, 95, 151, 181 power of yes 190, 194, 199 power tools 69–70 preschool 107 private property 79–80, 92–4 product stewardship laws 197 prosperity 13, 101, 103, 105, 110 purpose (sense of) core human 188–9, 191, 196, 200, 202, 207 in ecovillages 12, 14, 18, 20, 23, 61, 78, 85, 109, 114–16, 118–19, 124, 132, 135, 138, 172, 182, 188 see also intention (in ecovillages) race 27, 168 rainwater 9, 26–9, 31, 44, 51–3, 71, 82, 113, 192, 205 real estate 54, 79, 92–4, 114 real wealth 97, 107, 109 recycling 3, 6, 188, 194 relational living 150, 165, 167, 192 religion 10, 149–50, 152, 154, 159, 162, 164, 165, 168–9, 172, 186 renters 79, 94 retirement 18, 81, 93–4, 108, 127, 207 retrofitting 41, 81, 114 right livelihood 80, 85–90, 99, 199 risk perception 82 n1 Rio+20 Earth Summit 200 Rosenberg, Marshall 123 rural ecovillages 17, 54, 71, 83, 84 Rylander, Kimchi 118–20 salary 1, 9, 11, 16, 20, 22, 72, 83–4, 88–9, 92 n6, 95–6, 98–9, 101, 105, 107–8, 113, 164, 167, 194, 198 Sarvodaya 13, 28, 31, 104, 106–7, 114, 120, 125–6, 129, 133, 149–52, 155, 165, 170, 187, 196 sauna 69, 93 science 51, 75, 135, 154–5, 162, 164–5, 185–6 Seattle 7, 30, 67, 138, 156, 191, 205–6 secularism 13, 31, 149, 150, 154, 159, 162–4, 168, 177, 185 Sekem (Egypt) 200 self-awareness 137, 170 Senadeera, Bandula 125–6 Senegal 25–6, 59, 66, 72, 167–9, 179, 198–9 Seneviratne, Mahama 151–2 sewage 27, 51, 132 sex 109, 115 Shapiro, Elan 107–8 shared-wall construction 45, 47, 69 sharing 16, 18, 22, 26, 32, 47, 54, 63–4, 69, 70, 81, 87, 92–3, 96–7, 106, 110, 114, 127, 132, 142, 146, 164–5, 172, 189, 191–4, 199, 201, 207 sheep 58, 77 Shelton, Julie 84 shramadana 104, 106, 129 Sieben Linden 24, 33–4, 36, 41, 43–4, 47, 49, 53, 56–7, 70–1, 105, 114, 127, 129, 143–6, 150, 164, 166, 171, 177–9 silence (inner) 128, 143, 157, 159, 169, 171, 178 simplicity 8, 39, 81, 171–4, 180 skills 8, 16, 32, 43, 64, 65, 78, 87, 88, 108–9, 110, 111, 114, 122, 127, 131, 134, 138, 139, 147, 189, 192, 207 SkyRoot 206–7 slavery 167, 185 Slow Cities 192 Slow Food movement 192 see also Slow Money; Slow Cities Slow Money 192 slums 115, 132, 182, 195, 196 socialism 88 sociocracy 120 soil 8, 17, 19, 24, 31, 33, 46, 53, 55, 56, 58–60, 71, 74–5, 84, 89, 103, 131, 145, 147, 156, 161, 196, 207 solar energy 9, 15, 25, 27–8, 36, 40, 48–9, 63, 81, 83, 86, 101, 108, 111, 113, 133, 147, 183, 191, 193,198, 205 solidarity 84–5, 100, 103, 109–10, 133, 169, 192, 200, 205, 207 song(s) 7, 28, 34, 73, 138, 143, 145, 147, 152, 179 see also music sorcerer’s apprentices 160–1 Spain 90, 168 spell 124, 160–1 see also magic spirituality 24, 30–1, 149, 150, 155–7, 162–5, 166, 170, 171–3, 180–5 Sri Aurobindo 180–2 Sri Lanka 13, 28, 106–7, 125–6, 142, 151, 155, 165, 170 steady-state economy 197 story of separation 4, 11, 165, 179, 195–6 straw-bale construction 18, 43–4, 47–8, 171 structural insulated panels (SIPS) 36 subsidiarity 189, 193, 198, 201 subsidies governmental 3, 15, 82–3, 197–8 within ecovillages 83, 96, 197 suburb 21, 41, 69, 97, 127, 193–4 survivalism 112 sustainable development 28, 88, 133 Sustainable Tompkins County 107 Svanholm 22–3, 31, 49, 55–6, 64, 92, 94–7, 114, 127, 134–5, 163–4 Swimme, Brian 154 symbiosis 4–5, 54, 103, 108–9, 120, 147 biological 53, 103, 148 intergenerational 108, 110 social 4, 54, 103, 108–9, 147–8 synchronic lines 158 systemic thinking 51, 188–90, 193, 208 see also holistic approach Tamerice, Macaco 100–2, 122, 158–9 Tamera 115, 122 Tamil Nadu 19, 27, 45, 88, 140, 181 tar sands 62 taxes 83, 93–6, 101, 189, 197 Technakarto (at Damanhur) 122, 125 technological solutions 36–8, 63, 133, 201–2 teenagers 15, 69, 136 Temples of Humankind 25, 157, 160, 183 Tompkins County (New York) 194 toilet 7, 15, 20, 33–4, 41, 51, 53, 61, 106, 131, 133, 147, 179, 207 toilet assumption 53 Tolle, Eckhart 157 tool library 191 tractor 125 traditional villages 10, 46, 105, 125, 196 transformation 28, 41, 70, 129–30, 145, 150, 155, 165, 168, 179, 183, 185, 192, 205 material 31, 140, 183 of consciousness 177–9, 183–5, 189, 192 personal 28, 145, 169, 173, 179, 192, 205 social 129–30, 168, 179, 185, 192 spiritual 150, 155, 183–4 Transition Town 130, 192, 195, 200–1 transparency 22, 24, 96, 164 transportation 8, 34, 39, 58, 60, 62–8, 75, 92, 189, 193, 194, 205 trees 17, 24, 27, 29, 33, 48, 58, 59, 71–3, 90, 97, 119, 140, 155 triple bottom line 199 trust 14, 17, 22, 64, 85, 96–97, 100, 102, 109, 112, 116, 119–23, 130, 146–7, 154, 164, 167, 174–5, 189, 191–2, 200–1, 207 tsunami 28, 88, 133, 170, 170 two-class society 79, 94, 108 UfaFabrik 23, 64–5, 84, 86, 88, 99, 124, 138–9, 150 unconventional hydrocarbons 62, 197 United Nations 21, 107, 132–3, 195 United States of America (US) 5, 8, 12, 15, 20–1, 29, 35, 48–50, 52, 57–8, 60, 62–3, 73, 82–3, 92–3, 105, 122, 126, 140–1, 177, 191, 197–8 universe story 154, 172 urban ecovillages 16, 23, 34, 64, 84 urban farming 54, 97, 205 urban planning 162, 189, 191 urine 53 utopia 18, 193 Van Dam, René 163 veganism 24, 56–7, 171 vehicle sharing 63–4, 92, 146 village model 78–9, 84, 117, 196 visitors (to ecovillages) 21, 23, 65, 68, 71, 87, 100, 117, 132, 140, 144 Wackernagel, Mathis 35 Walker, Liz 152–3, 194 war 5, 6, 17, 23, 80, 123, 133, 138, 151 wastewater 18, 46, 51, 52, 78, 194 see also sewage water conservation 51–3, 74 Way of Monks (Damanhur) 171, wealth 4, 8, 13, 16, 83, 97, 100, 103–4, 107–9, 112, 192, 197, 201 wellbeing 28, 36, 40, 46, 47, 78, 80, 85, 89, 105–6, 197 wells 17, 20, 51, 106, 117–18 West Africa 31, 59, 67, 167 wetland 52, 194 Whidbey Island 205–7 Wiartalla, Werner 86, 99 wildlife 26, 33–4, 38, 63, 70–4, 182, 194, 206 wind energy 27, 48–9, 51, 63, 73, 133 windows 36, 40–4, 43, 81, 127, 137, 143, 174 double-paned 36, 41, 43, 81 triple-paned 30 windows into sustainability 30, 188 Wolf, Stefan 179 women 26, 31, 39, 59, 72, 88, 90, 106, 107, 125–9, 139, 151, 158, 168, 185 empowerment of 26, 31, 88, 106 literacy 96 oppression of 151, 185 Women Empowerment through Local Livelihood (WELL) 88 World Café 192 worldview 10, 31, 149–50, 155, 159, 160, 164, 172, 178 Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) 11, 83 yurt 39, 206, 207 ZEGG 23–4, 41, 49, 63, 115–6, 121–2, 132–3, 137–8, 150, 177 Zeher, Ozzie 63, 190 ZipCar 64, 70, 199


pages: 282 words: 93,783

The Future Is Analog: How to Create a More Human World by David Sax

Alvin Toffler, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Bernie Sanders, big-box store, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, bread and circuses, Buckminster Fuller, Cal Newport, call centre, clean water, cognitive load, commoditize, contact tracing, contact tracing app, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, David Brooks, deep learning, digital capitalism, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, fiat currency, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Floyd, indoor plumbing, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, lockdown, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Minecraft, New Urbanism, nuclear winter, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peter Thiel, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, remote working, retail therapy, RFID, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Saturday Night Live, Shoshana Zuboff, side hustle, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart cities, social distancing, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, Superbowl ad, supply-chain management, surveillance capitalism, tech worker, technological singularity, technoutopianism, TED Talk, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, TikTok, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unemployed young men, urban planning, walkable city, Y2K, zero-sum game

Meanwhile, Jacobs became the patron saint of the future of cities, based on the innovations she identified in her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities: wider sidewalks, more public spaces, better public transit, more varied uses for parks, prioritizing pedestrians and bikers. Fewer cars and more people. Jacobs’s ideas remain the most forward-looking ones in urban planning, but they were not new even in the 1960s. They are based on returning cities to the sourdough equivalent of urban planning, the kind Americans experience on their first trip to Europe, when they marvel at just how many lovely plazas and street cafés they have over there, how pleasant it is to walk around, and how pointless it is to drive around Rome. “Jane Jacobs is as up to date as can be!”


pages: 98 words: 25,753

Ethics of Big Data: Balancing Risk and Innovation by Kord Davis, Doug Patterson

4chan, business process, corporate social responsibility, crowdsourcing, data science, en.wikipedia.org, longitudinal study, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Netflix Prize, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, performance metric, Robert Bork, side project, smart grid, urban planning

Data Ownership At AT&T Labs in Florham Park, New Jersey, big data is being used to analyze the traffic and movement patterns of people through data generated by their mobile phones, to help improve policymaking and urban and traffic planning. The research team realized they could understand deep patterns of how people moved through urban environments by analyzing the flow of mobile devices from cell tower to cell tower. And they wanted to use those insights to help improve traffic flow and to inform better urban planning, not to improve their marketing. But, of course, AT&T, along with Verizon, Google, TomTom, NAVTEQ, and several companies who help retail malls track the traffic patterns of shoppers, want very much to use that information to generate new streams of revenue. The question of privacy is top of mind (especially as the distinction between anonymized and personally identifying information becomes more difficult to maintain), but the question of ownership is equally compelling.


pages: 769 words: 224,916

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll

American ideology, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, borderless world, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, business climate, colonial rule, Donald Trump, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial independence, forensic accounting, global village, haute couture, high-speed rail, independent contractor, intangible asset, Iridium satellite, Khyber Pass, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, low earth orbit, margin call, Mount Scopus, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Oscar Wyatt, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, urban planning, Yogi Berra

In addition to his half-brother Mahrouz, two of his sisters, Sheikha and Rafah, became particularly devout in this period; they started a religious school in Jeddah for young family members. A number of his other brothers studied Islam formally and circulated in religious circles in the Hejaz. Among other things, religious credibility remained an imperative of the family business—Islamic scholars on urban planning committees in the two holy cities influenced contracting and real estate development decisions, as they had in Mohamed’s time. Osama did not appear in the famous Swedish family portrait, but he certainly knew Europe. According to Batarfi, he visited London at age twelve, with his mother, to receive medical treatment for an eye condition; he stayed for at least a month and did some sightseeing.

The architectural ambition of the two renovated holy cities—bigger, better, shinier, ringed by condominium towers and shopping malls, and under surveillance by security cameras—reflected the same spirit Fahd had brought during the early 1980s to the refurbishment of his Boeing 747. Among other things, his ideas about urban planning seemed to express a “deliberate desire to erase the past,” as Hammoudi put it. This was partly another bow to his religious establishment, who tended to view all of the schools of Islamic art and architecture between the Prophet’s death and their arrival in the Hejaz in the 1920s as illegitimate.

He had been born in Mecca to a traditional family of mutawwafs, or “pilgrimage guides,” an ancient vocation in decline in the age of Hajj package air-hotel tours and Saudi nationalization (by the 1990s, a federal ministry administered most aspects of the pilgrimage). At the University of Texas, Angawi studied architecture and urban planning; he wrote a master’s thesis about a possible renovation of Mecca that would emphasize historical preservation, pedestrian zones, and environmental conservation. In 1975 he returned to Saudi Arabia to form and supervise a Hajj Research Center at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. Its goal, approved by the Saudi government, was “to preserve the natural environment as created by God and the Islamic environment of the two holy cities.”


pages: 638 words: 156,653

Berlin by Andrea Schulte-Peevers

Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Google Earth, indoor plumbing, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kickstarter, low cost airline, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Skype, starchitect, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal

Its coffered, rib-steel roof seems to defy gravity with the help of eight steel pillars and a floor-to-ceiling glass front. Parallel Developments Alexanderplatz and the Kulturforum may have been celebrated prestige projects, but both Berlins also had to deal with more pragmatic issues, such as the need for inexpensive, modern housing to accommodate growing populations. This led to several urban planning mistakes on both sides of the Wall in the 1970s and ’80s, most notably in the birth of soulless, monotonous satellite cities for tens of thousands of people. In West Berlin, Walter Gropius drew up the plans for the Grosssiedlung Berlin-Buckow in southern Neukölln (renamed Gropiusstadt after his death).

These include Keith Haring’s The Boxers on Eichhornstrasse, Jeff Koons’ Balloon Flower on Marlene-Dietrich-Platz, Mark Di Suvero’s Galileo within the pond, Auke de Vries’s Gelandet (Landed) on Schellingstrasse and Robert Rauschenberg’s The Riding Bikes on Fontaneplatz. LEIPZIGER PLATZ Potsdamer Platz Just like Potsdamer Platz, this historical square has risen from the death strip. The octagonal Leipziger Platz was first laid out in 1734 and later became one of Berlin’s most beautiful squares courtesy of the urban planning ‘dream team’ of Schinkel and Lenné. The hulking building just east of here houses the Bundesrat (Federal Council; Map), the body of the German legislative branch of government that represents the interests of the Länder, or federal states. Hidden behind the new buildings stands a rare remaining GDR watchtower – the GDR border watchtower Erna-Berger-Strasse (Map).

At its centre is the landmark Victory Column, built to celebrate 19th-century Prussian military triumphs over Denmark, Austria and France and now a symbol of Berlin’s gay community. It stood in front of the Reichstag until the Nazis moved it here in 1938 to make room for their utopian Germania urban planning project (see the boxed text,). The pedestal was added at the time, so that today the column stands 67m high. The gilded lady on top represents the goddess of Victory, but locals irreverently call her Gold-Else. Film buffs might remember her from a key scene in Wim Wenders’ 1985 flick Wings of Desire.


pages: 327 words: 103,336

Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer by Duncan J. Watts

"World Economic Forum" Davos, active measures, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Amazon Mechanical Turk, AOL-Time Warner, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Black Swan, business cycle, butterfly effect, carbon credits, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, clockwork universe, cognitive dissonance, coherent worldview, collapse of Lehman Brothers, complexity theory, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, death of newspapers, discovery of DNA, East Village, easy for humans, difficult for computers, edge city, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, framing effect, Future Shock, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, George Santayana, happiness index / gross national happiness, Herman Kahn, high batting average, hindsight bias, illegal immigration, industrial cluster, interest rate swap, invention of the printing press, invention of the telescope, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, lake wobegon effect, Laplace demon, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, medical malpractice, meta-analysis, Milgram experiment, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, Network effects, oil shock, packet switching, pattern recognition, performance metric, phenotype, Pierre-Simon Laplace, planetary scale, prediction markets, pre–internet, RAND corporation, random walk, RFID, school choice, Silicon Valley, social contagion, social intelligence, statistical model, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, supply-chain management, tacit knowledge, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, too big to fail, Toyota Production System, Tragedy of the Commons, ultimatum game, urban planning, Vincenzo Peruggia: Mona Lisa, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, X Prize

People have been fascinated with what sociologists call the small-world problem for nearly a century, since the Hungarian poet Frigyes Karinthy published a short story called “Chains” in which his protagonist boasts that he can connect himself to any other person in the world, whether a Nobel Prize winner or a worker in a Ford Motor factory, through a chain of no more than five acquaintances. Four decades later, in her polemic on urban planning The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the journalist Jane Jacobs described a similar game, called messages, that she used to play with her sister when they first moved to New York: The idea was to pick two wildly dissimilar individuals—say a headhunter in the Solomon Islands and a cobbler in Rock Island, Illinois—and assume that one had to get a message to the other by word of mouth; then we would each silently figure out a plausible, or at least possible, chain of persons through whom the message could go.

See Ravitch (2010) for a discussion of how popular, commonsense policies such as increased testing and school choice actually undermined public education. See Cohn (2007) and Reid (2009) for analysis of the cost of health care and possible alternative models. See O’Toole (2007) for a detailed discussion on forestry management, urban planning, and other failures of government planning and regulation. See Howard (1997) for a discussion and numerous anecdotes of the unintended consequences of government regulations. See Easterly (2006) again for some interesting remarks on nation-building and political interference, and Tuchman (1985) for a scathing and detailed account of US involvement in Vietnam.


pages: 289 words: 99,936

Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age by Virginia Eubanks

affirmative action, Alvin Toffler, Berlin Wall, call centre, cognitive dissonance, creative destruction, desegregation, digital divide, Fall of the Berlin Wall, future of work, game design, global village, index card, informal economy, invisible hand, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, low-wage service sector, microcredit, new economy, post-industrial society, race to the bottom, rent control, rent stabilization, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, social contagion, South of Market, San Francisco, tech worker, telemarketer, Thomas L Friedman, trickle-down economics, union organizing, urban planning, web application, white flight, women in the workforce, work culture , working poor

It draws on a broad understanding of technological and organizational systems as networks of practices, people, and objects embedded in particular contexts. Though PD tends to focus narrowly on information system design, there are many ways that a PD methodology can be used to strengthen community-building efforts and critical citizenship projects. For example, the feminist literature on urban planning, which combines the methodological focus of the field with feminist critical analysis of the gendered structuring of social space,10 broadens the domain of PD to provide a rich source for practicing participatory design outside the workplace. Feminist writers describe strategies that engage stakeholders in technological development, broadly construed: neighborhood revitalization, economic development, and dweller-controlled public housing.

., 178 Strong objectivity, 146 SUNY, Albany, 83 Surrogate pregnancy, 29 Surveillance technologies, 82 Survival, 140 Systemic inequality, 42 Underground Railroad Conference, 145 Unemployment, 55, 58–61 inequality, 69–70 women, 58, 61, 69–70 Unions, 157–158 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 160 United Way, 119 University of California-Santa Cruz, 83 Urban planning, 107 Use and disclosure statement, 92–93 Technological artifacts, 83–85 Technological Opportunities Program, 166 Technological pessimism, 37 Technology. See also Information technology (IT); Popular technology access to, 4–5, 36, 165–166 definitions of, 25 as dynamic process, 21 existing models of, 154 as legislation, 84 and poverty, 8 real-world, 31 and social change, 31–32, 36, 42, 45 and social justice, 84–85 and women, 6, 9–10, 24, 27–29, 32 Tech Valley, 51–52, 71, 156–157, 159 “Through Harriet’s Eyes,” 145 Tracking behavior, 90 Transparency, 91–92 Troy, NY, 49–53 educational attainment in, 57–58 housing in, 52 inequality in, 57, 67–70 job creation in, 64–66 poverty in, 61–64 public policy in, 52–53 Tech Valley, 51–52, 71, 156–157, 159 unemployment in, 58–61, 69 women in, 71 Troy Female Seminary, 50 Visvanathan, Shiv, 132, 151–152 Volatile continuity, 56–57, 61 Wages, 65–66, 162–163 Welfare, 10–13, 29, 82–83, 86–89.


pages: 463 words: 105,197

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society by Eric Posner, E. Weyl

3D printing, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, augmented reality, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Branko Milanovic, business process, buy and hold, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, commoditize, congestion pricing, Corn Laws, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, endowment effect, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, feminist movement, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gamification, Garrett Hardin, George Akerlof, global macro, global supply chain, guest worker program, hydraulic fracturing, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, informal economy, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jean Tirole, Jeremy Corbyn, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, Landlord’s Game, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Lyft, market bubble, market design, market friction, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, negative equity, Network effects, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open borders, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, patent troll, Paul Samuelson, performance metric, plutocrats, pre–internet, radical decentralization, random walk, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Rory Sutherland, search costs, Second Machine Age, second-price auction, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, special economic zone, spectrum auction, speech recognition, statistical model, stem cell, telepresence, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, women in the workforce, Zipcar

He mentioned George’s scheme so often that a colleague who was eulogizing him quipped, “I imagine by now he has mentioned it to God, too.”1 Also aloof, arrogant, and private, Vickrey often failed to publish academic articles that contained his best ideas. The inspirations of Vickrey’s research closely resembled ours. He focused during most of his career on the organization of cities and the tremendous waste of resources in most urban forms. He was particularly fascinated by cities in Latin America, where he advised governments on urban planning and taxation. It was while he was designing a fiscal system for Venezuela that he produced the paper that finally undermined his best efforts at ensuring his obscurity. That paper was published in 1961. Its title, “Counterspeculation, Auctions, and Competitive Sealed Tenders,” seemed to ensure it would soon be forgotten.

Vickrey’s ideas have transformed economic theory and had an impact on policy. Governments around the world use auctions based on Vickrey’s ideas to sell licenses to use radio spectrum. Facebook, Google, and Bing use a system derived from Vickrey’s auction to allocate advertising space on their web pages. Vickrey’s insights about urban planning and congestion pricing are slowly changing the face of cities, and they play an important role in the pricing policies of ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.2 However, none of these applications reflects the ambition that sparked Vickrey’s work. When Vickrey won the Nobel Prize, he reportedly hoped to use the award as a “bully pulpit” to bring George’s transformative ideas and the radical potential of mechanism design to a broader audience.3 Yet Vickrey died of a heart attack three days after learning of his prize.


Data and the City by Rob Kitchin,Tracey P. Lauriault,Gavin McArdle

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, algorithmic management, bike sharing, bitcoin, blockchain, Bretton Woods, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, Claude Shannon: information theory, clean water, cloud computing, complexity theory, conceptual framework, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, create, read, update, delete, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, dematerialisation, digital divide, digital map, digital rights, distributed ledger, Evgeny Morozov, fault tolerance, fiat currency, Filter Bubble, floating exchange rates, folksonomy, functional programming, global value chain, Google Earth, Hacker News, hive mind, information security, Internet of things, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, lifelogging, linked data, loose coupling, machine readable, new economy, New Urbanism, Nicholas Carr, nowcasting, open economy, openstreetmap, OSI model, packet switching, pattern recognition, performance metric, place-making, power law, quantum entanglement, RAND corporation, RFID, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, semantic web, sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, smart contracts, smart grid, smart meter, social graph, software studies, statistical model, tacit knowledge, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, technological solutionism, text mining, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the long tail, the market place, the medium is the message, the scientific method, Toyota Production System, urban planning, urban sprawl, web application

Part I Data-driven cities 2 A city is not a galaxy Understanding the city through urban data Martijn de Waal Introduction In a 2013 report to the UK Economic and Social Research Council, Michael Batty, the director of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), looks back at the time when computers were first being used in urban planning: Fifty years ago if you had asked the question ‘what can we do with computers with respect to cities?’ the answer would have been we can build computer models of cities – abstractions – that can then be used to pose conditional questions such as ‘What If . . .’ (Batty 2013a: 22) Half a century later, Batty argues this vision has been turned inside out.

The fact that the UN IGME also publishes numbers for neo-natal and infant mortality rates is not mentioned. The ISO 37120 indicators are bound together in two ways. They are grouped into 17 themes intended to capture the principle responsibilities of a city’s administration. These include areas such as education, finance, health, solid waste, transport, urban planning and wastewater. They are also separated into core indicators, which every city is expected to be able to report on, and supplementary indicators, which they may not presently be able to. ‘Under age five mortality per 1,000 live births’ is one of four core health indicators. The other three measure a city’s ‘Average life expectancy’, its ‘Number of inpatient hospital beds per 100,000 population’ and its ‘Number of physicians per 100,000 population’.


pages: 330 words: 99,044

Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire by Rebecca Henderson

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Airbnb, asset allocation, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, business climate, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commoditize, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, crony capitalism, dark matter, decarbonisation, disruptive innovation, double entry bookkeeping, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, export processing zone, Exxon Valdez, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, fixed income, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, greed is good, Greta Thunberg, growth hacking, Hans Rosling, Howard Zinn, Hyman Minsky, impact investing, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), joint-stock company, Kickstarter, Lyft, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, means of production, meta-analysis, microcredit, middle-income trap, Minsky moment, mittelstand, Mont Pelerin Society, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Paris climate accords, passive investing, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, plant based meat, profit maximization, race to the bottom, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Salesforce, scientific management, Second Machine Age, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, Steven Pinker, stocks for the long run, Tim Cook: Apple, total factor productivity, Toyota Production System, uber lyft, urban planning, Washington Consensus, WeWork, working-age population, Zipcar

International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), “Breaking Away from Industrial Food and Farming Systems: Seven Case Studies of Agroecological Transition” (Oct. 2018); “Unlocking the Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century: Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times” (Washington, DC: New Climate Economy, 2018), https://newclimateeconomy.report/2018/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/09/NCE_2018_FULL-REPORT.pdf.; Technoserve, Eyes in the Sky for African Agriculture, Water Resources, and Urban Planning, Apr. 2018, www.technoserve.org/files/downloads/case-study_eyes-in-the-sky-for-african-agriculture-water-resources-and-urban-planning.pdf. 18. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), The 10 Elements of Agroecology: Guiding the Transition to Sustainable Food and Agricultural Systems, www.fao.org/3/i9037en/I9037EN.pdf; New Climate Economy, Unlocking the Inclusive Growth Story (2018). 19.


pages: 556 words: 95,955

Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted by Daniel Sokatch

activist lawyer, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, European colonialism, facts on the ground, indoor plumbing, Live Aid, lockdown, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mount Scopus, one-state solution, Salesforce, Suez crisis 1956, the map is not the territory, Thomas L Friedman, traveling salesman, urban planning, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

Over the last several decades, Israel has built tens of thousands of homes for hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis in new neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, neighborhoods that ring the traditional Palestinian neighborhoods closer to the urban core. Now Arab East Jerusalem, once the cultural and economic focus of West Bank Palestinian life, is largely cut off from the rest of the West Bank by the new Jewish neighborhoods. It stands to reason that this politically motivated urban planning has succeeded in changing those Israeli Jewish mental maps of the city, perhaps making any creative compromise over Jerusalem that much less likely—and, ironically, guaranteeing that “undivided Jerusalem” remains divided. . . . The 1987 uprising began as spontaneous protests with no centralized leadership, but soon an underground group of representatives of the various Palestinian factions began coordinating.

Still, despite the incendiary and divisive rhetoric from top governmental officials and the passage of antidemocratic laws, the last decade also saw major positive developments for Israel’s Arab citizens and for the idea of a truly shared Arab-Jewish Israeli society and future. In 2015, the government passed Resolution 922. The anodyne name belied the decision’s significance. Resolution 922 was a multi-year plan that aimed to close the economic gap between Arab and Jewish citizens by investing 15 billion shekels (about $4.3 billion) into housing, urban planning, education, employment, transportation, and other infrastructure in Israel’s Arab community. It was achieved through a joint effort of Arab leaders, civil society organizations, and public officials and adopted by the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. So, why would politicians who’ve never hesitated to engage in racist dog whistles pass such a law?


pages: 113 words: 36,039

The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction by Mark Lilla

Berlin Wall, Charlie Hebdo massacre, classic study, coherent worldview, creative destruction, George Santayana, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, Isaac Newton, liberation theology, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, urban planning, women in the workforce

These early volumes offer a brilliant if eccentric ride through ancient history, beginning with Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Israel, then taking up the Greek story, from the Cretans and Achaeans down to classical Athens. They are not embarrassments. Voegelin was an earnest amateur historian who seemed to have read everything and could make connections among myths, inscriptions, urban planning, zodiacs, prophecies, epic poetry, biblical stories, Greek tragedies, and Platonic dialogues. His first three volumes quickly established the human ascent up to Christianity, and his cold war American readers looked forward to reading about their own civilizational decline. Then something happened: Mr.


pages: 352 words: 104,411

Rush Hour: How 500 Million Commuters Survive the Daily Journey to Work by Iain Gately

Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, autonomous vehicles, Beeching cuts, blue-collar work, Boris Johnson, British Empire, business intelligence, business process, business process outsourcing, California high-speed rail, call centre, car-free, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, Clapham omnibus, cognitive dissonance, congestion charging, connected car, corporate raider, DARPA: Urban Challenge, Dean Kamen, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, Detroit bankruptcy, don't be evil, driverless car, Elon Musk, extreme commuting, Ford Model T, General Motors Futurama, global pandemic, Google bus, Great Leap Forward, Henri Poincaré, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, Jeff Bezos, lateral thinking, Lewis Mumford, low skilled workers, Marchetti’s constant, planned obsolescence, postnationalism / post nation state, Ralph Waldo Emerson, remote working, safety bicycle, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, social distancing, SpaceShipOne, stakhanovite, Steve Jobs, Suez crisis 1956, telepresence, Tesla Model S, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, urban planning, éminence grise

Instead of being imprisoned on a train and subject to the whims of its operators, each was now the captain of their own little ship and could, in theory, escape from routine whenever they wished by turning off at the next junction. Auto-commuting was encouraged in its early years by America’s cities, which hoped that cars would displace the horse-drawn transport that still formed the majority of their internal traffic and had become a significant sanitary problem. At an international urban planning conference held in New York in 1898, horse pollution was top of the agenda. It was estimated that the host city’s horses deposited ‘2.5 million pounds of manure and 60,000 gallons of urine’ on its streets every day. The problem was especially acute in summer when farmers were occupied with the harvest and couldn’t spare the time to collect the dung for fertilizer, which was piled up in vacant lots and sometimes reached sixty feet in height.

As well as establishing automobiles as the principal form of personal transport, it had committed the country, for better or worse, to a way of life ‘organized predominantly on the basis of the universal availability of motor transportation’. *1 Lloyd Wright thought that the United States of America should be renamed Usonia, to reflect the fact that Canada and Mexico were also ‘American’. He designed cities and suburban houses to suit his vision of a distinctive American style of urban planning. The name survives in Esperanto as Usono. *2 The Levittown team won the Little League World Series in 1960. *3 A second model of Levittown house introduced in 1949. *4 George Romney’s opposition to oversized gas guzzlers didn’t rub off on his son Mitt, the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, who has fought measures to raise the standards for fuel economy in American autos on the grounds that this would ‘limit the choice available to American families’ by forcing them to buy expensive, if more efficient, foreign cars


pages: 371 words: 107,141

You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All by Adrian Hon

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", 4chan, Adam Curtis, Adrian Hon, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, Astronomia nova, augmented reality, barriers to entry, Bellingcat, Big Tech, bitcoin, bread and circuses, British Empire, buy and hold, call centre, computer vision, conceptual framework, contact tracing, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, David Sedaris, deep learning, delayed gratification, democratizing finance, deplatforming, disinformation, disintermediation, Dogecoin, electronic logging device, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Ethereum, fake news, fiat currency, Filter Bubble, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, Galaxy Zoo, game design, gamification, George Floyd, gig economy, GitHub removed activity streaks, Google Glasses, Hacker News, Hans Moravec, Ian Bogost, independent contractor, index fund, informal economy, Jeff Bezos, job automation, jobs below the API, Johannes Kepler, Kevin Kelly, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, knowledge worker, Lewis Mumford, lifelogging, linked data, lockdown, longitudinal study, loss aversion, LuLaRoe, Lyft, Marshall McLuhan, megaproject, meme stock, meta-analysis, Minecraft, moral panic, multilevel marketing, non-fungible token, Ocado, Oculus Rift, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, Parler "social media", passive income, payment for order flow, prisoner's dilemma, QAnon, QR code, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, r/findbostonbombers, replication crisis, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Ronald Coase, Rubik’s Cube, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, scientific management, shareholder value, sharing economy, short selling, short squeeze, Silicon Valley, SimCity, Skinner box, spinning jenny, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, TED Talk, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, TikTok, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Twitter Arab Spring, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, warehouse robotics, Whole Earth Catalog, why are manhole covers round?, workplace surveillance

Not long after he wrote these words, educational board games grew into a flourishing transatlantic market, teaching everything from geography and history to maths and astronomy.1 These games were enabled by technological advancements of a different kind that made the manufacturing and publishing of board games much cheaper than before. Locke might have admired educational board games, but he’d have loved educational video games like SimCity and Minecraft that can teach urban planning and architecture and programming. Only by learning the history of how games have been used for purposes beyond entertainment can we understand how gamification has taken such a large role in our lives, and how it might come to dominate the world. There is still some debate in the games industry and among academics as to what precisely constitutes gamification, and it’s easy to get mired in definitional quicksand involving related terms like exploitationware, the “gameful world,” and ludification.

The gamification of civic engagement (also known as “e-participation”) includes sophisticated SimCity-style simulations to help citizens and policymakers understand and make planning decisions, but it mostly means injecting fun into democratic and governmental processes like participatory budgeting and urban planning.83 These efforts are not especially widespread yet and have mostly been in service of top-down exercises that “supports rather than challenges [governments’] policies,” as Lobna Hassan and Juho Hamari of the Gamification Group at Tampere University put it in their literature review. Since many democracies are still grappling with how (or whether) to be more responsive to their citizens’ views beyond periodic elections, gamified civic engagement has largely been limited to low-stakes planning.


pages: 651 words: 180,162

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Air France Flight 447, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, anti-fragile, banking crisis, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, Black Swan, business cycle, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, commoditize, creative destruction, credit crunch, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, discrete time, double entry bookkeeping, Emanuel Derman, epigenetics, fail fast, financial engineering, financial independence, Flash crash, flying shuttle, Gary Taubes, George Santayana, Gini coefficient, Helicobacter pylori, Henri Poincaré, Higgs boson, high net worth, hygiene hypothesis, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, informal economy, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, Jane Jacobs, Jim Simons, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, language acquisition, Lao Tzu, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, mandelbrot fractal, Marc Andreessen, Mark Spitznagel, meta-analysis, microbiome, money market fund, moral hazard, mouse model, Myron Scholes, Norbert Wiener, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, placebo effect, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, power law, principal–agent problem, purchasing power parity, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, Ralph Nader, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, rent control, Republic of Letters, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, Rupert Read, selection bias, Silicon Valley, six sigma, spinning jenny, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, stochastic process, stochastic volatility, synthetic biology, tacit knowledge, tail risk, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Great Moderation, the new new thing, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, transaction costs, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto, Yogi Berra, Zipf's Law

The very notion of iatrogenics is quite absent from the discourse outside medicine (which, to repeat, has been a rather slow learner). But just as with the color blue, having a word for something helps spread awareness of it. We will push the idea of iatrogenics into political science, economics, urban planning, education, and more domains. Not one of the consultants and academics in these fields with whom I tried discussing it knew what I was talking about—or thought that they could possibly be the source of any damage. In fact, when you approach the players with such skepticism, they tend to say that you are “against scientific progress.”

ARCHITECTURE AND THE IRREVERSIBLE NEOMANIA There is some evolutionary warfare between architects producing a compounded form of neomania. The problem with modernistic—and functional—architecture is that it is not fragile enough to break physically, so these buildings stick out just to torture our consciousness—you cannot exercise your prophetic powers by leaning on their fragility. Urban planning, incidentally, demonstrates the central property of the so-called top-down effect: top-down is usually irreversible, so mistakes tend to stick, whereas bottom-up is gradual and incremental, with creation and destruction along the way, though presumably with a positive slope. Further, things that grow in a natural way, whether cities or individual houses, have a fractal quality to them.

As the journalist Christopher Caldwell wrote about the unnatural living conditions: “Le Corbusier called houses ‘machines for living.’ France’s housing projects, as we now know, became machines for alienation.” Jane Jacobs, the New York urban activist, took a heroic stance as a political-style resistant against neomania in architecture and urban planning, as the modernistic dream was carried by Robert Moses, who wanted to improve New York by razing tenements and installing large roads and highways, committing a greater crime against natural order than Haussmann, who, as we saw in Chapter 7, removed during the nineteenth century entire neighborhoods of Paris to make room for the “Grand Boulevards.”


pages: 124 words: 36,360

Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucent by Douglas Coupland

"World Economic Forum" Davos, British Empire, cable laying ship, Claude Shannon: information theory, cosmic microwave background, Downton Abbey, Golden arches theory, Great Leap Forward, Hibernia Atlantic: Project Express, hiring and firing, industrial research laboratory, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Marshall McLuhan, messenger bag, military-industrial complex, Neal Stephenson, oil shale / tar sands, pre–internet, quantum entanglement, Richard Feynman, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, tech worker, technological determinism, TED Talk, Turing machine, undersea cable, upwardly mobile, urban planning, UUNET, Wall-E

One can look back on the print era and witness true poignancy: readers the world over were determined to see their lives as stories, when, in fact, books are a specific invention that creates a specific mindset. Most people can’t find the larger story in their lives. Born, grew up, had kids, maybe, and died … what kind of story is that? There’s a maxim in the world of urban planning that if you let your city be planned by bakers, you will end up with a city of bakeries. If you have a culture whose brains are “planned” by books, you’ll have a citizenry who want their lives to be book-like. If you have a culture whose brains are “planned” by digital culture and Internet browsing, you’ll have a citizenry who want their lives to be simultaneous, fluid, ready to jump from link to link—a society that assumes that knowledge is there for the asking when you need it.


Polaroids From the Dead by Douglas Coupland

dematerialisation, edge city, guns versus butter model, index card, mandelbrot fractal, Maui Hawaii, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, Norman Mailer, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, upwardly mobile, urban planning

The only other road access to the North Shore is five miles down the harbor to the utilitarian and unfortunately rather charmless Second Narrows Bridge: a six-lane people-mover about which little more can be said without taxing the limits of charity. Lions Gate Bridge is by no means a practical bridge—it looks to be spun from liquid sugar, and, unfortunately, it now seems to be dissolving like sugar. By urban planning and engineering standards it borders on being a disaster, but then isn’t it true of life in general that nothing is more seductive than the dying starlet? The lost cowboy? The self-destructive jazz musician? The bridge has three harrowingly narrow lanes. Depending on the time of day, commuters on the Lions Gate may have either one or two of these lanes apportioned to them.


pages: 147 words: 37,622

Personal Kanban: Mapping Work, Navigating Life by Jim Benson, Tonianne Demaria Barry

Abraham Maslow, Albert Einstein, Asperger Syndrome, Bluma Zeigarnik, corporate governance, Howard Rheingold, intangible asset, job satisfaction, Kaizen: continuous improvement, Kanban, Ken Thompson, pattern recognition, performance metric, The Wisdom of Crowds, urban planning, Yogi Berra

My professional background is so diverse that I feared it would look disjointed, it sure felt that way to me. Over coffee, I complained about this to my companion, who asked me to describe what I assumed was a chaotic career. It went something like this: Well, I studied psychology for a while and really loved it, but I didn’t want to be a psychologist. So I went into urban planning, because as far back as I can remember I’ve been interested in cities—how they’re built, how people live in them, work in them, navigate their lives in them. So for a decade I was an urban planner. I built rail transit systems, planned for growth management, built walkable neighborhoods. After a while I went into technology planning and software development for government, creating systems that helped government agencies collaborate internally or with other agencies or with the public.


pages: 414 words: 119,116

The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World by Michael Marmot

active measures, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Atul Gawande, Bonfire of the Vanities, Broken windows theory, cakes and ale, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, centre right, clean water, cognitive load, congestion charging, correlation does not imply causation, Doha Development Round, epigenetics, financial independence, future of work, Gini coefficient, Growth in a Time of Debt, illegal immigration, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Kenneth Rogoff, Kibera, labour market flexibility, longitudinal study, lump of labour, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahbub ul Haq, meta-analysis, microcredit, move 37, New Urbanism, obamacare, paradox of thrift, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, RAND corporation, road to serfdom, Simon Kuznets, Socratic dialogue, structural adjustment programs, the built environment, The Spirit Level, trickle-down economics, twin studies, urban planning, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, working poor

The image of a toff on a bicycle is not far from what the evidence shows: the higher the social position, the more likely are people to have used a bicycle in the previous week. People at the top make more trips of all types than those at the bottom and more by walking and cycling.40 Happily, some in urban planning are putting their talents to designing cities with a view to walkability and active transport. I want to highlight two issues. First is the safe journey to school – taking steps to encourage children to walk or cycle to school. To achieve this will take concentration on the second issue: making cycling and walking safe.

., here tuberculosis, here, here, here, here Tunisia, here Turandot, here, here Turkey, here, here Uganda, here, here unemployment, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and mental health, here and suicide, here, here youth unemployment, here, here, here, here UNICEF, here, here United Kingdom alcohol consumption, here capital:income ratio, here and child well-being, here cost of childcare, here and economic recovery, here, here education system, here, here disability-free life expectancy, here founding of welfare state, here health-care system, here income inequalities, here, here literacy levels, here male adult mortality, here PISA score, here politics and economics, here and poverty in work, here, here poverty levels, here, here prison population, here social attitudes, here and social interventions, here social mobility, here ‘strivers and scroungers’ rhetoric, here, here and taxation, here unemployment, here use of tables for meals, here United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), here, here, here, here United States of America air pollution, here, here alcohol consumption, here capital:income ratio, here child poverty, here and child well-being, here cotton subsidies, here and economic recovery, here education system, here, here, here female life expectancy, here and gang violence, here health-care system, here, here income inequalities, here, here, here, here international comparisons, here, here, here lack of paid maternity leave, here life expectancy and education, here male adult mortality, here, here, here maternal mortality, here, here obesity levels, here, here, here, here PISA score, here politics and economics, here and poverty in work, here poverty levels, here prison population, here race and disadvantage, here, here, here, here, here social disadvantage and health, here social mobility, here suicide rate, here and taxation, here US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, here US Department of Justice, here US Federal Reserve Bank, here US National Academy of Science (NAS), here, here, here, here University of Sydney, here urban planning, here Uruguay, here, here, here, here utilitarianism, here, here, here Vågerö, Denny, here valuation of life, here Victoria Longitudinal Study, here Vietnam, here, here violence, here domestic (intimate partner), here, here, here Virchow, Rudolf, here vulture funds, here, here Wales, youth unemployment in, here walking speed, here Washington Consensus, here, here, here welfare spending, here West Arnhem College, here Westminster, life expectancy in, here Whitehall Studies, here, here, here, here, here, here, here wife-beating, here Wilde, Oscar, here, here Wilkinson, Richard, here willingness-to-pay methodology, here, here Wolfe, Tom, here, here women and alcohol use, here and cash-transfer schemes, here A Note on the Author Born in England and educated in Australia, Sir Michael Marmot is Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at UCL.


Mbs: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman by Ben Hubbard

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bellingcat, bitcoin, Citizen Lab, Donald Trump, fake news, it's over 9,000, Jeff Bezos, knowledge economy, Mark Zuckerberg, medical residency, megacity, Mohammed Bouazizi, NSO Group, RAND corporation, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rosa Parks, Rubik’s Cube, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, SoftBank, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook: Apple, urban planning, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Yom Kippur War

He called for competitive education that involved parents and recalled a teacher saying she did not believe in dinosaurs because they were not mentioned in the Quran. He asked for better health care, asking why, if proper care was provided by the state, citizens scrambled to get their relatives into private hospitals. He asked the municipal authorities for “a sidewalk to walk on,” arguing that the absence of them in Saudi cities was emblematic of poor urban planning. He called for more parking, better zoning between residential and commercial properties, more soccer fields, more parks, and more trees. His suggestions were charming in their modesty, simple steps the government could take to improve life. Only a few had a whiff of politics. He called for citizens to have a role in local decision-making and for free access to information.

create more work for Saudis: “2030 ru’iyat al muwaaTin: al-waTHeefa” (Ar.), Al Hayat, Oct. 29, 2016. mentioned in the Quran: “2030 ru’iyat al-muwaaTin: ta‘leem jayid wa munaafis” (Ar.), Al Hayat, Oct. 29, 2016. relatives into private hospitals: “2030 ru’iyat al-muwaaTin: al-amaan aS-SaHHi” (Ar.), Al Hayat, Oct. 29, 2016. poor urban planning: “2030 ru’iyat al muwaaTin: raSeef namshi ‘alehi” (Ar.), Al Hayat, Oct. 29, 2016. more parking: “2030 ru’iyat al-muwaaTin: al-baHath ‘an mawqaf as-sayaara” (Ar.), Al Hayat, Oct. 29, 2016. commercial properties: “2030 ru’iyat al-muwaaTin as-sa‘udi: al-faSl bayn as-sakani wa at-tijaari” (Ar.), Al Hayat, Oct. 29, 2016.


pages: 501 words: 114,888

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives by Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler

Ada Lovelace, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Robotics, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, blockchain, blood diamond, Boston Dynamics, Burning Man, call centre, cashless society, Charles Babbage, Charles Lindbergh, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, Colonization of Mars, computer vision, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, Dean Kamen, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, delayed gratification, dematerialisation, digital twin, disruptive innovation, Donald Shoup, driverless car, Easter island, Edward Glaeser, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, experimental economics, fake news, food miles, Ford Model T, fulfillment center, game design, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, gig economy, gigafactory, Google X / Alphabet X, gravity well, hive mind, housing crisis, Hyperloop, impact investing, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, informal economy, initial coin offering, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of the telegraph, Isaac Newton, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, late fees, Law of Accelerating Returns, life extension, lifelogging, loss aversion, Lyft, M-Pesa, Mary Lou Jepsen, Masayoshi Son, mass immigration, megacity, meta-analysis, microbiome, microdosing, mobile money, multiplanetary species, Narrative Science, natural language processing, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, Oculus Rift, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), out of africa, packet switching, peer-to-peer lending, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, planned obsolescence, QR code, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, RFID, Richard Feynman, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, robo advisor, Satoshi Nakamoto, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, smart contracts, smart grid, Snapchat, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, supercomputer in your pocket, supply-chain management, tech billionaire, technoutopianism, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, urban planning, Vision Fund, VTOL, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, X Prize

So, if a half-a-dozen different vehicles are all it takes to please the customer, then a wave of car company extinction is going to follow our wave of car company consolidation. Big auto won’t be the only industry impacted. America has almost half-a-million parking spaces. In a recent survey, MIT professor of urban planning Eran Ben-Joseph reported that, in many major US cities, “parking lots cover more than a third of the land area,” while the nation as a whole has set aside an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined for our vehicles. But if car-as-service replaces car-as-thing-you-have-to-park, then we’re going to be looking at a huge commercial real estate boom as all those lots get repurposed.

there were a hundred plus automotive brands: You can find an aggregated list of car brands, both in service and retired, at this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car_brands. the average car owner: Donald Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking (Routledge, 2011), p. 624. America has almost half-a-million parking spaces: Richard Florida, “Parking Has Eaten American Cities,” CityLab, July 24, 2018. MIT professor of urban planning: Eran Ben-Joseph, ReThinking a Lot (MIT Press, 2012), pp. xi–xix. Hyperloop is the brainchild: For the original whitepaper: https://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha.pdf. Robert Goddard: Malcolm Browne, “New Funds Fuel Magnet Power for Trains,” New York Times, March 3, 1992.


pages: 386 words: 113,709

Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road by Matthew B. Crawford

1960s counterculture, Airbus A320, airport security, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Boeing 737 MAX, British Empire, Burning Man, business logic, call centre, classic study, collective bargaining, confounding variable, congestion pricing, crony capitalism, data science, David Sedaris, deskilling, digital map, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, emotional labour, en.wikipedia.org, Fellow of the Royal Society, Ford Model T, gamification, gentrification, gig economy, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, Herbert Marcuse, hive mind, Ian Bogost, income inequality, informal economy, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, labour mobility, Lyft, mirror neurons, Network effects, New Journalism, New Urbanism, Nicholas Carr, planned obsolescence, Ponzi scheme, precautionary principle, Ralph Nader, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Sam Peltzman, security theater, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social graph, social intelligence, Stephen Hawking, surveillance capitalism, tacit knowledge, tech worker, technoutopianism, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, time dilation, too big to fail, traffic fines, Travis Kalanick, trolley problem, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, Wall-E, Works Progress Administration

The rise of the automobile is closely connected to the transformation of American cities in ways that Jacobs and many others (including myself) regret; this complaint is prominent in the “new urbanism.” But on Jacobs’s account, this connection isn’t entirely a causal one; “we blame automobiles for too much.” She finds a prior cause of the degradation of American cities in urban planning, the kind that seeks to optimize the city according to a plan hatched from on high, without a street-level understanding of what makes a place thrive. She offers a thought experiment in which the automobile had never been invented, but the modernist project is left otherwise undisturbed (think windswept plazas and high-rises, or model suburbs of socially detached, nuclear families).

The idea is that our movements through the city, the infrastructure we depend on, the police protections, trash collection, parking, deliveries and all the other services that make a city work, will be orchestrated by an “urban operating system.” As part of the smart city vision, driverless cars are thus one element in a striking intellectual movement. It is striking not least for its revival of a long-standing modernist ambition, that of transformative urban planning. The goals of such planning are usually public health, efficiency, beauty, and, something more elusive, order. Some cities that have gotten the full treatment over the last two centuries are wonderful places to visit despite their controversial remakings; see Paris (much of it demolished and rebuilt by Haussmann under Louis Napoleon).


Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia

anti-communist, antiwork, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, blood diamond, borderless world, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, California gold rush, clean water, climate change refugee, collective bargaining, colonial rule, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, crack epidemic, dark matter, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, drone strike, Elon Musk, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, extractivism, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Food sovereignty, G4S, gentrification, George Floyd, global pandemic, global supply chain, Global Witness, green new deal, guest worker program, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, informal economy, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, joint-stock company, land reform, late capitalism, lockdown, mandatory minimum, mass immigration, mass incarceration, means of production, microcredit, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, Naomi Klein, neoliberal agenda, Occupy movement, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, open borders, pension reform, Rana Plaza, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Shoshana Zuboff, social distancing, special economic zone, Steve Bannon, strikebreaker, structural adjustment programs, surveillance capitalism, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois, wages for housework, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce

It operates through the nexus of land capture and commodification, appropriation of the means of living, zoning deregulation, and police protection of private property. Often expressed in the colonial language of “barren land” and “frontier,” this private property relation spatially segregates the wealthy from the impoverished, illustrated by gated communities situated alongside slums and ghettos. Urban planning is dictated by developers, local tax schemes, rent extraction regulations, bylaws criminalizing poverty and street economies, and gentrification turning monuments to culture into towers of glass. Neil Smith articulates: “Gentrification has become a strategy within globalization itself; the effort to create a global city is the effort to attract capital and tourists.”33 Like EPZs bifurcating labor power, this racialized class ordering reorganizes urban space and displaces poor people by commodifying “dead capital” land that poor people live on but do not own as private property.

(London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 2004), 133-62. 28.Julhas Alam, “Bangladesh Garment Workers Seek Unpaid Wages as Orders Stop,” AP News, April 16, 2020, https://apnews.com/181650f23661c91c8757d85c5491c883. 29.Conrad Duncan, “Bangladesh Fire Leaves ‘50,000 People Homeless’ after Slum Destroyed in Capital of Dhaka,” Independent, August 17, 2019, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bangladesh-fire-slum-destroyed-homeless-blaze-dhaka-capital-a9063871.html. 30.United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “Sustainable Development Goals Statistics,” 2019, https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2019/goal-11/. 31.Tanner Howard, “Are Planners Partly to Blame for Gentrification?” Citylab, March 29, 2019, www.citylab.com/equity/2019/03/urban-planning-gentrification-capital-city-samuel-stein/585262/. 32.Gita Dewan Verma, Slumming India: A Chronicle of Slums and Their Saviours (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2002), xix. 33.Neil Smith, “Gentrification in Berlin and the Revanchist State,” Policing Crowds, October 20, 2007, http://policing-crowds.org/urbanization/homelessness/homeless/neil-smith-gentrification-in-berlin-and-the-revanchist-state/. 34.UN, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, International Migration Report 2017: Highlights (ST/ESA/SER.A/404), www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2017_Highlights.pdf. 35.Adam Hanieh, “The Contradictions of Global Migration,” in Socialist Register 2019: A World Turned Upside Down?


pages: 358 words: 118,810

Heaven Is a Place on Earth: Searching for an American Utopia by Adrian Shirk

Airbnb, back-to-the-land, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Buckminster Fuller, buy and hold, carbon footprint, company town, COVID-19, dark matter, David Graeber, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, gentrification, George Floyd, gig economy, global pandemic, Haight Ashbury, index card, intentional community, Joan Didion, late capitalism, mass incarceration, McMansion, means of production, medical malpractice, neurotypical, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, Peoples Temple, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent control, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Stewart Brand, transatlantic slave trade, traumatic brain injury, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight, yellow journalism, zero-sum game

During what Malcolm X famously called “the most segregated hour in American life,” I sat in a row of stacking chairs in a radical multiracial congregation called New Day in a rented-out cafeteria of the oldest Catholic girls’ school in New York State. The sermon that morning was part of a “queer liberation” series for the month of June. The reading, from the book of John. And in the announcements, the pastor rallied for everyone to join the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition in an upcoming march against an urban planning initiative that threatened to develop the dense, vibrant neighboring district of Jerome Avenue into commercial and luxury housing. There was going to be a town hall, followed by three weeks of marches. I wondered at that moment about the connection, held fast and translucent as fishing line, between the presence of my white body in the Bronx and these particular attempts at gentrification.

In Young’s estimation, included in the two utopias’ collective output were “the burning of Rome, city planning, explosion of stars, a new calendar, anarchy, a New Jerusalem, repression, expansion, moneyless Eden, exaltation of pearls, a three-hour working day, exaltation of horses, infinite regress, the united nations of earth, the many, the few, Lucifer, lotus-eaters, the falling of autumn leaves, the myths of Narcissus, good dentistry, many fictions.” What I think she means here is that the output was various and hard to track—even hard to track whose idea was whose. It’s true—a lot of modern urban planning concepts came from Owenite colonies, particularly things like “garden cities,” and Owen’s particular socialist philosophies helped form the politics of the British labor movement. Rapp thought he and his followers were building a New Jerusalem, the city at the end of the world, the city that would be knit back together again when Christ came.


pages: 143 words: 43,096

Tel Aviv 2015: The Retro Travel Guide by Claudia Stein

illegal immigration, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, machine readable, New Urbanism, Suez canal 1869, urban planning

The layout of Sarona was planned strategically: the purchased plots were divided into lots, the new owners determined by lottery. Everybody had enough space to build a home with a little garden. The construction was subject to previously determined rules. Interestingly enough, this was not the last “creative urban planning”; the founders of Tel Aviv would do exactly the same in April 1909: subdivide the plots, establish rules for construction and determine the owners by lottery. The founders of Tel Aviv had studied the Templers very closely, especially their buildings were considered all-time modern. Everywhere in the country where the Templers were active, the general living conditions improved in a short time for everybody living in that area.


New Localism and Regeneration Management by Jon Coaffee

glass ceiling, Kickstarter, place-making, post-industrial society, the built environment, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal

., Root, A. and Moran, D. (2001), Area Committees and Neighbourhood Management: Increasing Democratic Participation and Social Inclusion, Local Government Information Unit, London. Taylor, F. and Gaster, L. (2001), In the Neighbourhood: Area Decentralisation and New Political Structures, Local Government Association, London. Thornley, A. (1993), Urban Planning under Thatcherism: The Challenge of the Market, 2nd ed., Routledge, London. Walker, D. (2003), “The road to the north”, The Guardian Unlimited, available at: SocietyGuardian.co.uk/futureforpublicservices/story/0,8150,1077345,00.html (accessed 6 November). Wilson, D. and Game, C. (2002), Local Government in the United Kingdom, 3rd ed., Palgrave/Macmillan, Ebbw Vale.


pages: 277 words: 41,815

Lonely Planet Pocket Berlin by Lonely Planet, Andrea Schulte-Peevers

Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, call centre, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, G4S, gentrification, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, messenger bag, Peter Eisenman, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal

Cold War Chills After WWII, Germany fell into the crosshairs of the Cold War, a country divided along ideological lines by the victorious powers, its internal border marked by fences and a wall. Just how differently the two countries developed is still very palpable in Berlin, expressed not only through Berlin Wall remnants such as the East Side Gallery but also through vastly different urban planning and architectural styles. Best of Prussian Glory Brandenburg Gate Royal city gate is Germany’s most iconic national symbol. (Click here) Reichstag Stand in awe of history at the palatial home of the German parliament. (Click here) Schloss Charlottenburg Palace provides a glimpse into the lifestyles of the rich and royal.


pages: 410 words: 119,823

Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life by Adam Greenfield

3D printing, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, algorithmic management, AlphaGo, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, bank run, barriers to entry, basic income, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, business intelligence, business process, Californian Ideology, call centre, cellular automata, centralized clearinghouse, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, circular economy, cloud computing, Cody Wilson, collective bargaining, combinatorial explosion, Computer Numeric Control, computer vision, Conway's Game of Life, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, deep learning, DeepMind, dematerialisation, digital map, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, driverless car, drone strike, Elon Musk, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, facts on the ground, fiat currency, fulfillment center, gentrification, global supply chain, global village, Goodhart's law, Google Glasses, Herman Kahn, Ian Bogost, IBM and the Holocaust, industrial robot, informal economy, information retrieval, Internet of things, Jacob Silverman, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Hawkins, job automation, jobs below the API, John Conway, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, John Perry Barlow, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, license plate recognition, lifelogging, M-Pesa, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, megacity, megastructure, minimum viable product, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, natural language processing, Network effects, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, Occupy movement, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, PalmPilot, Pareto efficiency, pattern recognition, Pearl River Delta, performance metric, Peter Eisenman, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, post scarcity, post-work, printed gun, proprietary trading, RAND corporation, recommendation engine, RFID, rolodex, Rutger Bregman, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, shareholder value, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart contracts, social intelligence, sorting algorithm, special economic zone, speech recognition, stakhanovite, statistical model, stem cell, technoutopianism, Tesla Model S, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, Tony Fadell, transaction costs, Uber for X, undersea cable, universal basic income, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, Vitalik Buterin, warehouse robotics, When a measure becomes a target, Whole Earth Review, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce

Assume, for the sake of argument, that there did exist a master formula capable of resolving all resource allocation conflicts and balancing the needs of all of a city’s competing constituencies. It certainly would be convenient if this golden mean could be determined automatically and consistently, via the application of a set procedure—in a word, algorithmically. In urban planning, the idea that certain kinds of challenges are susceptible to algorithmic resolution has a long pedigree. It’s present in the Corbusian doctrine that the ideal and correct ratio of spatial provisioning in a city can be calculated from nothing more than an enumeration of the population, it underpins the complex composite indices Jay Forrester devised in his groundbreaking 1969 Urban Dynamics, and it lay at the heart of the RAND Corporation’s (eventually disastrous) intervention in the management of 1970s New York City.40 No doubt part of the idea’s appeal to smart-city advocates, too, is the familial resemblance such an algorithm would bear to the formulae by which commercial real-estate developers calculate air rights, the land area that must be reserved for parking in a community of a given size, and so on.

Whether these new uses would attract the continuous, daylong flux of diverse visitors that urban vitality depends on, we can’t yet know.8 But straightforwardly, making things close to where they’re needed opens up the possibility of a denser, more compact and efficient way of living in cities. And with clean, city-center workshops sited cheek-by-jowl with living quarters, even urban planning’s basic distinction between industrial, commercial and residential zones comes into question. Furthermore, the bounding constraints on the human condition would shift, for all of us, in ways we’ve never before even thought to reckon with. Whether or not our experience of everyday life ever scales the heights foreseen by the most ardent prophets of luxury communism, the ability to produce things locally meaningfully concretizes the “right to an adequate standard of living” enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.9 Put simply, an established practice of distributed fabrication is freedom from want.


pages: 423 words: 129,831

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, big-box store, blue-collar work, congestion pricing, Donner party, edge city, Ford Model T, General Motors Futurama, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, new economy, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, plutocrats, pneumatic tube, Ralph Nader, side project, smart transportation, Southern State Parkway, streetcar suburb, traveling salesman, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, urban renewal, Victor Gruen

Maybe so, Bragdon responded, but the system OK'ed in 1944 had been enlarged by Public Roads; surely Congress never intended urban interstates in the numbers and sizes now contemplated. He convinced commerce secretary Frederick H. Mueller to suspend work on any planned city interstates until the bureau devised a way to incorporate them into formal urban planning efforts. Tallamy and the bureau were deeply unhappy at this. Bragdon was acting in opposition to the will of Congress. Every study on which the program was based had been explicit: the country's highway needs were sharpest in the cities. Congress had read those studies. Congress had seen the Yellow Book's maps.

The 1956 act had intended that officials use what they heard to ensure that they "considered the economic effects of such a location." The 1968 act swapped out that language for "economic and social effects of such a location, its impact on the environment, and its consistency with the goals and objectives of such urban planning as has been promulgated by the community." Instead of addressing people who worried the interstates would bypass them, the new hearings would solicit comments from those who worried they weren't far enough away. This shift in orientation became public in October 1968, when the Federal Highway Administration published the regulations it planned to use to comply with the new act.


pages: 428 words: 126,013

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions by Johann Hari

Adam Curtis, autism spectrum disorder, basic income, Berlin Wall, call centre, capitalist realism, correlation does not imply causation, Donald Trump, gig economy, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, John Snow's cholera map, Joi Ito, longitudinal study, meta-analysis, Naomi Klein, Occupy movement, open borders, placebo effect, precariat, publication bias, randomized controlled trial, Rat Park, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Stephen Fry, sugar pill, TED Talk, the scientific method, The Spirit Level, Tipper Gore, twin studies, universal basic income, urban planning, zero-sum game

See also Richard Louv, The Nature Principle (New York: Algonquin Books, 2013), 29, 33–4; Richard Louv, Last Child in The Woods (New York: Atlantic Books, 2010), 50. But it turned out there was less stress and despair in the greener neighborhood. Catherine Ward Thompson et al., “More green space is linked to less stress in deprived communities,” Landscape and Urban Planning 105, no 3 (April 2012): 221–229. Their improvement was five times greater Marc Berman et al., “Interacting with Nature Improves Cognition and Affect for Individuals with Depression,” Journal of Affective Disorders 140, no. 3 (Nov. 2012): 300–305. It’s hard for a hungry animal moving Louv, Last Child, 32.

Gonzalez, “Therapeutic Horticulture in Clinical Depression: A Prospective Study,” Res Theory Nurs Pract 23, no. 4 (2009): 312–28; Joe Sempik and Jo Aldridge, “Health, well-being and social inclusion: therapeutic horticulture in the UK,” https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/2922; V. Reynolds, “Well-being Comes Naturally: an Evaluation of the BTCV Green Gym at Portslade, East Sussex,” Report no. 17, Oxford: Oxford Brookes University; Caroline Brown and Marcus Grant, “Biodiversity and Human Health: What Role for Nature in Healthy Urban Planning?”Built Environment (1978-) 31, no. 4, Planning Healthy Towns and Cities (2005): 326–338. There’s also a treasure trove of interesting research on this in the Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture, which you can access at http://www.ahta.org/the-journal-of-therapeutic-horticulture-ql, as accessed September 10, 2016.


pages: 571 words: 124,448

Building Habitats on the Moon: Engineering Approaches to Lunar Settlements by Haym Benaroya

3D printing, anti-fragile, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, biofilm, Black Swan, Brownian motion, Buckminster Fuller, carbon-based life, centre right, clean water, Colonization of Mars, Computer Numeric Control, conceptual framework, data acquisition, dual-use technology, Elon Musk, fault tolerance, Gene Kranz, gravity well, inventory management, Johannes Kepler, low earth orbit, Neil Armstrong, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, performance metric, RAND corporation, restrictive zoning, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, stochastic process, tacit knowledge, telepresence, telerobotics, the scientific method, Two Sigma, urban planning, Virgin Galactic, X Prize, zero-sum game

At UM, his dissertation was Problem Definition in a Participatory Design Process about the creation of the Human Exploration Demonstration Project at Ames. Marc earned a M.Arch from Columbia University in the City of New York, with a Kinne Summer Travelling Fellowship, where his thesis was Greenpoint Waterfront. Marc earned an AB cum laude in Architecture and Urban Planning from Princeton University, where his thesis was Village Square Community Center. Our interview Before we start, I would like to follow up on a prediction I made in our last interview that appears in your book, Turning Dust to Gold. I said, “In human spaceflight, I expect that we will see a blossoming of private launch and flight vehicles. … It is therefore with deep regret that I submit that one or more of these small space startups will kill a crew.”

Constance and Georgi Petrov in Synthesis-International have proposed an adaptation of the TransHab to lunar and planetary surfaces with their Surface Endoskeletal Inflatable Module (SEIM). ( 17 ) Meanwhile, Bigelow Aerospace licensed the NASA TransHab patent, as the basis for their proposed BA330 module that we adopted for the Water Walls module implementation concept. As a space architect, do you take insights from the biological world as you consider extraplanetary structures? Your question is much broader than just Space Architecture . Biological analogy has been one of the organizing principles for Architecture and Urban Planning for millennia. The most common example of biological analogy is bilateral symmetry. All vertebrate bodies are bilaterally symmetrical. Just think about how many buildings you know that are bilaterally symmetrical. Typical examples include ancient Egyptian cities and temple sites such as the Great Temple of Ptah in Luxor, (18th Dynasty, circa 1550–1290 BCE); the Beit HaMikdash, Solomon’s Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (circa 1000–997 BCE); Angkor Wat’s Baphuon Temple, Siem Reap, Cambodia (circa 1100–1200 CE).


pages: 378 words: 121,495

The Abandonment of the West by Michael Kimmage

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Brexit referendum, British Empire, Charles Lindbergh, City Beautiful movement, classic study, deindustrialization, desegregation, disinformation, Donald Trump, European colonialism, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, global pandemic, global supply chain, Gunnar Myrdal, interchangeable parts, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, Nelson Mandela, Paris climate accords, Peace of Westphalia, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, Suez crisis 1956, Thomas L Friedman, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus

Apart from communism’s promise of a classless society and of eventual peace and good will among all, the Bolsheviks’ passion for Western civilization made them familiar and accessible to Europe’s Left. The Bolsheviks had inherited their appreciation for Western literature, philosophy, music and architecture from Marx himself. A 1940 Soviet manual on urban planning characterized socialist-realist art as “Rembrandt, Rubens and Repin in the service of the working class and socialism.” (Rembrandt happened to be among Hitler’s favorite painters.) The culture hero of the communist West was Leon Trotsky, a fluently European intellectual and a real-life radical.

Martin, The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 15. Joseph Goebbels, “decisive hour,” quoted in Martin, Nazi-Fascist New Order, 181; Frankfurter Zeitung, “cultural union,” quoted in Martin, Nazi-Fascist New Order, 113. 7. Soviet manual on urban planning, quoted in Slezkine, House of Government, 592. Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (New York: Russell & Russell, 1957), 30. 8. Boris Iofan, “monumental decoration,” quoted in Slezkine, House of Government, 590–591. 9. Thomas Jefferson, “our Saxon ancestors,” quoted in Nell Painter, The History of White People (New York: W.


pages: 388 words: 211,074

Pauline Frommer's London: Spend Less, See More by Jason Cochran

Bonfire of the Vanities, Boris Johnson, British Empire, congestion charging, context collapse, David Attenborough, Easter island, electricity market, Etonian, Frank Gehry, glass ceiling, Haight Ashbury, haute couture, Isaac Newton, John Snow's cholera map, Kickstarter, low cost airline, Multics, Nelson Mandela, Skype, Stephen Fry, urban planning

The Design Museum (Shad Thames, SE1; % 020/7403-6933; www.design museum.org; £8.50 adults, free for children under 12, £6.50 seniors, £5 students; daily 10am–5:45pm, until 6:45pm in July and Aug, last admission 5:15pm; Tube: London Bridge or Tower Hill), just east of the Tower Bridge on the southern bank of the Thames, is strictly for contemporary top-drawer talent—the cool kids of style. To me, that makes it more of a gallery than a museum. The steep fee also means it’s best for devotees of high design, not for average sightseers. Shows are puffed-up explorations of random topics (race cars, urban planning), but if they’re sometimes ostentatious, at least they’re thought-provoking. Each spring, the museum hosts its prestigious Designs of the Year competition, and mounts mini-shows by each nominee. The gift shop (www.designmuseumshop.com) stocks some wild, strange oddities such as artist-conceived housewares, dolls, and office supplies—how about a cup that makes your hard-boiled egg look like it’s wearing pants?

Built in 1964 with heavy government concessions, it was kept empty for years by its unscrupulous owner, partly to hold out for astronomical rents and partly because doing so would get him off the tax hook, even as the city struggled through a homeless crisis. The charity Centrepoint, which started in the basement of St. Anne’s church in Soho and grew into a powerful force in housing issues, derisively took its name from the waste. Critics have assailed Centre Point as an eyesore, and as an emblem of poor urban planning—its inadequate sidewalk has 12_308691-ch08.qxp 12/23/08 9:18 PM Page 261 Shopping, Soho & Gimme Shelter a way of pushing pedestrians in front of buses. Still, it’s indisputably one of the landmarks of the London skyline, identifiable from miles away. You may end the tour here, at the Tube station, which contains some tile mosaics by the great artist Eduardo Paolozzi.

There are often free exhibitions in the Concourse Gallery, as well as in the foyer galleries. To reach the main entrance from the Barbican Tube stop, head east on Beech Street, then turn right on Whitecross. Have a wander around this drab concrete carbuncle for a lesson in the dangers of hyperactive urban planning. On the grounds are the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (famous graduates: Ewan McGregor, Joseph Fiennes, and Orlando Bloom), a lake that buffers the noise from the Circle Line running underneath, the or Elaine Stritch singing as you are Sandra Bernhard ranting or Michael Feinstein crooning.


pages: 347 words: 44,532

Lonely Planet Pocket Florence (Travel Guide) by Planet, Lonely, Maxwell, Virginia, Williams, Nicola

G4S, haute couture, Kickstarter, retail therapy, urban planning

Also notable is the vibrant stained-glass window designed and painted by Duccio di Buoninsegna. Understand Pius II Born Enea Silvio Piccolomini in the village of Corsignano (now Pienza) south of Siena, Pope Pius II (1405–64) was a tireless traveller, noted humanist, talented diplomat, exhaustive autobiographer (13 volumes!) and medieval urban-planning trendsetter. Also a scholar, poet and writer of erotic and comic stories, Pius built a huge personal library that was relocated to the purpose-built Libreria Piccolomini (Piccolomini Library) in Siena’s duomo (cathedral) after his death by order of his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, the future pope Pius III.


Hollow City by Rebecca Solnit, Susan Schwartzenberg

blue-collar work, Brownian motion, dematerialisation, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, housing crisis, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Loma Prieta earthquake, low skilled workers, new economy, New Urbanism, Peoples Temple, pets.com, rent control, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, wage slave

Dancers refused to go, dozens of performances were held out- side the occupied studio, and huge groups gathered in the street. groups began to link displacement and globalization, and what had only been analysis a complaint-oriented conversation and response. It San Francisco, Proposition it's in 1998 a real political has never been easy to get citizens involved in the undramatic minutia of urban planning, but when as became Other a city declines as visibly possible. M has come back with a vengeance as the Office Develop- ment Controls Initiative, Proposition L, cosponsored by Debra Walker and supported by Ammiano and Calvin Welch, among many others, measure so ballot, effective that Mayor Willie held huge fundraisers for his Brown own tried to keep it a off the competing, business-as-usual proposition, and fired the one planning commissioner who supported Prop.


pages: 159 words: 48,021

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton

Frank Gehry, the built environment, urban planning, urban sprawl

That summer, like many people before and since, I imagined no greater happiness than to be able to live in Paris for ever, pursuing a routine of going to the library, ambling the streets and watching the world from a corner table at Chez Antoine. 2. I was therefore surprised to find out, some years later, while looking through an illustrated book on urban planning, that the very area in which I had stayed, including my hotel, the café, the local laundry, the newspaper shop, even the National Library, had all fallen within a zone which one of the most intelligent and influential architects of the twentieth century had wanted systematically to dynamite and replace with a great park punctuated at intervals with eighteen sixty-storey cruciform towers stretching up to the lower slopes of Montmartre.


pages: 193 words: 46,052

Modern China: A Very Short Introduction by Rana Mitter

banking crisis, British Empire, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, global reserve currency, Great Leap Forward, invention of gunpowder, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, new economy, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, South China Sea, special economic zone, stem cell, urban planning

The old alleys of cities such as Chengdu and Kunming, charming if impractical for motor vehicles and modern plumbing, have also been razed in favour of skyscrapers and tower blocks. But the replacements often show little evidence of a Chinese flavour. In the early 20th century the Nationalists in Canton tried to show their modernity by adapting globalized (that is, Western) urban planning; that tendency is still evident for China’s government in the early 21st. Globalizing Chinese culture? China exists in a global cultural context. In the 20th century it tended to absorb cultural norms above all, whether of modern literary genres, cinematic styles, or artistic and architectural techniques.


pages: 403 words: 132,736

In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, Bretton Woods, call centre, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, company town, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, demographic dividend, digital divide, dual-use technology, energy security, financial independence, friendly fire, Future Shock, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, Haight Ashbury, informal economy, job-hopping, Kickstarter, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Wolf, megacity, new economy, plutocrats, profit motive, purchasing power parity, Silicon Valley, trade liberalization, upwardly mobile, uranium enrichment, urban planning, women in the workforce, working-age population, Y2K

They find it hard to understand why so many Indians would voluntarily want to live in such conditions, when they could be milking the family cow back in the village. But most of the migrants have voted with their feet (some have been involuntarily displaced by natural disasters or dams). In their view even the most squalid slum is better than living in the village. In spite of the inadequacies of India’s urban planning and the absence of secure employment, the city offers economic and social opportunities to the poor and to the lower castes that would be inconceivable in most of rural India. India has more than 100 million rural people who do not own any land. Many more are likely to move to the cities in the years ahead, whether slum conditions have improved or not.

It would be unfair to Aruna and Nikhil in Devdoongri, whose vision for India’s villagers is centered on grassroots “participatory democracy,” to class them as defenders of feudalism. They are at the progressive end of a wide spectrum that includes every type of village romantic, from upper-caste civil servants who block attempts at better urban planning, to colleagues of Nilekani in the IT industry who sometimes appear to believe that if only the digital revolution could be extended to the villages then people would not want to move (this is a widespread sentiment).* Meanwhile, most of the evidence suggests that the peasantry—including in north India—does not necessarily acquiesce in this view.


pages: 496 words: 131,938

The Future Is Asian by Parag Khanna

3D printing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Basel III, bike sharing, birth tourism , blockchain, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, cashless society, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, computer vision, connected car, corporate governance, CRISPR, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, currency peg, death from overwork, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, driverless car, dual-use technology, energy security, European colonialism, factory automation, failed state, fake news, falling living standards, family office, financial engineering, fixed income, flex fuel, gig economy, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, green transition, haute couture, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, impact investing, income inequality, industrial robot, informal economy, initial coin offering, Internet of things, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, light touch regulation, low cost airline, low skilled workers, Lyft, machine translation, Malacca Straits, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Masayoshi Son, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, money market fund, Monroe Doctrine, mortgage debt, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, new economy, off grid, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, Parag Khanna, payday loans, Pearl River Delta, prediction markets, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, reserve currency, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Scramble for Africa, self-driving car, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, smart cities, SoftBank, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, synthetic biology, systems thinking, tech billionaire, tech worker, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Vision Fund, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, working-age population, Yom Kippur War

Entire European countries, including Germany, Italy, and Spain, are at or near grid parity, meaning that the cost of installing wind, solar, and other renewable power now pays for itself in operational savings to citizens and businesses. Once known as a “garden city,” Bangalore today is often called the “garbage city” due to its outdated urban planning and impenetrable congestion. For choking New Delhi or congested Manila to live up to their potential, they need to adapt the bicycle lanes, public parks, affordable housing, green architecture, and vertical agriculture of cities such as Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. As Asia grows wealthier and older, its citizens want not just factory towns but walkable communities.

Scenarios are designed to pull leaders far out of their comfort zone and develop robust strategies to maintain the country’s relevance. To create the most realistic scenarios and plans, the civil service recruits for expertise in economic strategy, infrastructure, environmental stewardship, defense, and social services. Urban planning, for example, is handled by teams meshing architects, economists, demographers, ecologists, and many other experts. Rather than building more vertical bureaucracies, such horizontal mechanisms pool resources and apply them to functional challenges such as monitoring borders and aviation, tracking supply chains, ensuring food security, and protecting critical infrastructure.


pages: 393 words: 127,847

Imagine a City: A Pilot's Journey Across the Urban World by Mark Vanhoenacker

Airbus A320, Boeing 747, British Empire, car-free, colonial rule, COVID-19, East Village, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, high-speed rail, Jane Jacobs, Johannes Kepler, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, megacity, Nelson Mandela, Pearl River Delta, period drama, Richard Florida, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, trade route, urban planning

As it shines from within the darkness that fell first on Utah’s lower elevations, I wish I could learn to recognize the pattern of its red-yellow gridded lines as easily as I can read the cool-blue letters, KSLC, near the circle that marks the city’s airport on our navigation screens. In global terms, Salt Lake is still a newish city. The Mormon pioneers laid it out with reference to the Plat of the City of Zion, an urban plan that Joseph Smith had drawn up far from here, and to which he had added such instructions as “When this square is thus laid off and supplied, lay off another in the same way, and so fill up the world in these last days.” The metropolis was known as the New Jerusalem, and also as the City of the Saints, an epithet that formed the title of a book by Richard Francis Burton, the fabled nineteenth-century explorer who came by stagecoach to the settlement now shining below our 747 in order to add one more to the list (“Memphis, Benares, Jerusalem, Rome, Meccah”) of holy cities he knew.

The water is perfectly clear, and as shoals of silvery fins scatter from my shadow I recall summer days spent casting lines from a Pittsfield causeway with Dad and my brother; and I think, as well, of the signs that today line the Housatonic River’s Berkshire reaches to warn you not to eat what you catch, with a capitalized admonition that appears in English and Spanish alongside four cutlery-flanked plates with a duck, a fish, a turtle, and a frog on them, each beneath the diagonal slash that means: Don’t. If this Seoul stream suggests how cities might advantageously blend the natural and the artificial, it also offers opportunities to compare old with new. Again and again I stop to stare at the occasional decrepit T-shaped columns, which remain as monuments to a former age of urban planning, and to all the bottlenecked journeys that must have been made along the highway they once held high. I also love the historical markers that identify intriguing piles of rubble as the relics of more ancient infrastructure: “This is the site of the Hyogyeonggyo. It was also called Yeongpunggyo.


pages: 689 words: 134,457

When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm by Walt Bogdanich, Michael Forsythe

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", "World Economic Forum" Davos, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alistair Cooke, Amazon Web Services, An Inconvenient Truth, asset light, asset-backed security, Atul Gawande, Bear Stearns, Boris Johnson, British Empire, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, carbon footprint, Citizen Lab, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, compensation consultant, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, Corrections Corporation of America, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, data science, David Attenborough, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, disinformation, disruptive innovation, do well by doing good, don't be evil, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, facts on the ground, failed state, financial engineering, full employment, future of work, George Floyd, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global pandemic, illegal immigration, income inequality, information security, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, job satisfaction, job-hopping, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Kickstarter, load shedding, Mark Zuckerberg, megaproject, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, mortgage debt, Multics, Nelson Mandela, obamacare, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, profit maximization, public intellectual, RAND corporation, Rutger Bregman, scientific management, sentiment analysis, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart meter, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, tech worker, The future is already here, The Nature of the Firm, too big to fail, urban planning, WikiLeaks, working poor, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

McKinsey kept adding marquee state-owned firms to its client roster, including China Mobile, China Telecom, and the oil giants Sinopec and PetroChina, as well as coal, steel, banking, foodstuffs, and shipping conglomerates. Local governments and Beijing ministries also sought McKinsey’s advice. Shanghai hired the firm to help with urban planning. In 2009, Ian Davis traveled to Beijing to sign an agreement with China’s Commerce Ministry. That same year, McKinsey was asked by the government to help plan its economic stimulus program to counter the effects of the global financial crisis. McKinsey’s role was small—involving figuring out if price cuts to televisions would stimulate demand—but Dominic Barton, who succeeded Davis that year as the firm’s managing partner, presented McKinsey’s findings to the National Development and Reform Commission, the powerful planning agency that oversees China’s industrial policies.

., 255–56 ACA and, 62–65 accountability and, 16, 25, 28, 236–41, 277 addictive products and, 129, 278 Al-Elm Information Security and, 256–57 Allstate and, 192–203, 212 alumni network, 17–18, 22, 38, 93, 161, 272 Alzheimer’s drug approval and, 67–68 Aramco and, 243–44, 247–48 Arkansas Medicaid program and, 57, 60–62 Aspen Ideas Festival and, 149–51, 153–55 AT&T and, 48–49 at-risk contracts and, 232–34 Australian Green Team and, 159 autocratic states and, 25–28, 74, 108–9, 279 China, 92–109, 257 Russia, 108, 257 Saudi Arabia, 108, 243–57 Ukraine, 257, 279 auto industry and, 29, 32–33, 37 auto insurance and, 191–94 auto loans and, 172, 182, 182–84 Azar as HHS and, 146–47 banks as clients and, 172–89 matrix management, 175–79 securitization of credit, 182–89 BCG as rival of, 246, 248–49 Belt and Road strategy and, 101–3 Britain and Chairman’s Dinners, 262 “clubbable” consultants, 260–61, 275 Health and Social Care Act, 271–74 manufacturers in, 261–62 NHS cost-cutting, 259, 262, 264–75, 280 rail privatization, 263–65 steel privatization, 261 Budlender report and, 236–38 Buttigieg as consultant for, 26–27, 76 campaign contributions and, 65–66 carbon emissions and messaging by, 150–55, 159, 161–62, 164–70 CBP and, 83, 87 Centene purchase of AT Medics and, 274 Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and, 141–42, 145–46 Center for Societal Benefit Through Healthcare created by, 144 Chase as client of, 177–78, 180 Chevron and, 163 China and, 26, 46, 91–109, 165–66, 257, 279 consultants and, 95–103 financial crisis of 2007–10 and, 189 Muslim Uyghur detentions and, 105–6 SOEs and, 26, 91–93, 96–102, 107–8 Chinese copycat of, 99 client and billing lists and, 55, 107–8, 162–63, 168, 278, 280 client interests and, 18–19, 22, 24–25 clients and regulators both represented by, 22–23 clients competing in same market and, 22–23, 278, 281 client selection democracy index, 108–9 harms and, 25–28, 30–31, 143, 154, 161, 278 new oversight of 2019, 257 public-sector work, 242 values of, 18, 23–31, 108–9, 161–62 climate change and, 150–55, 166–69 CMS contract and, 70 coal-mining clients of, 28, 156–58, 160–69 companies acquired by, 30 compensation system of, 180–81 confidentiality and, 18, 22–23, 25, 28–29, 59, 66–67, 69–70, 83–84, 107–8, 168–69, 239, 278, 281 conflicts of interest and, 22, 35, 55–56, 59, 61–62, 66, 68, 74, 120, 123–29, 145–46, 238, 272, 278, 281 consultants advancement by, 21–22, 28, 38, 160 ability to do good, 20–21, 25 ability to opt out on ethical grounds, 28, 78, 158–60 China-based, 95–98, 103, 108 earnings and investments by, 180 number of, 22, 30–31 “on the beach” status, 22, 158–60 recruitment and training, 17, 19–22, 25, 28–31, 152–53, 161–63, 167, 249 up-or-out policy and, 38, 207 consultants’ dissent and, 24–28, 31, 278 disallowed in Saudi Arabia, 249–50 Edstrom, 160–62, 167 Elfenbein, 83–85, 88–90 ICE revelations and, 76–79, 83–90 Naveed, 169–70 opioid work and, 148 polluting clients and, 155–63, 167–70 Continental Illinois collapse and, 177–80, 186 corporate downsizing and, 33, 36–39 COVID-19 and, 71–73, 274–75 data analytics and, 204–22 athlete injury prediction, 210–12 Houston Astros, 204–6, 212–22 prescriptions, 130–31, 139–40 Davos and, 149–50 Disneyland and, 9–16, 281 Earth Day and, 168 Elixir bought by, 249–50 employee layoffs by clients of, 27–29, 34, 37–41, 44–46, 48–49 Enron and, 25, 42, 173, 187, 190, 204–9 environmentally focused work of, 152, 158–61, 165, 170 Eskom and Trillian and, 231–37, 239–42 executive compensation vs. worker wages and, 32–35, 41–43, 50, 180–81, 194, 198 FARA filings and, 246 FDA as client of, 22, 66–70, 145–46, 281 cigarettes and, 73, 120–22 contracts awarded 2008–2021, 145–46 e-cigarettes and vaping, 122–29 fees, 66, 68, 120, 145–46 no-bid contracts, 69–70 opioids and, 132, 134, 137, 141–42, 144–47, 280 pharmaceutical clients and, 22, 66–69, 141, 145–47, 281 federal contracts COVID-19, 71–73 GSA, 69–70 health-care industry, 65–72 ICE, 74–90 Federal Reserve report on, 186 financial industry and, 171–90 deregulation, 171–74 financial crisis of 2008–10 and, 173–74, 176–77, 188–90, 265 Financial Institutions Group, 180 financialization and, 180, 194, 196–97 foreign governments as clients of, 18 Britain, 258–75 corruption and, 25–28, 279 secrecy and, 239 Saudi Arabia, 108, 243–57, 279–80 South Africa, 223–42 fossil fuel companies and, 26, 156–59, 162–64, 166, 168 founding of, 3–4, 19, 159 Gary, Indiana, and, 1–9 George Floyd protests and, 107 globalization and, 41, 43, 189 Global Energy and Materials team, 166 global reach of, 18, 20, 39, 43, 94, 97, 189–90 GM and, 32–33, 37, 260 gold-mining clients of, 162 greenwashing and, 162, 165, 169 GSA on federal contracts with, 69–71 health-care benefits by clients of, 45–47 health-care industry clients of, 61–66, 148, 280 ACA and, 62–65 Centene, 274 NHS overhaul and, 259, 262, 264–75 state and federal clients and, 51–73, 280 home mortgage lending and, 181–82, 187–89 homeowners’ insurance, 194, 199–200 human rights and, 31, 99–101, 104–7 Chinese Uyghurs, 100, 104–6, 160 Hong Kong protests, 106–7 Moscow protests, 31 ICE and, 26, 74–90, 279 Illinois Medicaid program and, 51–57, 61 inequality and, 27–28, 32–50, 147–48, 278 influence and status of, 17–23, 28, 30, 64, 199, 278 insurance claims payouts and, 180, 191–203 Interior Department contract and, 70 job security and loyalty downplayed by, 37–38, 44–45 Johnson & Johnson as client of, 133–35 Juul as client of, 123–29 Khashoggi murder and, 253–54, 256–57 Made in China 2025 and, 102–3 maintenance cuts advised by, 1–16, 264, 280–81 Malaysia and, 26, 102 management philosophy and, 2–3, 17–18 shift to strategic planning, 36–37 management structure and style of, 26, 121, 278 managing partners Barton, 63, 86, 99, 101–2, 106, 165, 238, 241, 257, 272 Bower, 19, 32–33 Daniel, 98, 181 Davis, 98, 241, 249 Gupta, 39, 206 Sneader, 29–31, 74–75, 86, 90, 106–7, 143, 168, 239, 241, 254, 255, 257 Strenfels, 127–30, 168–70 Marshall Field’s and, 34 Massachusetts future of work study and, 148 matrix management and, 175–79, 260 media exposés of, 23, 25–28, 74–76, 79–85, 107–8, 133, 146, 148, 168–69, 257 Missouri Medicaid program and, 57–61 MLB review by, 221 Monitor as client of, 266–69 multinationals and, 95–96, 98–99 New York City contracts and, 225 New York Knicks and, 211 NOAA contract and, 70 nondisclosure agreements and, 27, 278 oil and gas companies and, 155–58, 162–64, 166 Aramco, 156, 243–44, 248 BP, 164 Chevron, 163–64 China and, 99 Enron and, 206–9 ExxonMobil, 20, 156–57, 163 Gazprom, 163, 257 PDVSA, 156 Pemex, 156 Royal Dutch Shell, 156, 163, 260–61 Texaco, 156–57 outsourcing and offshoring and, 33, 39–46, 49–50 partners compensation of, 18, 135 election of, 22 number of, 30 Peters’s critique of, 27–28, 36–37, 179 pharmaceutical companies and, 20, 22, 73, 281 FDA and, 66–69 opioids and, 26–27, 74, 109, 130–48, 280 opioid settlement and, 143, 148 polluters as clients of, 162, 164–70, 278 profit maximization and, 35–39, 198 public scrutiny of, 25–28, 74, 107, 148, 277–78 public-sector practice begun, 94 Purdue Pharma and, 109, 131–45, 148, 280 QuantumBlack bought by, 210–12 Railtrack maintenance and, 263–64 revenues and profits of, 24, 242, 257 Rice as consultant for, 224 Russia and, 26, 31, 108, 257 Saudi Arabia and, 108, 243–57, 279–80 consultants hired in, 248 ministries as clients of, 243–45, 249–51, 256 NEOM project and, 247, 256 purge of 2017 and, 250 sentiment analysis and, 251–57 “Saudi Arabia Beyond Oil” report and, 247–48 Saudi Center for International Strategic Partnerships and, 247 Seafirst and, 177–78, 180 secrecy and, 18, 25, 27, 54–58, 107, 111–12, 120, 136, 162, 168, 256–57, 277–78 securitization of credit and, 172 Enron and, 187, 207–9 financial crisis and, 188–90 launched by Bryan, 182–87, 189–90 Shanghai urban planning and, 99 shareholder profits and stock prices and, 24, 27–28, 36, 38–39, 42–43, 49–50, 198 shell companies and, 18 smart cities and, 103–4 South Africa and, 26, 30, 74, 223–42, 250, 257, 279–80 state capture investigations and, 236–42 South African Airways and Regiments and, 239–40 sovereign wealth funds and, 18, 165, 257 sports and, 209–22 steel industry and British, 261 coking coal and, 164–66 maintenance and safety in, 1–9, 280–81 U.S. steel, 1–10, 16, 280–81 St.


pages: 237 words: 50,758

Obliquity: Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly by John Kay

Andrew Wiles, Asian financial crisis, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, bonus culture, British Empire, business process, Cass Sunstein, computer age, corporate raider, credit crunch, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, discounted cash flows, discovery of penicillin, diversification, Donald Trump, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, Goodhart's law, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, invention of the telephone, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, junk bonds, lateral thinking, Long Term Capital Management, long term incentive plan, Louis Pasteur, market fundamentalism, Myron Scholes, Nash equilibrium, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, regulatory arbitrage, shareholder value, Simon Singh, Steve Jobs, Suez canal 1869, tacit knowledge, Thales of Miletus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Predators' Ball, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, ultimatum game, urban planning, value at risk

root method Rotella, Bob Rousseau, Jean-Jacques rules Saint-Gobain salesmen Salomon Brothers Samuelson, Paul Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral Scholes, Myron science scorecard Scottish Enlightenment Sculley, John Sears securities selfish gene September 11 attacks (2001) shareholder value share options Sieff, Israel Sierra Leone Simon, Herbert simplification Singapore Singer Smith, Adam Smith, Ed Smith, Will SmithKline soccer (English football) social contract socialism social issues socialist realism sociopaths Solon Sony Sony Walkman Soros, George Soviet Union sports Stalin, Joseph “Still Muddling, Not Yet Through” (Lindblom) Stockdale, James Stockdale Paradox stock prices Stone, Oliver successive limited comparison sudoku Sugar, Alan Sunbeam Sunstein, Cass Super Cub motorcycles superstition surgery survival sustainability Taleb, Nassim Nicholas Tankel, Stanley target goals teaching quality assessment technology see also computers teleological fallacy telephones Tellus tennis Tetlock, Philip Tet Offensive (1968) Thales of Miletus Thornton, Charles Bates “Tex” tic-tac-toe Tolstoy, Leo transnational corporations transportation Travelers Treasury, U.S. trials Trump, Donald TRW 2001: A Space Odyssey Typhoon (Conrad) ultimatum games uncertainty United Nations United States Unités d’Habitation unplanned evolution urban planning value at risk (VAR) van Gogh, Vincent van Meegeren, Han Vasari, Giorgio Vermeer, Johannes Victorian era Vietnam War Vioxx volatility Wall Street Walton, Sam Wason, Peter Wason test wealth Wealth of Nations, The (Smith) Weill, Sandy Weir, Peter Welch, Jack Whately, Archbishop What Is to Be Done?


pages: 165 words: 50,798

Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything by Peter Morville

A Pattern Language, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Arthur Eddington, augmented reality, Bernie Madoff, bike sharing, Black Swan, business process, Cass Sunstein, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, Computer Lib, disinformation, disruptive innovation, folksonomy, holacracy, index card, information retrieval, Internet of things, Isaac Newton, iterative process, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Hawkins, John Markoff, Kanban, Lean Startup, Lyft, messenger bag, minimum viable product, Mother of all demos, Nelson Mandela, Paul Graham, peer-to-peer, Project Xanadu, quantum entanglement, RFID, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Schrödinger's Cat, self-driving car, semantic web, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, single source of truth, source of truth, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, systems thinking, Ted Nelson, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, theory of mind, uber lyft, urban planning, urban sprawl, Vannevar Bush, vertical integration, zero-sum game

Often, words are the best way to paint a picture. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs does this brilliantly. In a text with no image, she helps us see the city as a system. Her words bring sidewalks, parks, and neighborhoods to life. Jane shows us why traditional maps aren’t good for urban planning. By focusing on roads and buildings, maps reveal the skeleton but miss the point. A city’s structure is evident in its mixture of uses, the life and activity it nurtures, and the conditions that generate diversity. To see and improve our cities, we must use a different lens. Imagine a large field in darkness.


pages: 190 words: 50,133

Lonely Planet's 2016 Best in Travel by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, British Empire, David Attenborough, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Kwajalein Atoll, Larry Ellison, Maui Hawaii, sharing economy, South China Sea, Stanford marshmallow experiment, sustainable-tourism, tech billionaire, urban planning, Virgin Galactic, walkable city

And everywhere in between are prim wooden temples – the constant reminder that a well of deep-seated traditions hides just beneath the country’s enticing veneer of perfection. Although Japan didn’t secure the Olympic bid for 2016, it was resoundingly successful with its application for Tokyo in 2020. And Olympic fever is already apparent in the capital as the city executes an elaborate feat of urban planning that will create a brand new shopping district, an entirely new Olympic village, and – most interestingly – move the much-venerated Tsukiji fish market (which sees over US$20 million in seafood sales each day) to a sparkling new facility that is set to swing open its doors at the end of this year.


pages: 191 words: 51,242

Unsustainable Inequalities: Social Justice and the Environment by Lucas Chancel

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Anthropocene, behavioural economics, biodiversity loss, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, centre right, clean water, COVID-19, disinformation, Donald Trump, energy security, energy transition, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Gini coefficient, green new deal, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, job satisfaction, low skilled workers, offshore financial centre, oil shock, price stability, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, Simon Kuznets, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, trade liberalization, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, urban planning, very high income, Washington Consensus

In many metropolitan areas in Europe and the United States, the most economical and ecologically the soundest option for commuters is carpooling. Yet this strategy still suffers in many people’s minds from the reputation of being used by people who cannot afford to pay their own way. In addition to underwriting the costs of urban planning needed to develop carpooling to its fullest potential, government at all levels will bear much of the responsibility for making this mode of transportation socially more attractive. One sometimes hears public service announcements on the radio urging listeners to reduce their consumption of energy and water.


pages: 197 words: 49,296

The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis by Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac

3D printing, Airbnb, AlphaGo, Anthropocene, autonomous vehicles, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, circular economy, clean water, David Attenborough, decarbonisation, DeepMind, dematerialisation, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, Donald Trump, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, Extinction Rebellion, F. W. de Klerk, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Gail Bradbrook, General Motors Futurama, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high-speed rail, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Lyft, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Benioff, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Mustafa Suleyman, Nelson Mandela, new economy, ocean acidification, plant based meat, post-truth, rewilding, ride hailing / ride sharing, self-driving car, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, the scientific method, trade route, uber lyft, urban planning, urban sprawl, Yogi Berra

Three-dimensional (3D) printers are readily available, cutting down on what people need to purchase away from home.23 Drones organized along aerial corridors are now delivering packages, further reducing the need for vehicles.24 Thus we are currently narrowing roads, eliminating parking spaces, and investing in urban planning projects that make it easier to walk and bike in the city. Parking garages are used only for ride sharing, electric vehicle charging, and storage—those ugly concrete stacking systems and edifices of yore are now enveloped in green. Cities now seem designed for the coexistence of people and nature.


pages: 222 words: 53,317

Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension by Samuel Arbesman

algorithmic trading, Anthropocene, Anton Chekhov, Apple II, Benoit Mandelbrot, Boeing 747, Chekhov's gun, citation needed, combinatorial explosion, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Danny Hillis, data science, David Brooks, digital map, discovery of the americas, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Flash crash, friendly AI, game design, Google X / Alphabet X, Googley, Hans Moravec, HyperCard, Ian Bogost, Inbox Zero, Isaac Newton, iterative process, Kevin Kelly, machine translation, Machine translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." to Russian and back, mandelbrot fractal, Minecraft, Neal Stephenson, Netflix Prize, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, Parkinson's law, power law, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, SimCity, software studies, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, superintelligent machines, synthetic biology, systems thinking, the long tail, Therac-25, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, urban planning, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, Whole Earth Catalog, Y2K

Playing with a simulation of the system we’re interested in—testing its limits and fiddling with its parameters, without understanding it completely—can be a powerful path to insight, and is a skill that needs cultivation. For example, the computer game SimCity, a model of sorts, gives its users insights into how a city works. Before SimCity, I doubt many outside the realm of urban planning and civil engineering had a clear mental model of how cities worked, and we weren’t able to twiddle the knobs of urban life to produce counterfactual outcomes. We probably still can’t do that at the level of complexity of an actual city, but those who play these types of games do have a better understanding of the general effects of their actions.


pages: 182 words: 55,234

Rendezvous With Oblivion: Reports From a Sinking Society by Thomas Frank

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, big-box store, business climate, business cycle, call centre, crowdsourcing, David Brooks, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, edge city, fake news, Frank Gehry, high net worth, income inequality, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, McMansion, military-industrial complex, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, profit maximization, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, Ralph Nader, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Steve Bannon, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, too big to fail, urban planning, Washington Consensus, Works Progress Administration

Read enough of this material and it starts to feel as if nothing can deter the committed friend of the vibrant: if you know it’s the great good thing, you simply push ahead, moving all before you with your millions. This is not the place to try to gauge the enormous, unaccountable power that foundations wield over American life—their agenda-setting clout in urban planning debates, for example, or the influence they hold over cash-strapped universities, or their symbiosis with public broadcasters NPR and PBS. My target here is not their power but their vacuity. The members of our leadership class look out over the trashed and looted landscape of the American city, and they solemnly declare that salvation lies in an almost meaningless buzzword—that if we chant that buzzword loud enough and often enough, our troubles are over.


pages: 523 words: 143,139

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths

4chan, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Albert Einstein, algorithmic bias, algorithmic trading, anthropic principle, asset allocation, autonomous vehicles, Bayesian statistics, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, Bill Duvall, bitcoin, Boeing 747, Charles Babbage, cognitive load, Community Supported Agriculture, complexity theory, constrained optimization, cosmological principle, cryptocurrency, Danny Hillis, data science, David Heinemeier Hansson, David Sedaris, delayed gratification, dematerialisation, diversification, Donald Knuth, Donald Shoup, double helix, Dutch auction, Elon Musk, exponential backoff, fault tolerance, Fellow of the Royal Society, Firefox, first-price auction, Flash crash, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, Garrett Hardin, Geoffrey Hinton, George Akerlof, global supply chain, Google Chrome, heat death of the universe, Henri Poincaré, information retrieval, Internet Archive, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, Kickstarter, knapsack problem, Lao Tzu, Leonard Kleinrock, level 1 cache, linear programming, martingale, multi-armed bandit, Nash equilibrium, natural language processing, NP-complete, P = NP, packet switching, Pierre-Simon Laplace, power law, prediction markets, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, RFC: Request For Comment, Robert X Cringely, Sam Altman, scientific management, sealed-bid auction, second-price auction, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Skype, sorting algorithm, spectrum auction, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Jobs, stochastic process, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, traveling salesman, Turing machine, urban planning, Vickrey auction, Vilfredo Pareto, Walter Mischel, Y Combinator, zero-sum game

Motorists feature in some of the earliest literature on the secretary problem, and the framework of constant forward motion makes almost every car-trip decision into a stopping problem: the search for a restaurant; the search for a bathroom; and, most acutely for urban drivers, the search for a parking space. Who better to talk to about the ins and outs of parking than the man described by the Los Angeles Times as “the parking rock star,” UCLA Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning Donald Shoup? We drove down from Northern California to visit him, reassuring Shoup that we’d be leaving plenty of time for unexpected traffic. “As for planning on ‘unexpected traffic,’ I think you should plan on expected traffic,” he replied. Shoup is perhaps best known for his book The High Cost of Free Parking, and he has done much to advance the discussion and understanding of what really happens when someone drives to their destination.

How much harm, though? Surprisingly, Tim Roughgarden and Cornell’s Éva Tardos proved in 2002 that the “selfish routing” approach has a price of anarchy that’s a mere 4/3. That is, a free-for-all is only 33% worse than perfect top-down coordination. Roughgarden and Tardos’s work has deep implications both for urban planning of physical traffic and for network infrastructure. Selfish routing’s low price of anarchy may explain, for instance, why the Internet works as well as it does without any central authority managing the routing of individual packets. Even if such coordination were possible, it wouldn’t add very much.


pages: 903 words: 235,753

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty by Benjamin H. Bratton

1960s counterculture, 3D printing, 4chan, Ada Lovelace, Adam Curtis, additive manufacturing, airport security, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, algorithmic trading, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Robotics, Amazon Web Services, Andy Rubin, Anthropocene, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL), Berlin Wall, bioinformatics, Biosphere 2, bitcoin, blockchain, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, call centre, capitalist realism, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, carbon-based life, Cass Sunstein, Celebration, Florida, Charles Babbage, charter city, clean water, cloud computing, company town, congestion pricing, connected car, Conway's law, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, dark matter, David Graeber, deglobalization, dematerialisation, digital capitalism, digital divide, disintermediation, distributed generation, don't be evil, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Eratosthenes, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Evgeny Morozov, facts on the ground, Flash crash, Frank Gehry, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, functional programming, future of work, Georg Cantor, gig economy, global supply chain, Google Earth, Google Glasses, Guggenheim Bilbao, High speed trading, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, Ian Bogost, illegal immigration, industrial robot, information retrieval, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), intermodal, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jacob Appelbaum, James Bridle, Jaron Lanier, Joan Didion, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Joi Ito, Jony Ive, Julian Assange, Khan Academy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kiva Systems, Laura Poitras, liberal capitalism, lifelogging, linked data, lolcat, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Masdar, McMansion, means of production, megacity, megaproject, megastructure, Menlo Park, Minecraft, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Monroe Doctrine, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, new economy, Nick Bostrom, ocean acidification, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, Oklahoma City bombing, OSI model, packet switching, PageRank, pattern recognition, peak oil, peer-to-peer, performance metric, personalized medicine, Peter Eisenman, Peter Thiel, phenotype, Philip Mirowski, Pierre-Simon Laplace, place-making, planetary scale, pneumatic tube, post-Fordism, precautionary principle, RAND corporation, recommendation engine, reserve currency, rewilding, RFID, Robert Bork, Sand Hill Road, scientific management, self-driving car, semantic web, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, skeuomorphism, Slavoj Žižek, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, Snow Crash, social graph, software studies, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spectrum auction, Startup school, statistical arbitrage, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, Superbowl ad, supply-chain management, supply-chain management software, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, TED Talk, the built environment, The Chicago School, the long tail, the scientific method, Torches of Freedom, transaction costs, Turing complete, Turing machine, Turing test, undersea cable, universal basic income, urban planning, Vernor Vinge, vertical integration, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, web application, Westphalian system, WikiLeaks, working poor, Y Combinator, yottabyte

.), and on and on.23 These Moon-bases on Earth are spliced from Soviet science cities, Silicon Valley campuses, Orange County gated communities, and a mutual understanding between political despotism and technological innovation. They are what cities look like in the shadow of airports, Special Economic Zones, and “sustainability mandates.” Some of these would redefine city-states as carefully policed service platforms, and for this, their urban-planning expertise relies on CRM (Customer Relationship Management), DRM (Digital Rights Management), server virtualization, end-User usage metrics, object synchronization across multiple devices and device synchronization across multiple data objects, at least as much as it does on architectural design, and often not at all on things that are normally thought to make interesting cities interesting.24 Like all Ballardesque metropoli, these cities are “post-interesting,” which is itself interesting.

A possible methodological framework: Interface design is less about the design of a thing than of a condition of transference (that could become a thing) and can take at least three main forms. First-order interface design produces the conditions of interassemblage between people, things, or places—making it good, smart, fast, flexible, sustainable, and so on. This is how urban planning and public policy are also interface design. Second-order interface design produces images of interassemblage that give order, predictability, and clarity to how people use systems. These images are very powerful guides—so powerful that they really are the interfaces to what they represent. This is how graphic designers are interface designers.

Cities were adorned with a new brotherhood of obelisks marking this new “postutopian” order, predicated on the cargo cult economics of Bilbao effects and affects and punctuated by the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in New York City by that utopian urbanist, Mohamed Atta. His master's degree in urban planning described the segmentation of Aleppo, Syria, into Islamic and Western zones where immunity of the former could be protected from the dangers of the latter, as well as his mortification at the mistreatment of the twin towers of the Gates of Al-Nasr. His utopian security urbanism was to “sacrifice one set of twin towers to save another.”47 This is the problem with a surplus of utopian ends.


pages: 846 words: 250,145

The Cold War: A World History by Odd Arne Westad

Able Archer 83, Albert Einstein, American ideology, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bolshevik threat, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, collective bargaining, colonial rule, continuous integration, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, energy security, European colonialism, facts on the ground, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, full employment, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, imperial preference, Internet Archive, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, long peace, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, new economy, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, out of africa, post-industrial society, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, South China Sea, special economic zone, Strategic Defense Initiative, Suez crisis 1956, union organizing, urban planning, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

The Education Ministry underlined the need to be able to predict the numbers of people who would be available to send to work in plants and mines every year—just as in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, students were often given a specific future work assignment as early as their second year in college (even though the authorities rarely found it necessary to inform the students themselves of what lay in store). The Soviets were aware of the problems the CCP had with governing the cities. They contributed their advice on urban planning. The socialist city had to be modern, planned, productive, and secure for the Communist elite. Broad avenues and big urban squares facilitated the mobility of workers from home to the factory and back, but they also could come in handy in case the PLA needed to enter a city center to crush a counterrevolutionary rebellion.

Humanity faced many challenges that were common to East and West alike, went the argument from some intellectuals and politicians. States were getting increasingly difficult to govern because they were getting more complex. Information flows were more difficult to harness, both for public and private activity, because there were more of them. Challenges of education, health, social care, urban planning, and transport were similar in all industrialized societies. Was it then not likely that East and West would become more similar over time, and that ideologies would matter less? The US economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who had served in the Kennedy Administration, had foreseen this already in his Reith Lectures for the BBC in 1966: The convergence between the two ostensibly different industrial systems, the one billed as socialism and that derived from capitalism, is a fact.

See trade unions unipolar systems, 3–4 UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), 483, 532–533, 567 United Arab Republic, 455, 458 United Fruit Company, 346 United Nations, 50–51, 66–67 China, 145–146 economic sanctions on South Africa, 574 General Assembly, 66–67 Korean War, 170, 174–175, 178 Middle East cease-fire resolution (1973), 465 New International Economic Order (NIEO), 392–393 in postwar years, 100–101 Security Council, 67, 100, 170 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 100 West Germany and East Germany admission (1973), 388 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (1964), 391 United States Asian policy, postwar, 157–158 Asian strategic position in 1945, 131 China, aid to, 559 China as ally, 161 Congo involvement, 325–326 creation of domestic consumer society, 20 cultural influence, 221–222, 377 decolonization, role in, 265–267 defense budget, 7 economy expansion in 1980s, 529 end of Cold War, 617 expansion of, 15–16 full recognition of China, 490 global hegemony, 5, 43, 222–223, 421, 476, 555–556, 619 Great Britain as rival, 16–17 gross domestic product growth, 19–20 Guatemala and, 340, 346–347 imperialism, 245, 275, 350, 377, 383 India relations, 439–440 intervention against Bolsheviks in Russia, 29 interventionism, 102, 340, 344 interwar years, 29 Israel and, 337, 451, 457–458, 460, 463–470 Japan, occupation and reform in postwar, 135–139 Japan attack on, 43, 47 Japan-US alliance, 138–139, 401, 428 Korean War, 169–182 Middle East, 456 military production in WWII, 49–50, 57 Pakistan and, 426–427, 442–444, 564 post-Cold War triumphalism, 617–620 post-WWII view, 56–57 recession of 1982–1983, 526 Red Scare (1919–1920), 30–31 relations with Gorbachev’s USSR, 547–550 religion’s role in, 16 South Africa and, 565, 568 Spanish-American War, 21 as successor to Great Britain, 17 support for European organizations and institutions, 221–222 in Vietnam, 314, 316–323, 330–336, 377, 479–48– view on Islamists, 472 winning the Cold War, 617–621 World War I entry by, 19, 21–22 zone of occupation in Germany, 107–108, 110 United States Information Agency (USIA), 377 universalist ideologies, 7 Unsan, Korea, 174 uranium, 267–268 urban planning, in China, 239 urbanization in Communist states, 188–189 Uruguay, 355, 357–358, 361 USSR. See Soviet Union Vance, Cyrus, 485–486, 489, 494 Vandenberg, Arthur, 93 Velloso, João Reis, 358 Venezuela, 348–349 Vichy government, French, 149, 212 Videla, Jorge, 358 Viet Minh, 149–150, 158, 167, 314–316 Vietnam, 313–324, 330–338 access to credit, 526 border war with Thailand, 562 China and, 315, 320, 322, 478–479, 490–491 Communists in, 129, 149–151, 244, 313–318, 320, 334, 336 Đŏi Mői, 555, 563 economic changes in 1980s, 555, 563 Geneva Accords, 314–315 independence, 56, 147, 149–151 Johnson and, 318–323, 330, 335–336 Kennedy and, 317–318 National Liberation Front, 317–318, 322, 331–332, 334 perceived threat from to southeast Asia, 563 reunification, 314, 413, 479–480, 487 Soviet Union and, 315, 320–322, 337, 478–479, 490, 562–563 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with ASEAN, 563 United States in, 314, 316–323, 330–336, 377, 479–480 war with Cambodia, 490, 562, 563 Vietnam War, 314, 316–323, 330–336, 479–480 bombing of North Vietnam, 320–321, 331–332, 336 China and, 404–405, 407 deaths in, 331–332 economic stimulation by, 396 Gulf of Tonkin resolution, 321 opposition to, 480 Paris Accords, 413 protests in Europe, 377–378 Tet offensive, 334, 404 virgin lands campaigns, 207–208, 243 Vo Nguyen Giap, 333 Vogel, Ezra, 560 Voroshilov, Kliment, 87 voting rights, 13–14 Vyshinskii, Andrei, 82, 156 Wajda, Andrzej, 189 Wałesa, Lech, 511, 584–585 Wallace, Henry, 102–103 Wang Guangmei, 252 Wang Jiaxiang, 250 war crimes, Soviet, 78–79, 137 War of Attrition, 461 wars, capitalism as producer of, 26 Warsaw, 72, 387 Warsaw Pact, 197, 205, 374–375, 546 Watergate scandal, 465, 476, 481, 500 Wehrmacht, 45, 61 Weimer Republic, 36 welfare, 39 in Britain, 106–107 Johnson and, 372 social in western Europe, 219–220 welfare state desire for, 209 India, 424 origins of European, 219 in western Europe in 1960s, 371–372 West Bank, 154, 460, 461, 468 West Berlin, 292–294, 292–296 West Germany Baader-Meinhof Group, 520 Basic Agreement with East Germany, 387–388 Berlin crisis, 294–297 currency reform, 111 domestic politics in 1960s and 1970s, 385–389 eastern policy, 385–388 economic growth/recovery, 217–218, 371, 396 European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), 215–217 European integration, 516 Gorbachev and, 546–547 NATO membership, 214 NATO missile deployments in Europe, 521 re-arming, 213 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and, 506 travel to East Germany, 515 treaty with Poland, 386–387 treaty with Soviet Union, 386 United Nations admission, 388 Westbindung, 217 western European integration, 383–384 Westbindung, 217 western Europe Americanization of, postwar, 211 capitalism in, 209–210, 212, 218–219 Communists in, 74–76, 96–98, 206, 219, 372–373 consumer revolution, 211, 221–222 cultural influences of US, 377 dependence on oil, 268 détente, 504 economic conditions in 1960s and 1970s, 370–371 economic integration, 214–217, 223, 383–384 economic transformation in 1950s, 211–219 Gorbachev and, 537, 546–547 integration, 214–217, 223, 383–384, 502, 516–519, 579 Korean War concerns in, 176–177 loss of overseas colonies, 222 Maoist groups, 258 Marshall Plan effect on, 112–113 military cooperation, 213 missile deployments, 506, 521 NATO, 117–119, 213, 521 nuclear weapons, 214 positive view of America, 221 post-WWII economy, 93–94 protest movement in 1980s, 521 Soviet Union gas pipelines to, 504–505 Soviet Union postwar policy on, 75 terrorists of 1970s and 1980s, 520–521 trade with eastern Europe, 504–505 US influence in 1960s, 377 US security presence, 212–213 welfare states in 1960s, 371–372 youth protests in 1960s, 377–379 Westmoreland, William, 331 What Is to Be Done?


The Rough Guide to New York City by Rough Guides

3D printing, Airbnb, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, bike sharing, Blue Bottle Coffee, Bonfire of the Vanities, Broken windows theory, Buckminster Fuller, buttonwood tree, car-free, centre right, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, clean water, collateralized debt obligation, colonial rule, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, crack epidemic, David Sedaris, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, East Village, Edward Thorp, Elisha Otis, Exxon Valdez, Frank Gehry, General Motors Futurama, gentrification, glass ceiling, greed is good, haute couture, haute cuisine, Howard Zinn, illegal immigration, index fund, it's over 9,000, Jane Jacobs, junk bonds, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, Lyft, machine readable, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, paper trading, Ponzi scheme, post-work, pre–internet, rent stabilization, ride hailing / ride sharing, Saturday Night Live, Scaled Composites, starchitect, subprime mortgage crisis, sustainable-tourism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, transcontinental railway, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, white flight, Works Progress Administration, Yogi Berra, young professional

What follows, in no particular order, is a selective taste of highlights: mind-blowing feats of engineering and design, waterfront amusements, hallowed art collections and, of course, plenty of eating, shopping and nightlife. 1 Statue of Liberty There’s no greater symbol of the American dream than the magnificent statue that graces New York Harbor. 2 Empire State Building Still the most original and elegant skyscraper of them all. 3 Metropolitan Museum of Art You could easily spend a whole day (or week or month) at the Met, exploring everything from Egyptian artefacts to modern masters. 4 9/11 Memorial & Museum The pools in the buildings’ footprints and museum artefacts including the “Last Column” can’t help but stir emotion. 5 Grand Central Terminal Hit up the shops, throw back some oysters and gawk at the celestial ceiling above the majestic concourse. 6 Baseball A summertime treat: enjoy a hot dog, a cold beer and America’s pastime in the Yankees’ or Mets’ homes – or for a more intimate experience, see a Cyclones game in Coney Island. 7 Museum of Modern Art Simply put, MoMA holds the most comprehensive collection of modern art in the world, curated in a breathtaking setting of glass atriums and statuary. 8 Pizza Whether you go nouveau (like at Roberta’s), Neapolitan or classic New York-style, you can’t leave without sampling the city’s signature dish. 9 Rockefeller Center If anywhere can truly claim to be the centre of New York, this stylish piece of twentieth-century urban planning is it. 10 Live jazz New York’s jazz scene is vibrant, but Harlem is first choice for interesting venues and late-night jam sessions. 11 Bar-hopping in Williamsburg Haute food, house-made bitters, vintage arcade games, a beer or three at a beloved local brewery – it all adds up to a night of good fun. 12 The Frick Collection He may have been a ruthless coal baron, but Henry Frick’s eye for art and the elegance of his collection’s setting make this one of the city’s best galleries. 13 Brooklyn Bridge Take the less-than-a-mile walk across the bridge to see beautiful views of the downtown skyline, Brooklyn waterfront and Harbor Islands. 14 A NIGHT AT THE THEATRE Can’t decide between a hit musical on Broadway or a quirky drama off it?

Rockefeller Center Taking up the blocks between Fifth and Sixth aves and 48th and 51st sts • Leaflets for self-guided tours available from GE Building lobby desk or online • 212 332 6868 or 212 632 3975, rockefellercenter.com • Subway B, D, F, M to 47-50th sts-Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is one of the finest examples of urban planning in New York. Built between 1930 and 1939 by John D. Rockefeller Jr, son of the oil magnate, its offices, cafés, theatre, underground concourse and rooftop gardens work together with an intelligence and grace rarely seen. The main part of the Center is along the block between 49th and 50th streets, though it extends down to 48th Street in the south and also includes, just across 50th Street on the corner of Sixth Avenue, the Art Deco-style Radio City Music Hall – arguably the most famous theatre in the United States.

Both will clue you in on the building’s architecture and history; the latter walk takes you to a few nearby spots outside Grand Central as well. A third option is a self-guided audio tour; pick it up at GCT Tour window on the main concourse (daily 9am–6pm; $9). Brief history When it was constructed in 1913 (on the site of the original station built by Cornelius Vanderbilt), the terminal was a masterly piece of urban planning. After the electrification of the railways made it possible to reroute trains underground, the rail lines behind the existing station were sold off to developers and the profits went towards the building of a new terminal – built around a basic iron frame but clothed with a Beaux Arts skin. While Grand Central soon took on an almost mythical significance, today its traffic consists mainly of commuters speeding out to Connecticut, Westchester County and upstate New York, and any claim to being a gateway to an undiscovered continent is purely symbolic.


pages: 207 words: 57,959

Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries by Peter Sims

Alan Greenspan, Amazon Web Services, Black Swan, Clayton Christensen, complexity theory, David Heinemeier Hansson, deliberate practice, discovery of penicillin, endowment effect, fail fast, fear of failure, Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao, Jeff Bezos, knowledge economy, lateral thinking, Lean Startup, longitudinal study, loss aversion, meta-analysis, PageRank, Richard Florida, Richard Thaler, Ruby on Rails, Salesforce, scientific management, Silicon Valley, statistical model, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, systems thinking, TED Talk, theory of mind, Toyota Production System, urban planning, Wall-E

Gehry’s firm won the competition to design Disney Hall through a blind selection process and an important factor in the selection was that Lillian Disney, Walt Disney’s widow, especially liked the way the gardens were portrayed in Gehry’s initial designs. The hall looks completely different today. Gehry’s team worked through a host of issues before the final design emerged, from creating premium acoustics to a number of urban-planning challenges. Along the way, they received feedback and guidance from the Disney family, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and many others. Gehry and his team would, in fact, create eighty-two prototype models, working closely with the planning committee, until they arrived at the final form of the hall.


The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable by Amitav Ghosh

Alfred Russel Wallace, Anthropocene, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, British Empire, carbon footprint, climate fiction, Donald Trump, double helix, Fellow of the Royal Society, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeremy Corbyn, Mahatma Gandhi, market fundamentalism, megacity, megaproject, Michael Shellenberger, Naomi Klein, non-fiction novel, Ronald Reagan, spinning jenny, Ted Nordhaus, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban planning

., 99. 58 ‘number and intensity’: Ibid. 58 intensity scale: On the Saffir–Simpson hurricane intensity scale, wind speeds of 75 mph or 120 kmph are the benchmark for a Category 1 hurricane. In the Tropical Cyclone Intensity Scale used by the India Meteorological Department, any storm with wind speeds of over 39 kmph counts as a ‘cyclonic storm’, hence this storm was named Cyclone Phyan. 60 single day: R.B. Bhagat et al., ‘Mumbai after 26/7 Deluge: Issues and Concerns in Urban Planning’, Population and Environment 27, no. 4 (March 2006): 337–49, 340. 60 estuarine location: I am deeply grateful to Rahul Srivastava, Manasvini Hariharan, Apoorva Tadepalli, and the team at URBZ for their help with the research for this section. 60 filth-clogged ditches: In ‘Drainage Problems of Brihan Mumbai’, B.


Cuba Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Bartolomé de las Casas, battle of ideas, business climate, car-free, carbon footprint, company town, cuban missile crisis, G4S, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, Hernando de Soto, Kickstarter, Monroe Doctrine, new economy, off-the-grid, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, transfer pricing, urban planning

Pabellón para la Maqueta de la Capital MUSEUM OFFLINE MAP GOOGLE MAP (Calle 28 No 113, btwn Avs 1 3; admission CUC$3; 9:30am-5pm Tue-Sat) If you thought the Maqueta de La Habana Vieja was impressive, check out this ultramodern pavilion containing a huge 1:1000 scale model of the whole city (being renovated at time of research). The model was originally created for urban-planning purposes, but is now a tourist attraction. Nearby, the two parks on Av 5, between Calles 24 and 26, with their immense banyan trees and dark lanes, are an atmospheric pocket. Acuario Nacional AQUARIUM OFFLINE MAP GOOGLE MAP (cnr Av 3 Calle 62; adult/child CUC$10/7; 10am-6pm Tue-Sun) Founded in 1960, the national aquarium is a Havana institution and it gets legions of visitors annually, particularly since it underwent a revamp in 2002.

Its innate Frenchness is best exemplified not in its cuisine, where rice and beans still hold sway over bœuf à la Bourguignonne , but in its harmonious neoclassical architecture. With its wide, paved streets laid out in an almost perfect grid, Cienfuegos’ enlightened 19th-century settlers sought to quash slums, promote hygiene and maximize public space using a system of urban planning later adopted by Baron Haussmann in Paris in the 1850s and ’60s. Porches, pillars and columns are the city’s most arresting architectural features, with its broad Parisian-style main avenue (El Paseo) which runs north–south for over 3km embellished with neat lines of well-proportioned colonnaded facades painted in an array of pastel colors.

You can track the evolution as you head south on Calle 37 past the regal Palacio Azul and the wedding-cake Club Cienfuegos to the baroque-meets-Moorish Palacio de Valle, possibly Cuba’s most riotously eclectic building. Cienfuegos’ city center was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2005 for being ‘an outstanding example of an architectural ensemble representing the new ideas of modernity, hygiene and order in urban planning’ in Latin America. Money has since gone into livening up the main square, Parque José Martí, and its environs where various interpretive signboards pinpoint the most important buildings. Sights Top of Chapter 1 Parque José Martí Arco de Triunfo LANDMARK OFFLINE MAP GOOGLE MAP (Calle 25, btwn Avs 56 54) The Arch of Triumph on Cienfuegos’ serene central park catapults the plaza into the unique category: there is no other building of its kind in Cuba.


pages: 2,020 words: 267,411

Lonely Planet Morocco (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Paul Clammer, Paula Hardy

air freight, Airbnb, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, Day of the Dead, Dr. Strangelove, illegal immigration, low cost airline, Multics, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, off-the-grid, place-making, Skype, spice trade, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, working poor, young professional

The old pirate lair is looking towards the future, showing off its wealth and achievements. The first French resident-general, Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey hired French architect Henri Prost to redesign Casablanca in the early 20th century as the economic centre of the new protectorate and, indeed, as the jewel of the French colonies. His wide boulevards and modern urban planning still survive, and mark the city as more European than Moroccan. However, Lyautey under-estimated the success of his own plans and the city grew far beyond his elaborate schemes. By the end of WWII, Casablanca had a population of 700,000 and was surrounded by heaving shanty towns. Casablancais are cosmopolitan, and are more open to Western ways than other places in Morocco.

In Morocco’s second parliamentary elections in 2007, 34 women were elected, representing 10.4% of all seats – that’s just behind the US at 12.5% female representation after 110 elections. Sticks & Stones: The Almohads Youssef ben Tachfine was a tough act to follow. Ali was his son by a Christian woman, and he shared his father’s commitments to prayer and urban planning. But while the reclusive young idealist Ali was diligently working wonders with architecture and irrigation in Marrakesh, a new force beyond the city walls was gathering the strength of an Atlas thunderstorm: the Almohads. Almohad historians would later fault Ali for two supposedly dangerous acts: leaving the women in charge and allowing Christians near drink.

But he also kept and expanded his power base in Spain, winning so many victories against the princes of Spain that he earned the moniker El-Mansour, ‘the victorious’. He modelled Seville’s famous La Giralda after Marrakesh’s Koutoubia minaret, and reinvented Marrakesh as an Almohad capital and learning centre to rival Fez. Yacoub el-Mansour’s urban-planning prowess also made Fez arguably the most squeaky-clean city of medieval times, with 93 hammams, 47 soap factories and 785 mosques complete with ablutions facilities. Yacoub el-Mansour was also a patron of great thinkers, including Aristotle scholar Ibn Rashid – whose commentary would help spark a Renaissance among Italian philosophers – and Sufi master Sidi Bel-Abbes.


pages: 219 words: 61,334

Brit-Myth: Who Do the British Think They Are? by Chris Rojek

Bob Geldof, British Empire, business climate, colonial rule, deindustrialization, demand response, full employment, Gordon Gekko, Isaac Newton, Khartoum Gordon, Live Aid, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, means of production, post-industrial society, public intellectual, Red Clydeside, sceptred isle, Stephen Hawking, the market place, urban planning, Winter of Discontent

Myths of this sort revealed the extension of politics into all areas of everyday life. For example, the myth that the ‘underclass’ or ‘residuum’ of city populations was beyond redemption and that ‘the national interest’ required strong policies of policing and birth control, figured prominently in nineteenth and early twentieth century civic politics and urban planning, health policy and crime control. It represented the intensification of class politics and the designation by middle-class reformers of the underclass as an inherent threat to respectable values. This precipitated a countermovement by progressive elements to initiate an anthropology of 76 BRIT-MYTH the underclass through which living conditions and ways of life were elucidated and the relationship between these conditions and ways of life and power were documented.


pages: 181 words: 62,775

Half Empty by David Rakoff

airport security, Buckminster Fuller, dark matter, double helix, gentrification, global pandemic, Google Earth, Herbert Marcuse, phenotype, RFID, subprime mortgage crisis, twin studies, urban planning, urban renewal, wage slave, Wall-E, Y2K

This breadth was decreed by Brigham Young so that a team of oxen and a covered wagon might be able to turn around in a full circle unimpeded. (An almost identical pronouncement was attributed to Cecil Rhodes when he was overseeing the layout of the city of Bulawayo in Rhodesia. Is this bit of hypertrophic urban planning just a standard issue paleo-Trumpism? One of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Nineteenth-Century Men with Big Ideas?) The avenues yawn open, human proximity is vanquished, and the nearest people seem alienatingly distant. Such space between souls, such an uninterrupted vista of sky must imbue a populace with a sense of possibility—lebensraum and all that jazz.


pages: 225 words: 61,814

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton

classic study, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Socratic dialogue, the market place, urban planning

(Ill. 3.1) But his most curious feature was a habit of approaching Athenians of every class, age and occupation and bluntly asking them, without worrying whether they would think him eccentric or infuriating, to explain with precision why they held certain common-sense beliefs and what they took to be the meaning of life – as one surprised general reported: Whenever anyone comes face to face with Socrates and has a conversation with him, what invariably happens is that, although he may have started on a completely different subject first, Socrates will keep heading him off as they’re talking until he has him trapped into giving an account of his present life-style and the way he has spent his life in the past. And once he has him trapped, Socrates won’t let him go before he has well and truly cross-examined him from every angle. He was helped in his habit by climate and urban planning. Athens was warm for half the year, which increased opportunities for conversing without formal introduction with people outdoors. Activities which in northern lands unfolded behind the mud walls of sombre, smoke-filled huts needed no shelter from the benevolent Attic skies. It was common to linger in the agora, under the colonnades of the Painted Stoa or the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios, and talk to strangers in the late afternoon, the privileged hours between the practicalities of high noon and the anxieties of night.


pages: 1,015 words: 170,908

Empire by Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, colonial rule, conceptual framework, disinformation, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, global pandemic, global village, Haight Ashbury, Herbert Marcuse, informal economy, invisible hand, late capitalism, low skilled workers, mass immigration, means of production, Monroe Doctrine, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, open borders, post-Fordism, post-industrial society, postindustrial economy, scientific management, Scramble for Africa, social intelligence, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, union organizing, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois

The outside is the place proper to politics, where the action ofthe individual is exposed in the presence ofothers and there seeks recognition.7 In the process ofpostmodernization, however, such public spaces are increasingly becoming privatized. The urban landscape is shifting from the modern focus on the common square and the public encounter to the closed spaces ofmalls, freeways, and gated communities. The architecture and urban planning of megalopolises such as Los Angeles and Sa˜o Paolo have tended to limit public access and interaction in such a way as to avoid the chance encounter ofdiverse populations, creating a series ofpro- tected interior and isolated spaces.8 Alternatively, consider how the banlieu ofParis has become a series ofamorphous and indefinite spaces that promote isolation rather than any interaction or commu- nication.

Los Angeles is perhaps the leader in the trend toward what Mike Davis calls ‘ fortress architecture,’’ in which not only private homes but also commercial centers and government buildings create open and free environ- ments internally by creating a closed and impenetrable exterior.12 This tendency in urban planning and architecture has established in concrete, physical terms what we called earlier the end ofthe outside, or rather the decline ofpublic space that had allowed for open and unprogrammed social interaction. Architectural analysis, however, can give only a first introduc- tion to the problematic ofthe new separations and segmentations.


Insight Guides South America (Travel Guide eBook) by Insight Guides

Airbnb, anti-communist, Atahualpa, bike sharing, call centre, centre right, colonial rule, Colonization of Mars, COVID-19, digital nomad, Easter island, European colonialism, failed state, Francisco Pizarro, invention of writing, Kickstarter, land reform, urban planning, urban renewal

Abraham Nowitz/Apa Publications Then there are the treasures of the colonial period that gild the magnificent cities of Cusco and Arequipa. Lima, the capital, once the center of the Spanish Empire in South America, is an exciting city that moves at a frenetic pace. Many of its colonial buildings have fallen victim to earthquakes and poor urban planning, but it still has some beautiful architecture and an enormous range of museums. Land of extremes Peru is an exceptional country, even for those who don’t have a particular interest in history or archeology. The arid desert in the south and the splendid Pacific coastline, with beaches that attract surfers from around the world, give way abruptly to the snowy heights of the Andean mountain range that edges along the country’s coastal belt.

From jungles to glaciers Argentina covers a range of latitudes, from the subtropical northeast, with Jesuit ruins and the imposing Iguaçú Falls, to the Andean northwest, changing abruptly from barren mountains to lush greenery, with the colonial architecture of Salta and the sugar-producing province of Tucumán. Central Argentina is characterized by spectacular mountain scenery, vineyards, and impeccable urban planning in Mendoza; green mountains and lakes in Córdoba; and attractive beach resorts in Buenos Aires province. In the south, bleak oil towns coexist with Welsh communities, pseudo-Tyrolean architecture, pretty towns surrounded by snow-capped mountains and lakes, and magnificent glaciers in the far south.


pages: 229 words: 67,869

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

4chan, Adam Curtis, AltaVista, Berlin Wall, Broken windows theory, Burning Man, Clive Stafford Smith, cognitive dissonance, Desert Island Discs, different worldview, don't be evil, Donald Trump, drone strike, gentrification, Google Hangouts, Hacker News, illegal immigration, Jon Ronson, Menlo Park, PageRank, Ralph Nader, Rosa Parks, Silicon Valley, Skype, Stanford prison experiment, Steve Jobs, tech billionaire, urban planning, WikiLeaks

‘But he decided he wanted to go to medical school in Paris …’ This was a France so wary of the crowd that in 1853, when Le Bon was twelve, Napoleon III commissioned the town planner Georges-Eugene Haussmann to demolish Paris’s twisted medieval streets and build long wide boulevards instead - urban planning as crowd control. It didn’t work. In 1871, Parisian workers rose up in protest against their conditions. They took hostages - local bureaucrats and police officers - who were summarily tried and executed. The government fled to Versailles. Le Bon was a great admirer of the Parisian elite (even though the Parisian elite didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in him - he was making his living as an ambulance driver at the time), and so he was hugely relieved when two months into the revolution the French army stormed the commune and killed around 25,000 rebels.


pages: 200 words: 64,050

I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories From the Edge of 50 by Annabelle Gurwitch

Alan Greenspan, Large Hadron Collider, McMansion, multilevel marketing, Saturday Night Live, Steve Jobs, urban planning, zero-sum game

I stride ahead, pushing through the pain from a recent tennis injury so my limp will go unnoticed. (“Recent” meaning five years ago, when I twisted my right ankle playing tennis and the orthopedist told me I had “boomeritis.”*) I sit attentively as AuDum resuscitates my hard drive and reveals more about himself. It is our second date, after all. He studied urban planning. He likes to sketch and takes on small graphic-design gigs because there’s a dearth of work in his field. He shares an apartment with two roommates and he is thinking of going to Norway, where there might be better employment opportunities. “You should do that. It’s the perfect time in your life to have an adventure.


pages: 202 words: 8,448

Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popovic, Matthew Miller

Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, British Empire, corporate governance, desegregation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Jane Jacobs, Kibera, Kickstarter, Kinder Surprise, Mahatma Gandhi, McMansion, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohammed Bouazizi, Nelson Mandela, Occupy movement, Rosa Parks, Twitter Arab Spring, urban planning, urban sprawl

When Jane Jacobs decided to stare down Robert Moses—the most powerful man in New York City, whose insane plan to plow a superhighway through the historic neighborhoods of downtown Manhattan would have destroyed the city—she was derided as a shrill housewife and a crazy dame. That’s because Jacobs, who ended up revolutionizing the eld of urban planning without even having a college degree, was a hobbit too. None of these people came from the elites, and if you were casting for models to pose for bronze statues to put in city squares, you wouldn’t have selected any of them. But these are the people who move the big world forward. It’s not just in Tolkien that the hobbits change the course of the future, I promised the Egyptians.


pages: 235 words: 65,885

Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines by Richard Heinberg, James Howard (frw) Kunstler

Adam Curtis, addicted to oil, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Asilomar, back-to-the-land, carbon tax, classic study, clean water, Community Supported Agriculture, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, demographic transition, ending welfare as we know it, energy transition, Fractional reserve banking, greed is good, Haber-Bosch Process, happiness index / gross national happiness, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), It's morning again in America, land reform, Lewis Mumford, means of production, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, planned obsolescence, plutocrats, reserve currency, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, the built environment, the scientific method, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, urban planning

A search of Amazon.com for sustainability (January 17, 2007) yielded nearly 25,000 hits — presumably indicating several thousand distinct titles containing the word. Sustainable yielded 62,000 hits, including books on sustainable leadership, communities, energy, design, construction, business, development, urban planning, tourism, and so on. A search of journal articles on Google Scholar turned up 538,000 hits, indicating thousands of scholarly articles or references with the word sustainability in their titles. However, my own admittedly less-than-exhaustive acquaintance with the literature (informed, among other sources, by two books that offer an overview of the history of the concept of sustainability) 7 suggests that much, if not most of this immense body of publications repeats, or is based on, the definitions and conditions described above.


pages: 207 words: 64,598

To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction by Phillip Lopate

Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, David Sedaris, desegregation, fear of failure, index card, Jane Jacobs, Joan Didion, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lewis Mumford, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Republic of Letters, Ronald Reagan, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight

At any rate, this was the solution I came to after having written three collections of personal essays, two volumes of personal poetry, and an autobiographical novel. I could keep cannibalizing whatever chunks of my past were still unwritten, or I could go out into the world and ruminate, that is to say, project my consciousness onto it. So I wrote a book about the New York waterfront. I read everything I could about the history, marine biology, urban planning, literature, and politics pertinent to the shoreline. I wrote about dock construction, shipworms, corrupt unions, Robert Moses and Joseph Mitchell, pirates and sailors, homeless people and public housing, and I also wrote about my own odd experiences walking the waterfront, because I found that it wasn’t necessary to jettison my I-character on this journey.


pages: 265 words: 69,310

What's Yours Is Mine: Against the Sharing Economy by Tom Slee

4chan, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, asset-backed security, barriers to entry, Benchmark Capital, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, big-box store, bike sharing, bitcoin, blockchain, Californian Ideology, citizen journalism, collaborative consumption, commons-based peer production, congestion charging, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, data acquisition, data science, David Brooks, democratizing finance, do well by doing good, don't be evil, Dr. Strangelove, emotional labour, Evgeny Morozov, gentrification, gig economy, Hacker Ethic, impact investing, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, invisible hand, Jacob Appelbaum, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), Kevin Roose, Khan Academy, Kibera, Kickstarter, license plate recognition, Lyft, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, move fast and break things, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, Network effects, new economy, Occupy movement, openstreetmap, Paul Graham, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer lending, Peter Thiel, pre–internet, principal–agent problem, profit motive, race to the bottom, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, rent control, ride hailing / ride sharing, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, software is eating the world, South of Market, San Francisco, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, the long tail, The Nature of the Firm, Thomas L Friedman, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, ultimatum game, urban planning, WeWork, WikiLeaks, winner-take-all economy, Y Combinator, Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

In September 2014 the National Federation of the Blind sued Uber, claiming that “Uber is violating basic equal-access requirements under both the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and state law,” and there are also ADA-related cases being pursued in California, Texas, and Arizona. Individual events include drivers refusing to pick up blind customers accompanied by dogs and driving away from riders with wheelchairs without trying to find an alternative.63 The ADA requires vehicles for hire to offer “reasonable accommodations” for wheelchair users, but as urban planning professor Sandra Rosenbloom said when interviewed by Ted Trautman of non-profit publication Next City, “generally that phrase has meant nothing.” Trautman also interviewed a Lyft spokesperson, who acknowledged that it’s a challenge for Lyft and UberX to supply wheelchair-accessible vehicles “because these are people’s own cars that they use in everyday life to drive around.”


pages: 242 words: 71,943

Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity by Charles L. Marohn, Jr.

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, A Pattern Language, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, anti-fragile, bank run, big-box store, Black Swan, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, cognitive dissonance, complexity theory, corporate governance, Detroit bankruptcy, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, facts on the ground, Ferguson, Missouri, gentrification, global reserve currency, high-speed rail, housing crisis, index fund, it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, low interest rates, low skilled workers, mass immigration, megaproject, Modern Monetary Theory, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, pensions crisis, Ponzi scheme, quantitative easing, reserve currency, restrictive zoning, Savings and loan crisis, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, trickle-down economics, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, urban renewal, walkable city, white flight, women in the workforce, yield curve, zero-sum game

., 121–122 Chicken problem, 195 Cities, 37–62 abandonment of, 109–110 accounting for infrastructure by, 70–71 budgeting and growth in, 50–57 contracting of, 154 Detroit, Michigan, 60–62 development of Pompeii, Italy, 5–10 economic stability of modern, 104–106 engineer's view of, 11 experimental development pattern in, 126–127 filling gaps in, 160–163 and illusion of wealth, 57–60 incremental growth in founding of, 15–20 as infinite game, 38–41 and infrastructure, 44–50 maintenance required for infrastructure in, 115 modern development of, 12 revenues and expenses, 41–44 traditional vs. modern development of, 1–3 Cities and the Wealth of a Nation (Jacobs), 101–102 City Council of Santa Ana, ix, x City engineer, 177t City halls, 43–44 City planner, 177t Class: and neighborhoods, 21–22 and re-urbanization, 116 Clinton, Bill, 209 Clinton, Hillary, 63 Cognitive Architecture (Sussman and Hollander), 8 Cognitive discounting, 65 Collaboration, between government officials and citizens, 195–197 Commers, Jon, 45 Common infrastructure, 130 Community living, 199–218 differing opinions in, 206–212 and extended family, 200–201 as infinite game, 39–40 meaning in, 212–218 in neighborhoods, 202–203 in Pompeii, Italy, 6–7 walking in, 203–206 Complex, adaptive systems: human habitats as, 3–4 and incremental growth, 168 incremental growth of, 15–16, 18–19 rational decision making with, 120–123 Complex buildings, 20–23 Complicated buildings, 20–23 Complicated systems, 11–14 Confirmation bias, 69, 74, 183–186 Conflicts, dealing with, 206–212 Congress for the New Urbanism, 210 Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 78–80 Constraints: and economic stability, 93–96 and gold standard, 90 growth as, 100 prudent, for investments, 164–168 removal of, in modern world, 59–60, 96 Construction costs, 136–137 Consumption, 215–216 Costa Rica, 126–127 The Crash Course (Martenson), 108 Critical systems, 182–183 Cross-generational civic collaboration, 187 D Dallas, Texas, 159 Darwin, Charles, 8 The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Jacobs), 8 Debt: and cash flow, 98 for federal government, 186 for government, 96–100 for local government, 113–114 for place-oriented government, 186–192 for projects with quality-of-life benefits, 187 for state government, 113–114 Debt to income ratio, 97 Decision making: rational, see Rational decision making subsidiarity in, 195–198 Default, on municipal debt, 191 Deneen, Patrick, 211 Density, as urban planning metric, 128–129 Depression economics, 86–89 Detroit, Michigan, 60–62 land values in, 24 renewal of urban, 117–119 Development projects: cash flow over life cycle of, 52–57, 53f, 55f, 56f decisions about failing, 115–120 Diamond, Jared, 58, 59, 84 Dig Deep, 211 Donjek, 45 Downtown, productivity of, 134–140, 139t, 143–144 Duany, Andres, 195 Duggan, Mike, 119 Duncanville, Texas, 160 E Economic development department, 178t Economics: and benefits of infrastructure spending, 72–73 in depressions, 86–89 Economic stability, 83–106 and auto-oriented development, 29–30 and constraints, 93–96 creating, 85–86 and depression economics, 86–89 and focus on growth, 100–102 following World War II, 89–91 and government debt, 96–100 growth vs. wealth, 102–104 of modern cities, 104–106 and post-war boom, 91–93 risk management strategies for, 83–85 Edges, 7–8 Edges of city: center vs., 28 city infrastructure necessary for, 115 productivity of, 134–138, 143–144 Efficiency, designing for, 174–176 Ehrenhalt, Alan, 116 Empire State Building (New York, New York), 129 Employment, in productive places, 133 England, 83 Expenses, and revenues, 41–44 Extended family, 200–201 F Failure, slow, 110–115 Failure to Act (ASCE report), 65–67 Family, extended, 200–201 Fannie Mae, 92 Farmers, risk management strategies of, 83–84 Federal Funds Rate, 97 Federal government: debt for, 186 impact of infrastructure on, 79 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 89, 92 Federal Reserve, 99 Feedback, in local governments, 173–174 Ferguson, Missouri, 93, 114 FHA (Federal Housing Administration), 89 Financial status, local government's understanding of, 190–191 Finished states, neighborhoods built to, 21–23 “First ring” suburbs, 94 Form-based codes, 193–194 Fragile systems, 4 Franchises, productivity of, 133–134 Freddie Mac, 92 Future, predicting needs for, 19–20, 120–121 G Gaps, in cities, 160–163 Garcia, Anthony, 158 Gas tax, 75 Gawron, Stephen, 161 Gehl, Jan, 8 “General Theory of Walkability,” 206 Gentrification, of urban neighborhoods, 117 Goals, of individuals vs. communities, 40–41 Goland, Carol, 84 Gold reserves, 94 Gold standard, as basis for trade, 90 Government debt, 96–100 Government policies, prioritizing traffic, 29 Great Depression, 87–89, 191 The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City (Ehrenhalt), 116 Great Society, 93 Growth: economic stability and focus on, 100–102 in municipalities, 50–57 as objective of local governments, 176 wealth vs., 102–104 H Haidt, Jonathan, 208, 209, 215 Hardship, response to, 172–174 Hasidic Judaism, 213–214, 217 Hemingway, Ernest, 4 Henwood, Doug, 79 Hierarchies, in local government, 174–176 Highland neighborhood (Shreveport, Louisiana), 220 Highland Park (Shreveport, Louisiana), 220 High land values, 27–30 High Point, North Carolina, 161 Highway bypass corridor, 134–138 Hollander, Justin B., 8, 9 Homeless shelters, xi Homes, changing, 20 Hoover, Herbert, 87 Horizontal expansion, in California, 197 Housing: in California, 197–198 post-war changes in, 92 preference for single-family, 144–145 Housing authority, 178t How to Live in a World We Don't Understand (Taleb), 59 Human habitats, 1–14 as complex, adaptive systems, 3–4 in North America, 1–3 spooky wisdom in, 5–10 as systems that are complicated, 11–14 Hunter-gatherer existence, 58 Hurricane Katrina, 102–103 Hurricane Rita, 102–103 I Illusion of Wealth: and constant maintenance, 152 human response to, 57–60 Illusion of Wealth phase of development, 143 Improvement to Land (I/L) Ratio, 25, 25f, 117 Improvement value, 23–25, 25f Incentives, to fix problems, 113 Income taxes, 72 Incremental changes, implementing, 122–123, 156–157 Incremental growth, 15–35 and complex, adaptive systems, 168 complex vs. complicated buildings in, 20–23 constraints on, 164 and founding of cities, 15–20 good and bad development in, 34–35 and high land values, 27–30 and neighborhood renewal, 23–27 private and public investment in, 30–34 in traditional habitat development, 2 Infill projects, 160 Infrastructure, 63–81 accounting for, 70–71 and American Society of Civil Engineers, 65–67 calculating returns on investment for, 67–69 Congressional Budget Office on, 78–80 development of, 30–34 as investment, 41–42 in modern development, 32 and municipalities, 44–50 perception of need for more, 63–65 ratio of private to public investment in, 129–130 real return on investment, 74–78 secondary effects of, 72–74 Infrastructure Cult: development of, 65–67 paper returns calculated by, 69 Insolvency, 187–192 Interstate highway system, 92 Investment(s), 147–170 barbell investment approach, 148–150 capital, 171–172 conventional vs. strong towns thinking about, 185–186, 186t in filling gaps in cities, 160–163 impact of regulations on, 194 infrastructure as, 41–42 little bets, 150–160 low-risk investments with steady returns, 150–155 prudent constraints for, 164–168 public and private, 30–34, 31f, 32f returns on, see Return on investment in Suburban Retrofit, 168–169 Italy, walking in, 203–204 J Jacobs, Jane, 8, 101–102 Japan, 76 Jimmy's Pizza, 161–162 Job creation, 49, 72–73 Johnson, Neil, 12, 13 Junger, Sebastian, 216–217 K Keynes, John Maynard, 88 Keynesian economic policies, 88 Krugman, Paul, 63, 78 Kunstler, James, 110–111 L Lafayette, Louisiana, 101, 141–144, 151 Landau, Moshe, 213–214, 217 Land value: in declining suburbs, 113 and interstate highway project, 92 and neighborhood renewal, 23–25, 25f in neighborhoods with different types of properties, 165–167, 165f, 166f and suburban development, 27–30 Learning, from previous local investments, 187 Legacy programs, 173 Lifestyle choices, 202, 205–206 “Lifestyle enclaves,” 208 Little bets, 16–18, 150–160 Local economy: as basis for national economy, 101–102 national vs., 103 Local government: changes in, to maintain economic stability, 105–106 debt taken on by, 113–114 funded by state government, 95 impact of infrastructure on, 79–80 profit run by, 37–38, 147 relationship of state and, 198 Long declines, 110–115 “Long emergency,” 110–111 Long Recession of the 1870s, 77 Los Angeles, California, xi Lovable places, 10 Low-risk investments, with steady returns, 150–155 Lydon, Mike, 158 M Maintenance: ability to keep up with, 109 cash-flow debt to cover, 188–192, 188f–190f of development projects, 52–57 of infrastructure, 46–49 need for constant, 151–154 in place-oriented government, 180–183 required for single-family homes, 112 Maintenance department, 179t Manhattan, New York, 24 Martenson, Chris, 108 Meaning, life of, 212–218 Middle class, 92, 93, 144–145 Milan, Italy, 164 Mills Fleet Farm, 134–137 Minicozzi, Joseph, 138–140, 161 “Minnesota Miracle,” 95 Mixed-use neighborhoods, 163, 169 Modern city development: as high-risk investments, 149 as lead by pubic investment, 34–35 productive places in, 131–134 Modern Monetary Theory, 99 Mortgages, during Great Depression, 88–89 Mouzon, Steve, 10, 113 Muskegon, Michigan, 161 N National Association of Home Builders, 136 National economy, local vs., 103 Natural disasters, 102–103 Neighborhoods: abandonment of, 109–110 built to finished states, 21–23 changing in post-war era, 92–93 community living in, 202–203 decline of, 113 gentrification of urban, 117 mixed-use, 163, 169 renewal of, and incremental growth, 23–27 responses to improvements in, 158 structured around religions, 214 in transition sections of Detroit, 118 Neighbors, being involved with, 202–203 New Deal economics, 87–88 New Orleans, Louisiana, 102, 182 Nixon, Richard, 94 Noncritical systems, 182 O Oak Cliff neighborhood (Dallas, Texas), 159 Obama, Barack, 63 Obesity, among Pacific Islanders, 58–59 Options Real Estate, 160 Orange County, California, xi–xii Order, chaos vs., 121–122 The Original Green (Mouzon), 10, 113 Oroville dam (California), 182 Oswego, New York, 152 Oswego Renaissance Association, 152 P Pacific Islanders, 58–59, 183–185 Paper returns on investment, 67–69 Paradox of Avarice, 104 Paradox of Thrift, 88, 104 Pareidolia, 8–9, 9f Parks department, 178t Party analogy, 34–35 A Pattern Language (Alexander), 8 Pension funds, 56–57, 70, 98 Pequot Lakes, Minnesota, 44–46 Perception, of need for more infrastructure, 63–65 Personal preferences, 144–145 Peru, 84 Place-oriented government, 171–198 and confirmation bias, 183–186 designed for efficiency, 174–176 focus on broad wealth creation by, 176–180 maintenance as priority for, 180–183 and regulations, 192–194 response to hardship by, 172–174 subsidiarity in, 195–198 understanding of debt by, 186–192 Political differences, 207 Pompeii, Italy, 5–10 Post-war boom: and economic stability, 91–93 modern city development established in, 12 Power, subsidiarity principle and, 196–198 Prayer of Saint Francis, 218 Prioritization, of maintenance, 180–183 Private development, 40 Private investment: private to public investment ratio, 129–130 public and, 30–34, 31f, 32f Private sector (businesses): response to economic hardship in, 172–173 small, see Small businesses Problem solving, 13–14 Productive places, 125–146 downtown vs. edge of town, 134–138 in past, 125–127 and personal preferences, 144–145 productivity calculations for, 128–130 return on investment, 141–144 traditional vs. modern development in, 131–134 value per acre, 138–141 Productivity, calculations of, 128–130 Project teams, 179–180 Property taxes, 49 Property value, 23–25, 25f Public health, and walking neighborhoods, 205 Public investment: private and, 30–34, 31f, 32f private to public investment ratio, 129–130 returns required for, 147 Public safety department, 179t Q Quality-of-life benefits, 187 Quantitative Easing, 99 R Railroad companies, 77 Rational decision making, 107–123 about failing development systems, 115–120 about long declines, 110–115 within complex, adaptive system, 120–123 and lack of single solution, 107–110 Real return on investment, 74–78 Redevelopment, financial productivity after, 131–134, 139–140, 139t Redundant systems, 182 ReForm Shreveport, 219, 220 Regulations: from place-oriented government, 192–194 and subsidiarity principle, 195–198 Repealing regulations, 192–193 Republican Party, 209 Request for proposal (RFP), 50 Residents, learning concerns of, 156–157 Resources: assumption of abundance of, 12–14 wasted, in modern development, 19 Retreats, strategic, 108–109 Return on investment, 141–144 calculating, for infrastructure, 67–69 for capital projects, 171–172 in cities, 44 and debt taken on by local governments, 187 low-risk investments with steady, 150–155 paper, 67–69 real, 74–78 social, 78–79 Revenues, and expenses, 41–44 RFP (request for proposal), 50 The Righteous Mind (Haidt), 208 Risk management strategies, 83–85 Roaring Twenties, 87 Roberts, Jason, 159 Roosevelt, Franklin, 87, 88 Rotary International, 203 S St.


pages: 287 words: 69,655

Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in LIfe by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

affirmative action, Airbnb, cognitive bias, commoditize, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, deep learning, digital map, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, General Magic , global pandemic, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, Paul Graham, peak-end rule, randomized controlled trial, Renaissance Technologies, Sam Altman, science of happiness, selection bias, side hustle, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, systematic bias, Tony Fadell, twin studies, Tyler Cowen, urban planning, Y Combinator

being around beauty itself: Chanuki Illushka Seresinhe et al., “Happiness is greater in more scenic locations,” Scientific Reports 9 (2019): 4498. HappyHier: Sjerp de Vries et al., “In which natural environments are people happiest? Large-scale experience sampling in the Netherlands,” Landscape and Urban Planning 205 (2021). frequently, other factors matter more than the weather: All happiness comparisons are the author’s calculations based on Table 2 here: https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/49376/1/Mourato_Happiness_greater_natural_2013.pdf. Index A specific form of pagination for this digital edition has been developed to match the print edition from which the index was created.


pages: 225 words: 70,241

Silicon City: San Francisco in the Long Shadow of the Valley by Cary McClelland

affirmative action, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, Apple II, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, Black Lives Matter, Burning Man, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, Columbine, computer vision, creative destruction, driverless car, El Camino Real, Elon Musk, Fairchild Semiconductor, full employment, gamification, gentrification, gig economy, Golden Gate Park, Google bus, Google Glasses, high net worth, housing crisis, housing justice, income inequality, John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, Loma Prieta earthquake, Lyft, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, Mitch Kapor, open immigration, PalmPilot, rent control, Salesforce, San Francisco homelessness, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, Social Justice Warrior, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, TaskRabbit, tech bro, tech worker, transcontinental railway, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, vertical integration, William Shockley: the traitorous eight, young professional

And then once I’m stable and I’ve traveled and I’ve done all the hands-on change stuff that I want to do—then I would go to law school, become a judge or a lawyer, and then do political work. Going to Berkeley and being surrounded by all these brilliant people, you realize how ordinary your intelligence is. There’s this feeling of having to prove yourself. You have to carve out your own identity. I think I have the balls to do that. CHARLES CARTER He started his career in urban planning, working for the cities in the East Bay. First Emeryville, a small city parked between Berkeley and Oakland. Then Richmond, a once-thriving industrial city to the north. A talented young planner, he thought he could spend his career helping the Bay Area “transition from true industry, converting factories and shipyards to creative incubation spaces.”


pages: 641 words: 182,927

In Pursuit of Privilege: A History of New York City's Upper Class and the Making of a Metropolis by Clifton Hood

affirmative action, British Empire, Carl Icahn, coherent worldview, Cornelius Vanderbilt, David Brooks, death of newspapers, deindustrialization, family office, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, Google Earth, jitney, mass immigration, new economy, New Urbanism, P = NP, plutocrats, Ray Oldenburg, ride hailing / ride sharing, Scientific racism, selection bias, Steven Levy, streetcar suburb, The Great Good Place, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, tontine, trade route, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, urban planning, We are the 99%, white flight

The original complex consisted of fourteen coordinated buildings that were erected on three blocks in Midtown, featuring the seventy-story RCA Building; Radio City Music Hall, a massive Art Deco amphitheater; underground pedestrian concourses; and open spaces like the promenade and the sunken plaza.1 In 1941, Rockefeller Center had five million square feet of office and retail space and a daytime population of around 150,000 people who went there for business or pleasure.2 The 1985 designation report of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission praised it for being “unprecedented in scope, near visionary in its urban planning, and unequaled for its harmonious integration of architecture, art, and landscaping.”3 The Rockefeller family has made many other contributions to New York City—Riverside Church on Morningside Heights in Manhattan; the Museum of Modern Art in Midtown; the Cloisters, a medieval art and architecture branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that is housed in parts of five European abbeys that were disassembled and transported to northern Manhattan; Rockefeller University, a leading biomedical research center; and major donations to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on the Upper West Side.

In 1990 a federal judge ended a fight over a sexual discrimination suit that had been brought eleven years earlier by ordering the last two all-male eating clubs, the Ivy Club and the Tiger Inn, to admit women.117 For his part, Tom Zacharias compiled a strong academic record, graduating magna cum laude in architecture and urban planning. He took an MBA from the Yale School of Management in 1979. Six years later, he married Clelia LeBoutillier, a vice president of a high-end beauty and fragrance corporation who was an alumna of the Madeira School in northern Virginia and of the University of Pennsylvania. Clelia LeBoutillier brought enormous social capital to their marriage: she had been a debutante in New York City; her father had been the president of Paine, Webber; and her grandfather had been the president of the Bank of America and a founder of a respected Wall Street stockbrokerage firm.


pages: 608 words: 184,703

Moon Oregon Trail Road Trip: Historic Sites, Small Towns, and Scenic Landscapes Along the Legendary Westward Route by Katrina Emery, Moon Travel Guides

Airbnb, bike sharing, California gold rush, car-free, crowdsourcing, desegregation, Donner party, glass ceiling, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, Lyft, Mason jar, mass immigration, pez dispenser, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rosa Parks, trade route, transcontinental railway, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban planning, Works Progress Administration

Portland earned a reputation as a wild place for sailors to develop their vices. The 20th century brought increased growth, and today the city is known for its creative, progressive population and hipster vibe. It’s a mecca for craft beer—Beervana is one of its nicknames—and celebrated for its thriving farm-to-table food scene. Portland is also celebrated for its urban planning, which has allowed for plenty of green spaces and bike-friendliness. Getting There and Around From Troutdale in the Columbia River Gorge, head west on Halsey Street for 1.2 miles (1.9 km), then turn right onto NE 238th Drive, using one of the left two lanes to merge onto I-84 westbound.

Recreation Tom McCall Waterfront Park Tom McCall Waterfront Park (Naito Pkwy. between SW Harrison St. and NW Glisan St., 5am-midnight daily, free) spans the west side of the Willamette River alongside downtown. In the 1970s, the park replaced Harbor Drive in one of the first freeway removals in the country, marking a big step forward in urban planning. The waterfront promenade and green space is popular with locals and visitors for walking, biking, and simply lounging. In spring, cherry blossoms bloom just north of the Burnside Bridge at the park’s Japanese American Historical Plaza. Many of the city’s largest events hold festivities here, including the Oregon Brewers Festival and Portland Rose Festival.


pages: 238 words: 75,994

A Burglar's Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh

A. Roger Ekirch, big-box store, card file, dark matter, Evgeny Morozov, game design, index card, megacity, megaproject, megastructure, Minecraft, off grid, Rubik’s Cube, SimCity, Skype, smart cities, statistical model, the built environment, urban planning

There’ll be a close-up of fingers pointing at plans. People will diagram things. Maybe someone will even build a scale model. Suddenly, architecture itself is deeply suspenseful. It’s as if the heist genre had been invented for no other reason than to dramatize the unveiling of floor plans. In the real-life world of architecture and urban planning, however, altogether too rarely is this point of view—how humans can take advantage of the built environment’s spatial opportunities for crime—taken seriously as a critical perspective on urban form. As we’ll discover time and again in the stories that make up this book, burglars and police officers—that is, cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys, bandits and detectives, that eternal yin and yang of the world, its black and white, its good and evil—pay at least as much attention to the patterns and particularities of built space as architects do, and for far more strategically urgent reasons.


Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives by Jarrett Walker

Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, congestion charging, demand response, Donald Shoup, iterative process, jitney, New Urbanism, peak oil, Peter Calthorpe, place-making, Silicon Valley, transit-oriented development, urban planning

Readers who are less interested in theory may skip the rest of this chapter, but anyone who thinks theoretically about transportation or urbanism will find this section crucial. WHAT TRANSIT IS AND DOES | 19 More on Personal Mobility For more thorough discussion of the concept of personal mobility and how it relates to prevailing concepts of mobility and access in urban planning theory, see http://www.humantransit.org/01box.html. A quick survey of definitions of mobility turns up a range of slightly different ones, indicating some ambiguity in the word. Here are a few: The condition of moving freely.2 Ease of moving about.3 Movement of people or goods within the transportation system.4 By defining the term personal mobility as a freedom, I mean something close to “ease of moving about,” but this is not at all the same as movement.


pages: 254 words: 76,064

Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future by Joi Ito, Jeff Howe

3D printing, air gap, Albert Michelson, AlphaGo, Amazon Web Services, artificial general intelligence, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Black Swan, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Burning Man, business logic, buy low sell high, Claude Shannon: information theory, cloud computing, commons-based peer production, Computer Numeric Control, conceptual framework, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data acquisition, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, digital rights, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, double helix, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Ferguson, Missouri, fiat currency, financial innovation, Flash crash, Ford Model T, frictionless, game design, Gerolamo Cardano, informal economy, information security, interchangeable parts, Internet Archive, Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, John Harrison: Longitude, Joi Ito, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, Mark Zuckerberg, microbiome, move 37, Nate Silver, Network effects, neurotypical, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), PalmPilot, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, pirate software, power law, pre–internet, prisoner's dilemma, Productivity paradox, quantum cryptography, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, random walk, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Coase, Ross Ulbricht, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, SETI@home, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Simon Singh, Singularitarianism, Skype, slashdot, smart contracts, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, supply-chain management, synthetic biology, technological singularity, technoutopianism, TED Talk, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, the strength of weak ties, There's no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home - Ken Olsen, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Two Sigma, universal basic income, unpaid internship, uranium enrichment, urban planning, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, Wayback Machine, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler

The term, originally coined in a joking conversation between Jeff and his Wired editor Mark Robinson, was quickly adopted, initially by people in vocations like advertising and journalism in which crowdsourcing had taken root, and then by the public at large. (The word first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013.)7 As a business practice crowdsourcing has become standard operating procedure in fields ranging from technology and media to urban planning, academia, and beyond. When it works—and contrary to the initial hype, it’s hardly a digital age panacea—crowdsourcing exhibits an almost magical efficacy. Institutions and companies like NASA, the LEGO Group, and Samsung have integrated public contributions into the core of how they do business.


pages: 257 words: 72,251

Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security by Daniel J. Solove

Albert Einstein, cloud computing, Columbine, hindsight bias, illegal immigration, invention of the telephone, Marshall McLuhan, national security letter, Oklahoma City bombing, security theater, the medium is the message, Timothy McVeigh, traffic fines, urban planning

His parents were Muslim, though not strongly religious. His father was a successful attorney and his mother came from a wealthy family. He had two sisters, one of whom became a doctor, the other a professor. John studied architecture at Cairo University. He later lived in Germany and worked at an urban-planning firm. He had a number of close friends, and he lived with roommates. He increasingly became more religious, eventually founding a prayer group. After five years in Germany, he came to the United States. He decided to enroll in flying school to learn how to fly airplanes.11 2. “Matt” was a young man who was born and raised near Buffalo, New York.


pages: 274 words: 75,846

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You by Eli Pariser

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, A Pattern Language, adjacent possible, Amazon Web Services, An Inconvenient Truth, Apple Newton, augmented reality, back-to-the-land, Black Swan, borderless world, Build a better mousetrap, Cass Sunstein, citizen journalism, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, crowdsourcing, Danny Hillis, data acquisition, disintermediation, don't be evil, Filter Bubble, Flash crash, fundamental attribution error, Gabriella Coleman, global village, Haight Ashbury, Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, knowledge worker, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, megacity, Metcalfe’s law, Netflix Prize, new economy, PageRank, Paradox of Choice, Patri Friedman, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, power law, recommendation engine, RFID, Robert Metcalfe, sentiment analysis, shareholder value, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, social graph, social software, social web, speech recognition, Startup school, statistical model, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, technoutopianism, Ted Nordhaus, The future is already here, the scientific method, urban planning, We are as Gods, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, Y Combinator, Yochai Benkler

It’s still possible to erect systems that don’t trap us in an endless loop of self-flattery about our own interests or shield us from fields of inquiry that aren’t our own. First, however, we need a vision—a sense of what to aim for. The Mosaic of Subcultures In 1975, architect Christopher Alexander and a team of colleagues began publishing a series of books that would change the face of urban planning, design, and programming. The most famous volume, A Pattern Language, is a guidebook that reads like a religious text. It’s filled with quotes and aphorisms and hand-drawn sketches, a bible guiding devotees toward a new way of thinking about the world. The question that had consumed Alexander and his team during eight years of research was the question of why some places thrived and “worked” while others didn’t—why some cities and neighborhoods and houses flourished, while others were grim and desolate.


pages: 256 words: 75,139

Divided: Why We're Living in an Age of Walls by Tim Marshall

affirmative action, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Brexit referendum, cryptocurrency, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, Donald Trump, end world poverty, facts on the ground, gentrification, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, it's over 9,000, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, open borders, openstreetmap, profit motive, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Scramble for Africa, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, the built environment, trade route, unpaid internship, urban planning

., Indo-Bangladesh Relations (New Delhi: APH Publishing, 2008) Tripathi, Sanjeev, ‘Illegal immigration from Bangladesh to India: toward a comprehensive solution’, Carnegie India, 29 June 2016 Chapter 6: Africa Agyemang, Felix, ‘The emergence of gated communities in Ghana and their implications on urban planning and management’, Developing Country Studies, vol. 3, no. 14 (July 2013), pp. 40–46 Aisien, Ebiuwa, and Oriakhi, Felix O. U., ‘Great Benin on the world stage: reassessing Portugal–Benin diplomacy in the 15th and 16th centuries’, IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, vol. 11, no. 1 (May–June 2013), pp. 107–115 Beegle, Kathleen G.; Christiaensen, Luc; Dabalen, Andrew L.; and Gaddis, Isis, Poverty in a rising Africa: overview (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2015) Breetzke, Gregory D., Landman, Karina and Cohn, Ellen G., ‘Is it safer behind the gates?


pages: 352 words: 80,030

The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan

"World Economic Forum" Davos, active measures, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Boris Johnson, cashless society, clean water, cryptocurrency, Deng Xiaoping, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, global supply chain, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, invisible hand, land reform, Londongrad, low interest rates, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, Meghnad Desai, Nelson Mandela, Paris climate accords, purchasing power parity, ransomware, Rubik’s Cube, smart cities, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Bannon, trade route, trickle-down economics, UNCLOS, urban planning, WikiLeaks, zero-sum game

More eccentric, however, was the fact that the clampdown was also used to issue a stern line about strange-looking buildings, with a ban issued on ‘bizarre architecture that is not economical, functional, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly’. To ensure compliance, remote satellite sensing will be used ‘to locate buildings that violate existing urban-planning policies’. Drones flying overhead will not just be watching who you talk to, or where you are in other words, but also what you might choose to do with your chimney pots or patio extension.58 A new world is coming, one that seems unfamiliar to most but also in turns exotic and worrying. It is perhaps hard to believe that one of the most vibrant centres for tech start-ups in the world today is Iran, where one unexpected side effect of being distanced from western competition has been a surge in new businesses and incubators for start-up companies, like Sarava, that help fledgling concepts off the ground.59 Among those selected to appear at the appropriately named Silk Road Startup in Kish in the spring of 2018 were a marketplace for water-friendly food and agriculture products, an eco-friendly and online fashion marketplace for women to buy and sell pre-owned wearables, and a handheld device that measures the level of blood glucose with infrared spectroscopy and artificial intelligence.60 Such successes do not scratch the surface of what is going on India and China, whose adoption rates of new financial technologies (FinTech) for money transfers and payments, savings and investments and borrowing are far higher than any other country in the world – including the US.61 In both countries, the scope for growth seems to be almost limitless.


pages: 269 words: 77,876

Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit From Global Chaos by Sarah Lacy

Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, Benchmark Capital, BRICs, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fear of failure, Firefox, Great Leap Forward, Huaqiangbei: the electronics market of Shenzhen, China, income per capita, intangible asset, Jeff Bezos, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, McMansion, megacity, Network effects, off-the-grid, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), paypal mafia, QWERTY keyboard, risk tolerance, Salesforce, Skype, social web, Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh, urban planning, web application, women in the workforce, working-age population, zero-sum game

In India, driving is a zero-stakes game of survival for each patch of cracking asphalt between mopeds, rickshaws, cars, ramshackle trucks, grungy cows, mangy dogs, mud-caked pigs, and beggars who wander between cars, tapping on windows with hol ow expressions, trinkets, and outstretched hands. Even if the traffic were light, drivers frequently don’t know where to go because there’s little urban planning and few street signs. It’s this bad, and so far fewer than 5 percent of Indians have their own vehicles. On top of that, there are sewage backups, power outages, and other daily manifestations of an overtaxed, unplanned, outdated urban infrastructure. India’s tourism board spent mil ions on an award-winning ad campaign touting the country as “Incredible India!”


pages: 237 words: 74,109

Uncanny Valley: A Memoir by Anna Wiener

autonomous vehicles, back-to-the-land, basic income, behavioural economics, Blitzscaling, blockchain, blood diamond, Burning Man, call centre, charter city, cloud computing, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, commoditize, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, dark triade / dark tetrad, data science, digital divide, digital nomad, digital rights, end-to-end encryption, Extropian, functional programming, future of work, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, growth hacking, guns versus butter model, housing crisis, Jane Jacobs, job automation, knowledge worker, Lean Startup, means of production, medical residency, microaggression, microapartment, microdosing, new economy, New Urbanism, Overton Window, passive income, Plato's cave, pull request, rent control, ride hailing / ride sharing, San Francisco homelessness, Sand Hill Road, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Social Justice Warrior, social web, South of Market, San Francisco, special economic zone, subprime mortgage crisis, systems thinking, tech bro, tech worker, technoutopianism, telepresence, telepresence robot, union organizing, universal basic income, unpaid internship, urban planning, urban renewal, warehouse robotics, women in the workforce, work culture , Y2K, young professional

At a party, I met a man who leaned in and told me, with warm breath, that he was trying to get involved with an exciting new urbanism project. His T-shirt was creased geometrically, as if he’d had it same-day delivered and only unfolded it an hour ago: artful dishevelment in the age of on-demand. I asked if he worked for the city, or in urban planning. He’d gotten his start like the rest of us, he said, gesturing vaguely around the room, which was full of technologists. But he’d been meaning to read more about urbanism, if I had any book recommendations. I thought about the college syllabi from my undergraduate courses in urban studies and felt a flash of superiority, but couldn’t remember any of the titles.


pages: 269 words: 70,543

Tech Titans of China: How China's Tech Sector Is Challenging the World by Innovating Faster, Working Harder, and Going Global by Rebecca Fannin

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Adam Neumann (WeWork), Airbnb, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Benchmark Capital, Big Tech, bike sharing, blockchain, call centre, cashless society, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, clean tech, cloud computing, computer vision, connected car, corporate governance, cryptocurrency, data is the new oil, data science, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, digital map, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, El Camino Real, electricity market, Elon Musk, fake news, family office, fear of failure, fulfillment center, glass ceiling, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, income inequality, industrial robot, information security, Internet of things, invention of movable type, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, Mary Meeker, megacity, Menlo Park, money market fund, Network effects, new economy, peer-to-peer lending, personalized medicine, Peter Thiel, QR code, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Sand Hill Road, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart cities, smart transportation, Snapchat, social graph, SoftBank, software as a service, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, speech recognition, stealth mode startup, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, supply-chain management, tech billionaire, TechCrunch disrupt, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, urban planning, Vision Fund, warehouse automation, WeWork, winner-take-all economy, Y Combinator, young professional

Baidu has its DuerOS line of smart household goods and Apollo, an open platform for self-driving technology solutions, and detoured on the AI journey several years before Google in 2015. Alipay uses facial recognition for payments, and Alibaba has an AI cloud platform called City Brain that crunches data and determines patterns for better urban planning. Tencent is integrating rich media formats such as face-swapping effects and video chat filters into its social media and is investing in personalized medicine, digitized patient health-care records, and remote health-care monitoring. In their quest to win the AI challenge, the three titans are hunting for new AI technologies and applications by investing in AI startups globally.


pages: 299 words: 79,739

Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steven Johnson

British Empire, Burning Man, cognitive dissonance, cotton gin, Great Leap Forward, Jeff Bezos, moral panic, Stewart Brand, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning, wikimedia commons

The offer of clemency applied to every single royal subject who had turned to piracy, except one: Henry Every. Acknowledgments Almost a decade and a half ago, I published a book called The Ghost Map, about a cholera epidemic in London in 1854. Like most of my books it jumped across multiple disciplines—from microbiology to urban planning to sociology. But, unlike most of my books, it had what the Hollywood people call a “through-line”: a central, more or less linear, narrative that the book rarely strayed far from. There was a killer loose on the streets of London and a (medical) detective on the case. Wherever the commentary happened to take you, you never deviated far from that main arc.


pages: 305 words: 75,697

Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be by Diane Coyle

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, Al Roth, Alan Greenspan, algorithmic management, Amazon Web Services, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Boston Dynamics, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, call centre, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, choice architecture, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, cloud computing, complexity theory, computer age, conceptual framework, congestion charging, constrained optimization, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, credit crunch, data science, DeepMind, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Diane Coyle, discounted cash flows, disintermediation, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, endowment effect, Erik Brynjolfsson, eurozone crisis, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Evgeny Morozov, experimental subject, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Flash crash, framing effect, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, global supply chain, Goodhart's law, Google bus, haute cuisine, High speed trading, hockey-stick growth, Ida Tarbell, information asymmetry, intangible asset, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jaron Lanier, Jean Tirole, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, Les Trente Glorieuses, libertarian paternalism, linear programming, lockdown, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, low earth orbit, lump of labour, machine readable, market bubble, market design, Menlo Park, millennium bug, Modern Monetary Theory, Mont Pelerin Society, multi-sided market, Myron Scholes, Nash equilibrium, Nate Silver, Network effects, Occupy movement, Pareto efficiency, payday loans, payment for order flow, Phillips curve, post-industrial society, price mechanism, Productivity paradox, quantitative easing, randomized controlled trial, rent control, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco homelessness, savings glut, school vouchers, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, software is eating the world, spectrum auction, statistical model, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, The Chicago School, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, the map is not the territory, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, the strength of weak ties, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, transaction costs, Uber for X, urban planning, winner-take-all economy, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce, Y2K

It is not known whether, after an initial period when the intervention is novel, people’s behaviour reverts to normal. On a large scale, the top-down view from outside the model can lead to adverse consequences: James Scott (1998)—who labels this perspective ‘high modernism’—gives many examples of rationalising policies that backfire terribly, such as urban planning restrictions that leach the economic vibrancy out of cities or agricultural subsidies incentivising actions that harm biodiversity and ultimately crop yields. This self-referential character of policy advice is all the more important given the important institutional role of economics in government.


pages: 314 words: 75,678

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates

agricultural Revolution, call centre, carbon footprint, carbon tax, clean water, coronavirus, COVID-19, decarbonisation, electricity market, energy security, energy transition, fear of failure, Ford Model T, global pandemic, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of air conditioning, Louis Pasteur, megacity, microplastics / micro fibres, negative emissions, oil shock, performance metric, plant based meat, purchasing power parity, risk tolerance, social distancing, Solyndra, systems thinking, TED Talk, the built environment, the High Line, urban planning, yield management

I don’t think Americans are eager to pay more for gas. * * * — There are four ways to cut down on emissions from transportation. One is to do less of it—less driving, flying, and shipping. We should encourage more alternative modes, like walking, biking, and carpooling, and it’s great that some cities are using smart urban plans to do just that. Another way to cut down on emissions is to use fewer carbon-intensive materials in making cars to begin with—although that wouldn’t affect the fuel-based emissions we’ve covered in this chapter. As I mentioned in chapter 5, every car is made from materials like steel and plastics that can’t be manufactured without emitting greenhouse gases.


Frommer's Egypt by Matthew Carrington

airport security, bread and circuses, centre right, colonial rule, Easter island, Internet Archive, land tenure, low cost airline, Maui Hawaii, open economy, rent control, rolodex, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, walkable city, Yom Kippur War

At the western end of the city lies the harbor, where the famous lighthouse once stood (now the site of the 09_259290-ch06.qxp 7/22/08 12:31 AM Page 130 Alexandria 2 EL-ANFUSHI 4 1 3 5 6 7 8 See ” Central Alexandria” map SID GABIR 11 10 9 Sidi Gabir Station Main Station 14 13 15 SIDI EL MADRA DINING Abu Ashraf 4 Fish Market 6 Grand Café 5 Greek Maritime Club 3 Malak al Mango 8 Qadoura 7 Tikka Grill 6 12 ZOO Gebrial Station ACCOMMODATIONS El Salamlek Palace Hotel 18 Four Seasons Hotel Alexandria 14 Helnan Palestine 17 San Giovanni 12 Qaitbey Fort); at the eastern end are the Montaza Gardens, once a royal hunting ground and now the site of the Helnan Palestine and Salamlek hotels. The two are rather unfortunately linked by an enormous road that runs where you would expect the beach to be and cuts the city off from the sea. Known as the Corniche, it represents one of the biggest failures of urban planning in Egypt. It’s almost completely unbroken by any traffic lights, and only a few of the promised pedestrian tunnels have been built. Locals, let alone tourists, cross with trepidation. Fortunately, there is little to draw you over—the beaches are narrow, rocky, and, in the summer, crowded. The most interesting area of the city, which contains almost all the sites worth visiting, is within a 2km (11⁄4-mile) radius from Saad Zagloul Square.

Even 10 years ago, life was still a little rough around the edges here— unsophisticated food and hard beds were the price visitors paid for the spectacular scenery and even more spectacular diving. Nowadays, however, things are a little different. Not only have the attractions branched out into windsurfing and kitesurfing, but years of investment and some of the better urban planning on the Red Sea coast have paid off in making this town, if not elegant, at least pleasant to walk around. You can get some of the best food in the Sinai here, not to mention a very decent hotel at a good price, all with very little sacrifice in atmosphere and charm. ORIENTATION Dahab is divided into two main parts: new and old.


pages: 859 words: 204,092

When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Rise of the Middle Kingdom by Martin Jacques

Admiral Zheng, An Inconvenient Truth, Asian financial crisis, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bob Geldof, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, classic study, credit crunch, Dava Sobel, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, discovery of the americas, Doha Development Round, energy security, European colonialism, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, flying shuttle, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income per capita, invention of gunpowder, James Watt: steam engine, joint-stock company, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, land tenure, lateral thinking, Malacca Straits, Martin Wolf, Meghnad Desai, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, new economy, New Urbanism, one-China policy, open economy, Pearl River Delta, pension reform, price stability, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, special economic zone, spinning jenny, Spread Networks laid a new fibre optics cable between New York and Chicago, the scientific method, Thomas L Friedman, trade liberalization, urban planning, Washington Consensus, Westphalian system, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, zero-sum game

.: Duke University Press, forthcoming) ——Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 1998) Cheng Chin-Chuan, ‘Chinese Varieties of English’, in Braj B. Kachru, ed., The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992) Cheng Youhua, et al., ‘Urban Planning in Shanghai towards the 21st Century’, Dialogue (Taipei), February/March 1999 Ching, Leo, ‘Yellow Skin, White Mask: Race, Class and Identification in Japanese Cultural Discourse’, in Chen Kuan-Hsing, ed., Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (London: Routledge, 1998) Chow, Kai-wing, ‘Imagining Boundaries of Blood: Zhang Binglin and the Invention of the Han “Race” in Modern China’, in Frank Dikötter, ed., The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (London: Hurst and Company, 1997) Christensen, Thomas J., ‘China, the US- Japan Alliance, and the Security Dilemma in East Asia’, in Michael Brown et al., eds, The Rise of China (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000) ——Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S.

Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 105. 24 . Pudong was conceived, in 1992, as a completely new business and financial centre for Shanghai. Across the Huangpu River from the Bund, it represents an extraordinary urban and architectural leap into the new century: Cheng Youhua, et al., ‘Urban Planning in Shanghai towards the 21st Century’, in Dialogue (Taipei), February/March 1999, pp. 48-55. 25 . Interview with Gao Rui-qian, Shanghai, April 1999. 26 . Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, p. 108. 27 . The literature on the Chinese diaspora, and the role of the family and kinship, is voluminous: see, for example, Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: The Story of the Overseas Chinese (London: Arrow, 1998); Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (London: UCLPress, 1997), Chapters 4, 7; Joel Kotkin, Tribes: How Race, Religion, and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy (New York: Random House, 1992), Chapter 6. 28 .


pages: 296 words: 78,112

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green

4chan, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bernie Sanders, Biosphere 2, Black Lives Matter, business climate, Cambridge Analytica, Carl Icahn, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, coherent worldview, collateralized debt obligation, conceptual framework, corporate raider, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, data science, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, fake news, Fractional reserve banking, Glass-Steagall Act, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Gordon Gekko, guest worker program, hype cycle, illegal immigration, immigration reform, Jim Simons, junk bonds, liberation theology, low skilled workers, machine translation, Michael Milken, Nate Silver, Nelson Mandela, nuclear winter, obamacare, open immigration, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, quantitative hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, speech recognition, Steve Bannon, urban planning, vertical integration

I just thought, well, let’s push him off the stage,” Nevin recalled, with some embarrassment. “It was a bitter campaign.” Bitter but, for Bannon, victorious: he carried more than 60 percent of the vote and found himself the insurgent class president. — After graduating from Virginia Tech in 1976 with a degree in urban planning, Bannon was finally ready to join the military. He signed up for the Naval Reserve straightaway. The life that he imagined for himself as a junior naval officer—one that revolved around duty, honor, and patriotism—was nothing like what he encountered when he showed up at the Navy’s training center in Rhode Island in 1977.


pages: 317 words: 87,566

The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being by William Davies

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, 1960s counterculture, Abraham Maslow, Airbnb, behavioural economics, business intelligence, business logic, corporate governance, data science, dematerialisation, experimental subject, Exxon Valdez, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Gini coefficient, income inequality, intangible asset, invisible hand, joint-stock company, Leo Hollis, lifelogging, market bubble, mental accounting, military-industrial complex, nudge unit, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Philip Mirowski, power law, profit maximization, randomized controlled trial, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, science of happiness, scientific management, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Slavoj Žižek, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, social contagion, social intelligence, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Spirit Level, theory of mind, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto, W. E. B. Du Bois, you are the product

Hudson Yards will be one of the most ambitious examples of what the NYU research team term a ‘quantified community’, in which the entire fabric of the development will be used to mine data to be analysed by academics and businesses. The behaviourist project initiated by Watson, of treating humans like white rats to be stimulated in search of a response, is now becoming integrated into the principles of urban planning. One of the key ways in which the age of big data differs from that of the survey is that big data is collected by default, without any intention to analyse it. Surveys are costly to carry out and need to be carefully designed around specific research questions. By contrast, the main thing with transactional data is that researchers are in a position to collect as much of it as possible first and worry about their research questions second.


pages: 287 words: 86,919

Protocol: how control exists after decentralization by Alexander R. Galloway

Ada Lovelace, airport security, Alvin Toffler, Berlin Wall, bioinformatics, Bretton Woods, Charles Babbage, computer age, Computer Lib, Craig Reynolds: boids flock, Dennis Ritchie, digital nomad, discovery of DNA, disinformation, Donald Davies, double helix, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, easy for humans, difficult for computers, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Free Software Foundation, Grace Hopper, Hacker Ethic, Hans Moravec, informal economy, John Conway, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Ken Thompson, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, linear programming, macro virus, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, Menlo Park, moral panic, mutually assured destruction, Norbert Wiener, old-boy network, OSI model, packet switching, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, phenotype, post-industrial society, profit motive, QWERTY keyboard, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Reflections on Trusting Trust, RFC: Request For Comment, Richard Stallman, semantic web, SETI@home, stem cell, Steve Crocker, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Ted Nelson, telerobotics, The future is already here, the market place, theory of mind, urban planning, Vannevar Bush, Whole Earth Review, working poor, Yochai Benkler

Peter Galison calls this dispersion the “constant vigilance against the re-creation of new centers.”64 These are the same centers that Baran derided as an “Achilles’ heel”65 and that he longed to purge from the telecommunications network. “City by city, country by country, the bomb helped drive dispersion,”66 Galison continues, highlighting the power of the A-bomb to drive the push toward distribution in urban planning. Whereas the destruction of a fleet of Abrams tanks would certainly impinge upon army battlefield maneuvers, the destruction of a rack of Cisco routers would do little to slow down broader network communications. Internet traffic would simply find a new route, thus circumventing the downed machines.67 64.


pages: 286 words: 87,870

The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World by Jay Bahadur

collective bargaining, failed state, independent contractor, private military company, trickle-down economics, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, urban planning

CHAPTER 2: A SHORT HISTORY OF PIRACY I am indebted to Stig Jarle Hansen for his excellent work on the history and origins of piracy in Somalia, much of which is reproduced in this chapter. 1. Aidan Hartley, The Zanzibar Chest (London: Harper Perennial, 2004), 184. 2. United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), Garowe: First Steps Towards Strategic Urban Planning (Nairobi: UN-Habitat, 2008), http://www.unhabitat.org/pmss, 4. 3. Although cousins on the Somali clan tree, the Majerteen, Dhulbahante, and Warsangali have never been the best of friends. Dating back to before the Majerteen sultanates of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Majerteen have traditionally dominated their Harti kinsmen, a pattern that continues to the present day.


pages: 288 words: 81,253

Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

banking crisis, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, Cass Sunstein, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, cognitive load, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, delayed gratification, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, en.wikipedia.org, endowment effect, Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science, fake news, Filter Bubble, Herman Kahn, hindsight bias, Jean Tirole, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, loss aversion, market design, mutually assured destruction, Nate Silver, p-value, phenotype, prediction markets, Richard Feynman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, systematic bias, TED Talk, the scientific method, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, urban planning, Walter Mischel, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

In a Harvard Business Review article, decision scientist Gary Klein summarized the results of a 1989 experiment by Deborah Mitchell, J. Edward Russo, and Nancy Pennington. They “found that prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%.” A huge urban planning project requires enormous amounts of money, materials, commitment—and the vision to work backward from a distant future goal. When Frederick Law Olmsted designed Central Park, for example, he recognized that a lot of the charm of the park, and a lot of enjoyment that people would get from it, would take decades, as the landscape changed and matured.


pages: 303 words: 81,071

Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan

3D printing, augmented reality, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, cognitive dissonance, driverless car, fake news, Free Software Foundation, friendly fire, gentrification, global supply chain, hydroponic farming, Internet of things, Mason jar, messenger bag, off grid, Panamax, post-Panamax, ransomware, RFID, rolling blackouts, security theater, self-driving car, Skype, smart cities, South China Sea, surveillance capitalism, the built environment, urban decay, urban planning

* * * Anika stares at the sun again, squinting up through smashed hexagonal geodesic wireframes and bird-shit-smeared glass, watching seagulls trace invisible thermals as she tries to ignore the building in front of her, its huge mass mockingly goading her onward. She walked here, almost on autopilot, until she found herself at the Bearpit roundabout, a century-old futurist’s dream from a time when subterranean public plazas on the wrong side of town were a utopian urban planning solution rather than a crime scene waiting to happen. The entire center of the roundabout is sunk below ground level, and although open to the sky it was always a natural destination for those who wanted to conduct business unseen. Drunks, junkies, dealers, prostitutes, graffiti artists. There’d been the inevitable effort to gentrify it at the turn of the century, to bring in the obligatory performance spaces and organic hot dog stalls—they’d erected an angular, origamic sculpture of a twelve-foot bear, and then, as if blissfully drunk on nostalgic naïveté, they built a geodesic dome over the whole thing—but still the winos and the junkies found corners they believed were unseen.


pages: 280 words: 83,299

Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline by Darrell Bricker, John Ibbitson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, Brexit referendum, BRICs, British Empire, Columbian Exchange, commoditize, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, full employment, gender pay gap, gentrification, ghettoisation, glass ceiling, global reserve currency, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Hans Rosling, Hernando de Soto, illegal immigration, income inequality, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, John Snow's cholera map, Kibera, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, New Urbanism, nuclear winter, off grid, offshore financial centre, out of africa, Potemkin village, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transcontinental railway, upwardly mobile, urban planning, working-age population, young professional, zero-sum game

There is also a German-speaking enclave to the east and Brussels, more or less in the middle, the only part of the country that is bilingual in Flemish and French, though everyone knows that English is an unofficial official language. Belgians are fiercely attached to the principle of local autonomy—hence the nineteen communes of Brussels. If you work on the assumption that all European city centers are charming to North Americans, whose cities generally lack either preserved historic cores or good urban planning, then the commune of Schaerbeek is certainly charming, with its streets of three- and four-story brick row houses, mostly dating from the nineteenth century, narrow in width but graced with large windows to let in light. The shops are small and locally owned, the parks and other public spaces neat and trim.


pages: 290 words: 84,375

China's Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banks, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of the Chinese Miracle by Dinny McMahon

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, bank run, business cycle, California gold rush, capital controls, crony capitalism, dark matter, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, eurozone crisis, financial innovation, fixed income, Gini coefficient, Global Witness, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, if you build it, they will come, income inequality, industrial robot, invisible hand, low interest rates, megacity, middle-income trap, military-industrial complex, money market fund, mortgage debt, new economy, peer-to-peer lending, Ponzi scheme, Ronald Reagan, short selling, Silicon Valley, subprime mortgage crisis, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, urban planning, working-age population, zero-sum game

Pudong was one of China’s very first new districts, but in recent years city building in China has spread to plague proportions. Rather than build incrementally, adding infrastructure if and when it becomes necessary, officials across the country have, herdlike, embraced the if-you-build-it-they-will-come model of urban planning. Ubiquitous as you hit the city limits of towns everywhere, new cities and districts come in all shapes and forms. In Luoyang, an industrial town in Henan Province, the new city—a cluster of large government buildings and office towers topped with the logos of state firms—is built around a lake that draws huge crowds of locals in summer for a laser show performed nightly to a recording of Carmina Burana.


pages: 333 words: 86,628

The Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony

Berlin Wall, British Empire, conceptual framework, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, illegal immigration, invention of the printing press, Mahatma Gandhi, Peace of Westphalia, profit motive, Ronald Reagan, Steven Pinker, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Torches of Freedom, urban planning, Westphalian system

This restraint has not, however, been forthcoming, and the EU bureaucracy, backed by federal European courts, has consistently extended its powers over member nations in areas such as economic policy, labor and employment policy, public health, communications, education, transportation, the environment, and urban planning. The European principle of subsidiarity is thus nothing other than a euphemism for empire: The subsidiary nations of Europe are only independent insofar as the European government decides that they will be independent.89 The obviously imperial character of the European federal government has been consistently obscured, however, by claims that the European Union has discovered a new “transnational” form of political order, to which the traditional categories used to describe political institutions can no longer be applied.


pages: 310 words: 85,995

The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties by Paul Collier

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", accounting loophole / creative accounting, Airbnb, An Inconvenient Truth, assortative mating, bank run, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Bob Geldof, bonus culture, business cycle, call centre, central bank independence, centre right, commodity super cycle, computerized trading, corporate governance, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, David Brooks, delayed gratification, deskilling, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, fake news, financial deregulation, full employment, George Akerlof, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, greed is good, income inequality, industrial cluster, information asymmetry, intangible asset, Jean Tirole, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, knowledge economy, late capitalism, loss aversion, Mark Zuckerberg, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, negative equity, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, out of africa, Peace of Westphalia, principal–agent problem, race to the bottom, rent control, rent-seeking, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, sovereign wealth fund, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, too big to fail, trade liberalization, urban planning, web of trust, zero-sum game

., 120–21 business zones, 150 ‘Butskellism’, 49* Cadbury, 77 Cameron, David, 205 Canada, 22 capitalism competition, 21, 25, 56, 85, 86 ‘creative destruction’ concept, 21 current failings of, 4–5, 17, 25, 42, 45–6, 48, 201, 212–13 and decline of social trust, 5, 45–6, 48, 55, 59, 69 as essential for prosperity, 4–5, 18, 20, 25, 201 and families, 37 first mover advantage, 148 and greed, 10, 19, 25–7, 28, 31, 42, 58, 69, 70†, 81, 95 and Marx’s alienation, 17–18 and oppositional identities, 56, 74 vested interests, 85, 86, 135–6, 207 see also firms Catalan secession movement, 58 causality, narrative of, 33, 34 CDC Group, 122, 149* Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Canterbury Tales, 129 Chicago, University of, 166 childhood adoption, 110–11 children in ‘care’, 104, 105, 110, 111, 157 children ‘reared by wolves’, 31–2 cognitive development, 105–6, 170, 175–6 fostering, 104, 105, 111 identity acquisition, 32 impact of parental unemployment, 160–61 learning of norms, 33, 35, 107–8 non-cognitive development, 105, 163, 169–70, 171–3, 174, 175–6 ‘rights of the child’ concept, 103–4 in single-parent families, 101, 102, 104–5, 155, 160 trusted mentors, 169–70 see also family China, 118–19, 149, 203 Chira, Susan, 52–3 Chirac, Jacques, 14, 120–21 Christian Democratic parties, 5, 14 Citigroup, 186 Clark, Gregory, The Son Also Rises, 106–8 Clarke, Ken, 206 class divide assortative mating among new elite, 99–100, 154, 188–9 author’s proposed policies, 19–20, 21, 183–4, 187–8, 190, 207–8 and breadth of social networks, 169 and Brexit vote, 5, 196 and cognitive development, 105–6 divergence dynamic, 7, 18, 48, 98–108, 154–61, 170–71, 172–80, 181–90 ‘elite’ attitudes to less-well educated, 4, 5, 12, 16, 53, 59, 60–61, 63 and family life, 20, 98, 99–106, 157–62 and fracture to skill-based identities, 3–5, 51–6, 78 and home ownership, 68, 181, 182–3 need for socially mixed schools, 164–5 and non-cognitive development, 105, 163, 169–70, 171–3, 174, 175–6 and parental hothousing, 100, 101, 105–6 post-school skills development, 170–76 pre-emptive support for stressed families, 20, 155, 157–60, 161–3, 208 and reading in pre-teens, 167–9 and recent populist insurgencies, 5 retirement insecurities, 179–80 and two-parent families, 155–6, 157 unravelling of shared identity, 15, 50, 51–6, 57*, 58–61, 63, 215 see also white working class climate change, 44, 67, 119 Clinton, Hillary, 5, 9, 203–4 coalition government, UK (2010–15), 206 cognitive behavioral therapy, 160 Cold War, 113, 114, 116 end of, 5–6, 115, 203 Colombia, 120 communism, 32, 36–7, 85–6 communitarian values care, 9, 11, 12, 16, 29, 31, 42, 116 fairness, 11, 12, 14, 16, 29, 31, 34, 43, 116, 132–3 hierarchy, 11, 12, 16, 38–9, 43, 99–100 left’s abandonment of, 16, 214* liberty, 11, 12, 16, 42 loyalty, 11, 12, 16, 29, 31, 34, 42–3, 116 new vanguard’s abandonment of, 9, 11–13, 14–15, 16, 17, 49–50, 113, 116–18, 121, 214 post-war settlement, 8–9, 49, 113–16, 122 and reciprocal obligations, 8–9, 11–12, 13, 14, 19, 33, 34, 40–41, 48–9, 201, 212–15 roots in nineteenth-century co-operatives, 8, 13, 14, 201 sanctity, 11, 16, 42–3 Smith and Hume, 21–2† values and reason, 29–30, 43–4 see also belonging, narrative of; obligation, narrative of; reciprocity; social democracy Companies Act, UK, 82 comparative advantage, 20, 120, 192, 194 Confederation of British Industry (CBI), 79 conservatism, 30, 36 Conservative Party, 14, 49, 205, 206 contraception, 98–9, 102 co-operative movement, 8, 13, 14, 201 Corbyn, Jeremy, 202, 204–5 Crosland, Anthony, The Future of Socialism, 17, 18, 19 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 114 debutante balls, 188 Denmark, 63, 178, 214* Descartes, Rene, 31 Detroit, 128, 129, 144 Deutsche Bank, 78, 185 development banks, 149–50 Development Corporations Act (1981), 150 Dickens, Charles, Bleak House, 108 digital networks detachment of narratives from place, 38, 61–2 economies of scale, 86–7 global e-utilities, 37, 38, 86–7, 89–90, 91 social media, 27, 61, 87, 173, 207, 215 value-based echo-chambers, 38, 61–2, 64–5, 212, 215 Draghi, Mario, 153 Dundee Project, 161–2 Dutch Antilles, 193 East Asia, 147, 192 eBay, 87 economic man, 10, 19, 25, 26–7, 31, 34–5, 196, 209, 210, 215 economic rent theory, 19, 91, 133–9, 140–44, 186–8, 192, 195, 207 education and collapse of social democracy, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 63 and empathy, 12 and European identity, 57* expansion of universities, 99–100, 127 and growth of the middle class, 100 inequality in spending per pupil, 167 mis-ranking of cognitive and non-cognitive training, 174–6 need for socially mixed schools, 164–5 post-school skills development, 170–76 pre-school, 105–6, 163–4 quality of teaching, 165–6 reading in pre-teens, 167–9 and shocks to norms of ethical family, 98, 99–105 symbols of cognitive privilege, 175 teaching methods, 166–7 vocational education, 171–6 zero-sum aspects of success, 189 electoral systems, 206 Emerging Market economies, 129, 130–31 empires, age of, 113 The Enigma of Reason (Mercier and Sperber), 29 enlightened self-interest, 33, 40*, 97–8, 101, 109, 112, 113, 114, 117, 184, 213 Enron, 80 ethnicity, 3, 20, 56, 62, 64, 65, 211 Europe Christian Democrats in, 5, 14 class divides, 3, 4, 5, 125 decline in social trust, 45 and knowledge industries, 192 metropolitan-provincial divides, 3, 4, 125 and migration, 121, 197 and shared identity, 57–8, 64, 66, 125 social democracy in, 8–9, 49, 50 European Central Bank, 153 European Commission, 57 European Investment Bank, 149 European Union (EU, formerly EEC), 66, 67, 114, 115, 116, 117 Brexit vote (June 2016), 5, 125, 131, 196, 215 Eurozone crisis, 153 public policy as predominantly national, 212 universities in, 170 evolutionary theory, 31, 33†, 35–6, 66 externalities, 145–6 Facebook, 87 Fairbairn, Carolyn, 79 fake news, 33–4 family, 19 African norms, 110–11 benefits for single parents, 160 Clark’s ‘family culture’, 107–8 entitled individual vs family obligation, 99–103, 104–6, 108–9, 210 equality within, 39, 154 erosion of mutual obligations, 101–2, 210 identity acquisition, 32 ideologies hostile to, 36–7 impact of unemployment/poverty, 4, 7, 160–61 importance of, 36, 37 and increased longevity, 110, 161 in-kind support for parenting, 161 nuclear dynastic family, 102, 110, 154 one-parent families, 101, 102, 104–5, 155, 160 parental hothousing, 100, 101, 105–6 post-1945 ethical family, 97–8, 99–105, 108, 210 pressures on young parents, 159–60, 161–3 and public policy, 21, 154–5, 157–70, 171–3, 177, 209 and reciprocity, 97–8, 101, 102 shocks to post-1945 norms, 98–105 shrinking of extended family, 101–2, 109–10, 161 social maternalism concept, 154–5, 157–8, 190 two-parent families as preferable, 155–6, 157 see also childhood; marriage Farage, Nigel, 202 fascism, 6, 13*, 47, 113 Federalist papers, 82 feminism, 13, 99 Fillon, François, 204 financial crisis, global (2008–9), 4, 34, 71, 160 no bankers sent to gaol for, 95–6 financial sector, 77–9, 80–81, 83–5 asymmetric information, 88, 185 co-ordination role, 145–6 economies of scale, 87 localized past of, 84, 146 toxic rivalries in, 189 trading in financial assets, 78–9, 84, 184–5, 186, 187 Finland, 63 firms, 19, 21, 69 CEO pay, 77–8, 79, 80–81 competition, 21, 25, 56, 85, 86 control/accountability of, 75–81, 82–5 cultures of good corporate behaviour, 94–5 demutualization in UK, 83, 84 deteriorating behaviour of, 18, 69, 78, 80–81 economies of scale, 17–18, 37, 86–7, 88–91, 126–7, 144–5, 146–7 ethical, 70–71, 172, 209–10 and ethical citizens, 93–4, 95, 96 failure/bankruptcy of, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75–6 flattening of hierarchies in, 39 Friedman’s profit nostrum, 69–70, 71, 76, 78–9, 210 global e-utilities, 37, 38, 86–7, 89–90, 91 ideologies hostile to, 37, 81 low productivity-low cost business model, 173–4 ‘maximising of shareholder value’, 69–70, 76, 79, 82–3 ‘mutuals’, 83 need for bankslaughter crime, 95–6 new network features, 86–7 policing the public interest, 93–4 public dislike of, 69, 95–6 public interest representation on boards, 92–3 regulation of, 87–90, 174 reward linked to short-term performance, 77, 78–81 sense of purpose, 39–40, 41, 70–75, 80–81, 93–4, 96 shareholder control of, 76–7, 79, 80, 82–3 societal role of, 81–2, 92–3, 96, 209–10 utility services, 86, 89, 90 worker interests on boards, 83, 84–5 Fisher, Stephen, 196* Five Star, 125 Ford, 70, 71 France, 7, 63, 67, 114 écoles maternelles in, 164 labour market in, 176, 189 pensions policy, 180 presidential election (2017), 5, 9, 204 universities in, 170 working week reduced in, 189 Frederiksen, Mette, 214* Friedman, Milton, 15, 69–70, 71, 76 The Full Monty (film), 7, 129 G20 group, 118 G7 group, 118 G8 group, 194 Ganesh, Janan, 125 Geldof, Bob, 169 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 114, 115, 116–17 General Motors (GM), 72, 73–4, 75, 86, 172 geographic divide, 3, 16, 18, 19, 215 author’s proposed policies, 19, 207 and Brexit vote, 125, 196 broken cities, 4, 7, 19, 48, 125, 129–30, 147–9 business zones, 150 co-ordination problem over new clusters, 145–50, 207 decline of provincial cities, 4, 7, 19, 48, 125, 129–30, 131, 144–5 economic forces driving, 126–30 and education spending, 167 first mover disadvantage, 148–9 ideological responses, 130–32 investment promotion agencies, 150–51 and local universities, 151–2 and metropolitan disdain, 125 need for political commitment, 153 as recent and reversible, 152–3 regenerating provincial cities, 19, 142, 144–50 and spending per school pupil, 167 widening of since 1980, 125 George, Henry, 133–6, 141 Germany 2017 election, 5, 205 local banks in, 146 Nazi era, 57 and oppositional identities, 56–7 oversight of firms in, 76 post-war industrial relations policy, 94–5 and post-war settlement, 114 re-emergence of far right, 5 rights of refugees in, 14 ‘social market economy’, 49 TVET in, 171–2, 174, 175 vereine (civil society groups), 181 worker interests on boards, 84–5 global divide, 7–8, 20, 59–60, 191–8, 208 globalization, 4, 18, 20, 126–7, 128, 129, 130–31, 191–8 Goldman Sachs, 70†, 83–4, 94 Google, 87 Great Depression (1930s), 114 Green, Sir Philip, 80 Grillo, Beppe, 202 ‘Grimm and Co’, Rotherham, 168–9 Gunning, Jan Willem, 165 Haidt, Jonathan, 11–12, 14, 16, 28, 29, 132–3 Haiti, 208 Halifax Building Society, 8, 84 Hamon, Benoît, 9, 204 Harvard-MIT, 7, 152 Hershey, 77 HIV sufferers in poor countries, 120–21 Hofer, Norbert, 202 Hollande, Francois, 9, 204 Hoover, 148 housing market, 181–4 buy-to-let, 182, 183, 184 and lawyers, 187 mortgages, 84, 176, 182, 183–4 proposed stock transfer from landlords to tenants, 184 Hume, David, 14, 21, 21–2†, 29 Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World (1932), 5 Iceland, 63 Identity Economics, 50–56, 65–7 ideologies based on hatred of ‘other’ part of society, 43, 56, 213, 214 ‘end of history’ triumphalism, 6, 43–4 hostile to families, 36–7 hostile to firms, 37, 81 hostile to the state, 37–8 and housing policy, 183 and migration, 198 New Right, 14–15, 26, 81, 129 norms of care and equality, 116, 132–3 polarization of politics, 38, 63, 202–5 pragmatic eschewal of, 17, 18, 21, 22, 29–30 and principle of reason, 9, 13, 14, 15, 21, 43 Rawlsian vanguard, 13–14, 30, 49–50, 53, 67, 112, 113, 201, 202, 203, 214 return of left-right confrontation, 5, 6, 81, 202–5 and rights, 12–14, 44, 112 seduction of, 6 and twentieth century’s catastrophes, 5–6, 22 views on an ethical world, 112 see also Marxism; rights ideology; Utilitarianism IFC (International Finance Corporation), 122 Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), 69–70, 75 India, 118–19 individualism entitled individual vs family obligation, 99–103, 104–6, 108–9, 210 fulfilment through personal achievement, 28, 99, 100–101, 102, 103, 108–9, 213 New Right embrace of, 14–15, 53, 81, 214–15 as rampant in recent decades, 19, 214–15 reciprocity contrasted with, 44–5 and withering of spatial community, 61–2 industrial revolution, 8, 126 inequality and assortative mating among new elite, 99–100, 154, 188–9 and divergence dynamic, 7, 18, 48, 98–108, 154–61, 170–71, 172–80, 181–90 and financial sector, 185 and geographic divide, 3, 7–8, 20, 125 global divide, 7–8, 20, 59–60, 191–8, 208 persistence of, 106–8 Rawls’ disadvantaged groups, 3–4, 13–14, 16, 50, 53, 121, 203–4, 214 and revolt against social democracy, 15–16 rising levels of, 3–5, 106, 125, 181, 190 and Utilitarian calculus, 132 innovation, 185–6, 208 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 114, 117 international relations achievement of post-WW2 leaders, 113–16, 122 building of shared identity, 114–16 core concepts of ethical world, 112, 113–14 erosion of ethical world, 116–18 expansion of post-war ‘clubs’, 116–18, 210 new, multipurpose club needed, 118–19, 122 and patriotism narrative, 67 situation in 1945, 112–13, 122 investment promotion agencies, 150–51 Irish Investment Authority, 151 Islamist terrorism, 42, 212, 213 Italy, 4, 58, 160 James, William, 29* Janesville (US study), 178 Japan, 72–3, 94, 101, 149, 192 John Lewis Partnership, 83, 172 Johnson, Robert Wood, 39–40, 72 Johnson & Johnson, 39–40, 41, 72, 74*, 79 Jolie, Angelina, 112 JP Morgan, 71* Juppé, Alain, 204 Kagame, Paul, 22 Kay, John, 82*, 84, 211 Keynes, John Maynard, 115 General Theory (1936), 47 kindergartens, 163 Knausgård, Karl Ove, 173 knowledge revolution, 126, 127–8 Kranton, Rachel, 35, 50–51 Krueger, Anne, 141 Krugman, Paul, 47 labour market flexicurity concept, 178 function of, 176–7 and globalization, 192, 194–6 and immigration, 194, 195, 196 investment in skills, 176–7 job security, 176, 177 and low productivity-low cost business model, 173–4 minimum wage strategies, 147, 174, 176, 180 need for reductions in working hours, 189 need for renewed purpose in work, 190 regulation of, 174, 189 and robotics revolution, 178–9 role of state, 177–8, 189 see also unemployment Labour Party, 49, 206 Marxist take-over of, 9, 204–5 language, 31, 32, 33, 39–40, 54, 57 Larkin, Philip, 99, 156 lawyers, 13–14, 45 Buiter’s three types, 186 and shell companies, 193, 194 surfeit of, 186–7 taxation of private litigation proposal, 187–8 Le Pen, Marine, 5, 63, 125, 202, 204 leadership and belief systems, 41–2, 43, 95 building of shared identity, 39–42, 49, 68, 114–16 changing role of, 39 and flattening of hierarchies, 39 and ISIS, 42 political achievements in post-war period, 113–16, 122 and pragmatist philosophy, 22 and shared purpose in firms, 39–40, 41, 71–5 strategic use of morality, 39–40, 41 transformation of power into authority, 39, 41–2, 57 League of Nations, 116 Lee Kwan Yew, 22, 147 Lehman Brothers, 71*, 76 liberalism, 30 libertarianism, 12–13, 15 New Right failures, 16, 21 Silicon Valley, 37–8 lobbying, 85, 141 local government, 182, 183 London, 3, 125, 127–8, 165–6, 193 impact of Brexit on, 131, 196 migration to, 195–6 Macron, Emmanuel, 67, 204 Manchester terror attack (2017), 212, 213 market economy, 19, 20, 21, 25, 48 and collapse of clusters, 129–30, 144–5 failure over pensions, 180 failure over skill-formation, 173–4 mutual benefit from exchange, 28 market fundamentalists, 147, 150 marriage assortative mating, 35, 99–100, 154, 188–9 cohabitation prior to, 99, 100 as ‘commitment technology’, 109, 155–6 divorce rates, 98, 99, 100–101, 102, 103 and female oppression, 156 religious associations, 109, 156 and rent-seeking, 141 ‘shotgun weddings’, 103 and unemployment, 103 Marxism, 13*, 26, 30, 43, 47, 113, 203, 214 alienation concept, 17–18 and the family, 36–7 late capitalism concept, 6 takeover of Labour Party, 9, 204–5 and ‘useful idiots’, 205* view of the state, 37 Maxwell, Robert, 80 May, Theresa, 205 Mayer, Colin, 18, 70 media celebrities, 6, 112, 204 Mélenchon, Jean-Luc, 5, 202, 204 mental health, 157, 158–9, 162 Mercier, Hugo, 29 meritocratic elites, 3–4, 5, 12–17, 20 Rawlsian vanguard, 13–14, 30, 49–50, 53, 67, 112, 113, 201, 202, 203, 214 Utilitarian vanguard, 9–10, 11–13, 15–16, 18, 52, 53, 59, 66–7, 209 see also Utilitarianism WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and Developed), 3–4, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 116, 121, 133, 214* and white working class, 5, 16 Merkel, Angela, 14, 205 metropolitan areas, 3, 4, 7, 16, 19, 48, 125 co-ordination problem over new clusters, 145–50, 207 economies of agglomeration, 18, 19, 129, 131, 133–44, 195, 196, 207 gains from public goods, 134–5, 138–9 migration to, 195–6 political responses to dominance of, 131–2 scale and specialization in, 126–8, 130, 144–5 and taxation, 131, 132–43, 187, 207 Middle East, 192 Middleton, Kate, 188–9 migration, 121, 194–8, 203 as driven by absolute advantage, 20, 194–5, 208–9 and housing market, 182, 183 Mill, John Stuart, 9–10 minimum wage strategies, 147, 174, 176, 180 Mitchell, Andrew, 188 Mitchell, Edson, 78 modernist architecture, 12 Monarch Airlines, 75 monopolies, natural, 86–7, 88 and asymmetric information, 88, 90 auctioning of rights, 88–9 taxation of, 91–2 utility services, 86, 89, 90 ‘moral hazard’, 179 morality and ethics deriving from values not reason, 27, 28–9, 42–3 and economic man, 10, 19, 25, 26–7, 31, 34–5 and empathy, 12, 27 evolution of ethical norms, 35–6 Haidt’s fundamental values, 11–12, 14, 16, 29, 42–3, 132–3 and market economy, 21, 25, 28, 48 and modern capitalism, 25–6 and new elites, 3–4, 20–21 Adam Smith’s theories, 26–8 use for strategic purposes, 39–40, 41 and Utilitarianism, 9–10, 11, 14, 16, 55, 66–7, 209, 214 motivated reasoning, 28–9, 36, 86, 144, 150, 167 Museveni, President, 121 narratives and childhood mentors, 169–70 and consistency, 41, 67, 81, 96 conveyed by language, 31, 33, 57 detachment from place by e-networks, 38, 61–2 and heyday of social democracy, 49 and identity formation, 32 mis-ranking of cognitive and non-cognitive training, 174–6 moral norms generated from, 33, 97–8 and purposive action, 33–4, 40–41, 42, 68 and schools, 165 of shared identity, 53–6, 81 use of by leaders, 39–42, 43, 49, 80–81 see also belonging, narrative of; obligation, narrative of; purposive action National Health Service (NHS), 49, 159 national identity and citizens-of-the-world agenda, 59–61, 63, 65 contempt of the educated for, 53, 59, 60–61, 63 and distinctive common culture, 37†, 63 established in childhood, 32 esteem from, 51–3 fracture to skill-based identities, 3–5, 51–6, 78 legacy of Second World War, 15, 16 methods of rebuilding, 64, 65–8, 211–15 and new nationalists, 62–3, 67, 203, 204, 205 patriotism narrative, 21, 63, 67, 215 place-based identity, 51–6, 65–8, 211–14, 215 and polarization of society, 54–5 and secession movements, 58 unravelling of shared identity, 15, 50, 51–6, 57*, 58–61, 63, 215 and value identity, 64–5 National Review, 16 nationalism, 34 based on ethnicity or religion, 62–3 capture of national identity notion by, 62, 67, 215 and narratives of hatred, 56, 57, 58–9 and oppositional identities, 56–7, 58–9, 62–3, 68, 215 traditional form of, 62 natural rights concept, 12, 13 Nestlé, 70, 71 Netherlands, 206 networked groups as arena for exchanging obligations, 28 and ‘common knowledge’, 32–3, 34, 54, 55, 66, 212 decline of civil society networks/ groups, 180–81 and early man, 31 evolution of ethical norms, 35–6 exclusion of disruptive narratives, 34 families as, 97–8 leadership’s use of narratives, 39–42, 49 narratives detached from place, 38, 61–2 value-based echo-chambers, 38, 61–2, 64–5, 212, 215 see also family; firms Neustadt, Richard, 39* New York City, 5, 125, 128, 143–4, 193 NGOs, 71, 118, 157–8 ‘niche construction’, 35*, 36* Nigeria, 58 Noble, Diana, 149* Norman, Jesse, 21–2† North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 114, 115, 116, 117 North Korea, 85 Northern League, Italy, 58 Norway, 63, 206, 208–9 Nozick, Robert, 14–15 obligation, narrative of, 11, 12–13, 16, 19, 29, 33 and collapse of social democracy, 53–6, 210 entitled individual vs family obligation, 99–103, 104–6, 108–9, 210 in ethical world, 112, 113–22 and expansion of post-war ‘clubs’, 117–18, 210 fairness and loyalty instilled by, 34 heyday of the ethical state, 48–9, 68, 196–7 and immigration, 196–7 and leadership, 39, 40–41, 49 ‘oughts’ and ‘wants’, 27, 28, 33, 43 and secession movements, 58 and Adam Smith, 27, 28 see also reciprocity; rescue, duty of oil industry, 192 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 114–15, 125 Orwell, George, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), 5 Oxford university, 7, 70, 100 Paris, 5, 7, 125, 128, 174, 179 patriotism, 21, 63, 67, 215 Pause (NGO), 157–8 pension funds, 76–7, 79–81, 179–80, 185 Pew Research Center, 169 Pinker, Steven, 12* Plato, The Republic, 9, 11, 12, 15, 43 Playboy magazine, 99 political power and holders of economic rent, 135–6, 144 leadership selection systems in UK, 204–5, 206 minimum age for voting, 203 need to restore the centre, 205–7 polarization within polities, 38, 63, 202–5 polities as spatial, 38, 61–2, 65, 68, 211–13 and shared identity, 8, 57–61, 65, 114–16, 211–15 transformation into authority, 41–2, 57–8 trust in government, 4, 5, 48, 59, 210, 211–12 populism, political, 6, 22, 43, 58–9, 202 and geographic divide, 130–31 headless-heart, 30, 60, 112, 119, 121, 122 media celebrities, 6, 112, 204 pragmatism as opposed to, 30 and US presidential election (2016), 5, 203–4 pragmatist philosophy, 6, 9, 19, 21, 21–2†, 46, 201 author’s proposed policies, 19–20, 21, 207–15 limitations of, 30 and Macron in France, 204 and migration, 198 and post-war settlement, 113, 116, 122 and social democracy, 18, 201–2 successful leaders, 22 and taxation, 132, 207 and teaching methods, 166–7 values and reason, 29–30, 43–4 proportional representation, 206 protectionism, 113, 114, 130–31 psychology, social, 16, 54 co-ordination problems, 32–3 esteem’s trumping of money, 174 Haidt’s fundamental values, 11–12, 14, 16, 29, 42–3, 132–3 narratives, 31, 32, 33–4, 38, 39–42, 49, 53–6 norms, 33, 35–6, 39, 42–3, 44, 97–8, 107–8 ‘oughts’ and ‘wants’, 27, 28, 33, 43 personal achievement vs family obligation, 99–103, 104–6, 108–9, 210 ‘theory of mind’, 27, 55 Public Choice Theory, 15–16 public goods, 134–5, 138–9, 186, 202, 213 public ownership, 90 Puigdemont, Carles, 202 purposive action, 18, 21, 25, 26, 34, 40*, 53–4, 68, 112, 211–13 autonomy and responsibility, 38–9 and belonging narrative, 68, 98, 114, 211, 212, 213 in Bhutan, 37† decline in ethical purpose across society, 48 and heyday of social democracy, 47, 49, 114 and narratives, 33–4, 40–41, 42, 68 in workplace, 190 Putnam, Robert, 45–6, 106 Bowling Alone, 181 ‘quality circles’, 72–3 Rajan, Raghuram, 178 Rand, Ayn, 32 rational social woman, 31, 50–51, 196 Rawls, John, 13–14 Reagan, Ronald, 15, 26 Reback, Gary, 90 reciprocity, 9, 19, 31, 212–15 and belonging, 25, 40–41, 49, 53–6, 67, 68, 98, 181, 182, 210–11, 212–13 and collapse of social democracy, 11, 14, 53–6, 58–61, 201, 210 and corporate behaviour, 95 in ethical world, 112, 113–15, 116 and expansion of post-war ‘clubs’, 117–18, 210 fairness and loyalty as supporting, 29, 31, 34 and the family, 97–8, 101, 102 and geographic divide, 125 heyday of the ethical state, 48–9, 68, 96, 196–7, 201 and ISIS, 42 Macron’s patriotism narrative, 67 nineteenth-century co-operatives, 8 rights matched to obligations, 44–5 and three types of narrative, 33, 34, 40–41 transformation of power into authority, 39, 41–2, 57–8 Refuge (Betts and Collier), 27 refugees, 14, 27, 115, 119–20, 213 regulation, 87–90 and globalization, 193–4 of labour market, 174 religion, 56–7, 62–3, 109, 156 religious fundamentalism, 6, 30, 36–7, 212, 213, 215 rent-seeking concept, 140–41, 150, 186, 187–8, 195 rescue, duty of, 40, 54, 119–21, 210, 213 as instrument for ethical imperialism, 117–18, 210 as not matched by rights, 44, 45, 117 and post-war settlement, 113, 115–16 restoring and augmenting autonomy, 121–2 and stressed young families, 163 term defined, 27, 112 value of care as underpinning, 29 retirement pensions, 179–80 rights ideology and corresponding obligations, 44–5 emergence in 1970s, 12–14 human rights lobby, 112, 118, 118* individualism as rampant in recent decades, 19, 214–15 and lawyers, 13–14, 45 Libertarian use of, 12–13, 14–15 natural rights concept, 12, 13 and New Right, 12–13, 14–15, 53 Rawls’ disadvantaged groups, 3–4, 13–14, 16, 50, 53, 112, 121, 203–4, 214 ‘rights of the child’ concept, 103–4 and Utilitarian atate, 12–14 see also individualism Romania, communist, 32, 36 Rotherham, ‘Grimm and Co’, 168–9 rule of law, 138–9, 186 Rwanda, 22 Salmond, Alex, 202 Sandel, Michael, 105 Sanders, Bernie, 9, 64, 202, 203 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 204 Schultz, Martin, 14 Schumpeter, Joseph, 21* Scotland, 58 Seligman, Martin, 108–9 sexual behaviour birth-control pill, 98–9, 102 and class divide, 99, 102, 155–6 concept of sin, 156 and HIV, 121 and stigma, 156–8 sexual orientation, 3, 45 Sheffield, 7, 8, 126, 128–9, 131, 151, 168, 192 shell companies, 193, 194 Shiller, Robert, 34 Sidgwick, Henry, 55 Signalling, Theory of, 41, 43, 53, 63, 95 Silicon Valley, 37–8, 62, 145, 152, 164 Singapore, 22, 147 Slovenia, 58 Smith, Adam, 14, 21, 21–2†, 174 and mutual benefit from exchange, 28 and pursuit of self- interest, 26–7, 40 on reason, 29 The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), 27, 28, 174 Wealth of Nations (1776), 26, 28, 174 Smith, Vernon, 28 social democracy ‘Butskellism’, 49* collapse of, 9, 11, 50, 51–6, 116–18, 201–2, 210 communitarian roots, 8–9, 11, 13, 14, 17, 48–9, 201 and group identities, 3–4, 13–14, 51–6 heyday of, 8–9, 15, 17, 47, 48–9, 68, 96, 196–7, 201, 210 and housing, 181–2 influence of Utilitarianism, 9, 10, 14, 16, 18, 49–50, 201, 203, 214 Libertarian challenge, 12–13, 14–15 New Right abandonment of, 14–15, 16, 26, 53 and Public Choice Theory, 15–16 replaced by social paternalism, 11–13, 49–50, 209–10 and rights ideology, 12–14 and secession movements, 58 shared identity harnessed by, 15, 196–7 unravelling of shared identity, 15, 50, 51–6, 57*, 58–61, 63, 215 and Utilitarianism, 214 social maternalism concept, 21, 154–5, 190 free pre-school education, 163–4 mentoring for children, 169–70, 208 support for stressed families, 20, 155, 157–60, 161–3, 208 social media, 27, 61, 87, 173, 207, 215 social paternalism backlash against, 11–13, 15–16 as cavalier about globalization, 20 and child-rearing/family, 105, 110, 154–5, 157, 158, 159, 160, 190, 209 replaces social democracy, 11–13, 49–50, 209–10 ‘rights of the child’ concept, 103–4 and Utilitarian vanguard, 9–10, 11–13, 15–16, 18, 66–7, 209 social services, 159 scrutiny role, 162 Solow, Robert, 141 Soros, George, 15* South Africa, 85 South Asia, 192 South Korea, 129, 130–31 South Sudan, 192 Soviet Union, 114, 115, 116, 203 Spain, 58, 160 specialization, 17–18, 36, 126–8, 130, 144–5, 192 Spence, Michael, 41, 53, 95 Sperber, Dan, 29 St Andrews University, 189 Stanford University, 145, 152 Starbucks, 193 the state, 19 ethical capacities of, 11, 20–21, 48–9 failures in 1930s, 47, 48 ideologies hostile to, 37–8 and pre-school education, 163–4 and prosperity, 37 public policy and job shocks, 177–8 public policy on the family, 21, 154–5, 157–70, 171–3, 177, 209 public-sector and co-ordination problem, 147–8 social maternalism policies, 21, 157, 190 Utilitarian takeover of public policy, 10–12, 13–14, 15–17, 18, 49–50, 113, 201 Stiglitz, Joseph, 56 Stoke-on-Trent, 129 Stonehenge, 64 Sudan, 8 Summers, Larry, 187 Sure Start programme, 164 Sutton, John, 151* Sweden, 178 Switzerland, 175, 206 Tanzania, 193 taxation and corporate globalization, 193, 194 of economic rents, 91–2, 187–8 ethics and efficiency, 132–43 on financial transactions, 187 generational differences in attitudes, 59 Henry George’s Theorem, 133–6, 141 heyday of the ethical state, 49 issues of desert, 132–3, 134–9 and the metropolis, 131, 132–43, 187, 207 and migration, 197 of natural monopolies, 91–2 ‘optimal’, 10 of private litigation in courts, 187–8 and reciprocity, 54, 55, 59 redesign of needed, 19 redistributive, 10, 11, 14, 49, 54, 55, 60, 197 of rents of agglomeration, 19, 132–44, 207 social maternalism policies, 21, 157 substantial decline in top rates, 55 tax havens, 62 Venables-Collier theory, 136–9 Teach First programme, 165–6 technical vocational education and training (TVET), 171–6 technological change, 4 robotics revolution, 178–9 and withering of spatial community, 61–2 see also digital networks telomeres, 155–6 Tepperman, Jonathan, The Fix, 22 Thatcher, Margaret, 15, 26 Thirty Years War, 56–7 Tirole, Jean, 177, 178 Toyota, 72–3, 74, 94, 172 trade unions, 173, 174, 176 Troubled Families Programme (TFP), 162 Trudeau, Pierre, 22 Trump, Donald, 5, 9, 63, 64, 86, 125, 136, 202, 204, 206, 215 Uber, 87 unemployment in 1930s, 47 and collapse of industry, 7, 103, 129, 192 impact on children, 160–61 older workers, 4, 103, 213 retraining schemes, 178 in USA, 160 young people, 4 Unilever, 70, 71 United Kingdom collapse of heavy industry, 7, 103, 129, 192 extreme politics in, 5 and falling life expectancy, 4 financial sector, 80, 83, 84–5 IMF bail-out (1976), 115 local banks in past, 146 northern England, 3, 7, 8, 84, 126, 128–9, 131, 151, 168, 192 shareholder control of firms, 76–7, 79, 80, 82–3 statistics on firms in, 37 universities in, 170, 172, 175* vocational education in, 172, 175† widening of geographic divide, 125 United Nations, 65, 112 ‘Club of 77’, 116 Security Council, 116 UNHCR, 115 United States breakdown of ethical family, 104–5 broken cities in, 129, 130 extreme politics in, 5, 63 and falling life expectancy, 4 financial sector, 83–4, 186 and global e-utilities, 89–90 growth in inequality since 1980, 125 heyday of the ethical state, 49 and knowledge industries, 192 labour market in, 176, 178 local banks in past, 146 oversight of firms in, 76 pessimism in, 5, 45–6 presidential election (2016), 5, 9, 203–4 Public Interest Companies, 93 public policy as predominantly national, 212 ‘rights of the child’ concept in, 103–4 Roosevelt’s New Deal, 47 statistics on firms in, 37 taxation in, 143–4, 144* unemployment in, 160 universities in, 170, 172, 173 weakening of NATO commitment, 117 universities in broken cities, 151–2 in EU countries, 170 expansion of, 99–100, 127 knowledge clusters at, 127, 151–2 low quality vocational courses, 172–3 in UK, 170, 172, 175* in US, 170, 172, 173 urban planning, post-war, 11–12 Utilitarianism, 19, 30, 49–50, 55, 108, 112, 121, 210–11 backlash against, 11–13, 201, 202 belonging as absent from discourse, 16, 59, 66–7, 210–11 care as key value, 12 and consumption, 10, 11, 16, 19–20, 209 equality as key value, 12, 13, 14, 15, 116, 132–3, 214 incorporated into economics, 10–11, 13–14, 16 influence on social democrats, 9, 10, 14, 16, 18, 49–50, 201, 203, 214 origins of, 9–10 paternalistic guardians, 9–10, 11–13, 66–7, 210 takeover of public policy, 10–12, 13–14, 15–17, 18, 49–50, 113, 201 and taxation, 10, 132*, 133 vanguard’s switch of identity salience, 52, 53, 59 Valls, Manuel, 204 Venables, Tony, 18, 136, 191* Venezuela, 120, 214 vested interests, 85–6, 135–6, 165, 166, 207 Volkswagen, 74–5 Walmart, 87 Warsi, Baroness Sayeeda, 65 Wedgwood, Josiah, 129 welfare state, 9, 48–9 unlinked from contributions, 14 well-being and happiness belonging and esteem, 16, 25, 27, 29, 31–3, 34, 42, 51–6, 97–8, 174 entitled individual vs family obligation, 108–9 and financial success, 26, 94 ‘ladder of life’, 25* poverty in Africa, 37 reciprocity as decisive for, 31 Westminster, Duke of, 136 white working class ‘elite’ attitudes to, 4, 5, 16 falling life expectancy, 4, 16 pessimism of, 5 William, Prince, 188–9 Williams, Bernard, 55* Wittgenstein, 62, 63 Wolf, Alison, 52–3, 155 World Bank, 115, 117, 118, 118*, 122 World Food Programme, 115 World Health Organization, 115 World Trade Organization (WTO), 116–17 Yugoslavia, 58 Zingales, Luigi, 178 Zuma, Jacob, 85 Copyright THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM.


pages: 292 words: 85,151

Exponential Organizations: Why New Organizations Are Ten Times Better, Faster, and Cheaper Than Yours (And What to Do About It) by Salim Ismail, Yuri van Geest

23andMe, 3D printing, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, anti-fragile, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, behavioural economics, Ben Horowitz, bike sharing, bioinformatics, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, Blue Ocean Strategy, book value, Burning Man, business intelligence, business process, call centre, chief data officer, Chris Wanstrath, circular economy, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive bias, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, commoditize, corporate social responsibility, cross-subsidies, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, dark matter, data science, Dean Kamen, deep learning, DeepMind, dematerialisation, discounted cash flows, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fail fast, game design, gamification, Google Glasses, Google Hangouts, Google X / Alphabet X, gravity well, hiring and firing, holacracy, Hyperloop, industrial robot, Innovator's Dilemma, intangible asset, Internet of things, Iridium satellite, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, Joi Ito, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, Law of Accelerating Returns, Lean Startup, life extension, lifelogging, loose coupling, loss aversion, low earth orbit, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, market design, Max Levchin, means of production, Michael Milken, minimum viable product, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, NetJets, Network effects, new economy, Oculus Rift, offshore financial centre, PageRank, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, paypal mafia, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer model, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, Planet Labs, prediction markets, profit motive, publish or perish, radical decentralization, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, Ronald Coase, Rutger Bregman, Salesforce, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, skunkworks, Skype, smart contracts, Snapchat, social software, software is eating the world, SpaceShipOne, speech recognition, stealth mode startup, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, subscription business, supply-chain management, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, telepresence, telepresence robot, the long tail, Tony Hsieh, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, uber lyft, urban planning, Virgin Galactic, WikiLeaks, winner-take-all economy, X Prize, Y Combinator, zero-sum game

Starting with delivery vehicles and then taxis, predictions call for existing road capacity to increase 8-10 times once a critical mass of AVs is reached. Ridesharing is an intermediate step toward fully automated transportation, which may have a bigger visible impact on society than anything else, including sustainability, urban planning (almost no parking lots) and fewer traffic fatalities. Note that most of these technologies and trends were unknown a decade ago, and all were non-existent thirty years ago. No doubt even more technologies and trends, as yet unknown, will emerge in even the next five years as convergences and intersection points drive an ever-faster pace of change.


pages: 314 words: 83,631

Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet by Andrew Blum

air freight, cable laying ship, call centre, digital divide, Donald Davies, global village, Hibernia Atlantic: Project Express, if you build it, they will come, inflight wifi, invisible hand, John Markoff, Kevin Kelly, Leonard Kleinrock, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, Mercator projection, messenger bag, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, New Urbanism, packet switching, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, satellite internet, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, South of Market, San Francisco, Steve Crocker, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, undersea cable, urban planning, UUNET, WikiLeaks, zero-sum game

I knew that data centers which once occupied closets had expanded to fill whole floors of buildings; that floors had grown into subdivided warehouses; and that warehouses have transformed into purpose-built campuses, as in The Dalles. What had before been afterthoughts, physically speaking, had now acquired their own architecture; soon, they’d need urban planning. A data center was once like a closet, but now was more like a village. The ever-increasing size of my own appetite for the Internet made it clear why. What was less clear to me was where. What were these enormous buildings doing way up on the Columbia Plateau? The Internet’s efficiency at moving traffic—and the success of exchange points at serving as hubs for that traffic—has left the question of where data sleeps remarkably open-ended.


pages: 252 words: 80,636

Bureaucracy by David Graeber

a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airport security, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, banking crisis, barriers to entry, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, collateralized debt obligation, Columbine, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, David Graeber, Future Shock, George Gilder, High speed trading, hiring and firing, junk bonds, Kitchen Debate, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, means of production, music of the spheres, Neal Stephenson, new economy, obamacare, Occupy movement, Oklahoma City bombing, Parkinson's law, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, pneumatic tube, post-work, price mechanism, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, stock buybacks, technological determinism, transcontinental railway, union organizing, urban planning, zero-sum game

(Much of what was being called “international trade” in fact consisted merely of the transfer of materials back and forth between different branches of the same corporation.) Finally, one has to include the NGOs, which in many parts of the world come to provide many of the social services previously provided by government, with the result that urban planning in a city in Nepal, or health policy in a town in Nigeria, might well have been developed in offices in Zurich or Chicago. At the time, we didn’t talk about things in quite these terms—that “free trade” and “the free market” actually meant the creation of global administrative structures mainly aimed at ensuring the extraction of profits for investors, that “globalization” really meant bureaucratization.


pages: 262 words: 83,548

The End of Growth by Jeff Rubin

Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bakken shale, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, deal flow, decarbonisation, deglobalization, Easter island, energy security, eurozone crisis, Exxon Valdez, Eyjafjallajökull, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, flex fuel, Ford Model T, full employment, ghettoisation, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Hans Island, happiness index / gross national happiness, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, illegal immigration, income per capita, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jane Jacobs, Jevons paradox, Kickstarter, low interest rates, McMansion, megaproject, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, new economy, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, reserve currency, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, subprime mortgage crisis, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, traumatic brain injury, uranium enrichment, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, working poor, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

CHAPTER 6: THE DANISH RESPONSE this page: Information about Denmark’s environmental track record, including its level of carbon dioxide emissions since 1990, comes from figures available through the State of Green, a government-backed initiative to raise international awareness of the country’s green credentials (www.stateofgreen.com). this page: The argument for the relationship between urban population density and vibrant cities is well documented. Jane Jacobs, for one, argued convincingly against urban sprawl in her seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which has influenced thoughts on urban planning since its publication in 1961. CHAPTER 7: ZERO-SUM WORLD this page: The figures for Venezuela’s oil exports to the United States come from the EIA. US oil imports from Venezuela reached a high of 1.77 million barrels a day in 1997. (www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mttimusve2&f=a) this page: The figure for the number of licensed American drivers comes from the US Federal Highway Administration, an agency within the Department of Transportation (www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/onh2p4.htm).


pages: 361 words: 81,068

The Internet Is Not the Answer by Andrew Keen

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Airbnb, AltaVista, Andrew Keen, AOL-Time Warner, augmented reality, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Swan, Bob Geldof, Boston Dynamics, Burning Man, Cass Sunstein, Charles Babbage, citizen journalism, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, collective bargaining, Colonization of Mars, computer age, connected car, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, data science, David Brooks, decentralized internet, DeepMind, digital capitalism, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, Donald Davies, Downton Abbey, Dr. Strangelove, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, fail fast, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Filter Bubble, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Gehry, Frederick Winslow Taylor, frictionless, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, gentrification, gig economy, global village, Google bus, Google Glasses, Hacker Ethic, happiness index / gross national happiness, holacracy, income inequality, index card, informal economy, information trail, Innovator's Dilemma, Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Perry Barlow, Joi Ito, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Assange, Kevin Kelly, Kevin Roose, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, Kodak vs Instagram, Lean Startup, libertarian paternalism, lifelogging, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, Mary Meeker, Metcalfe’s law, military-industrial complex, move fast and break things, Nate Silver, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, new economy, Nicholas Carr, nonsequential writing, Norbert Wiener, Norman Mailer, Occupy movement, packet switching, PageRank, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Patri Friedman, Paul Graham, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer rental, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, Potemkin village, power law, precariat, pre–internet, printed gun, Project Xanadu, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, reality distortion field, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Metcalfe, Robert Solow, San Francisco homelessness, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Skype, smart cities, Snapchat, social web, South of Market, San Francisco, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, subscription business, TaskRabbit, tech bro, tech worker, TechCrunch disrupt, Ted Nelson, telemarketer, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, the long tail, the medium is the message, the new new thing, Thomas L Friedman, Travis Kalanick, Twitter Arab Spring, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber for X, uber lyft, urban planning, Vannevar Bush, warehouse robotics, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks, winner-take-all economy, work culture , working poor, Y Combinator

,” BigThink.com, December 12, 2013. 84 Thomas Schulz, “From Apple to Amazon: The New Monuments to Digital Domination,” Spiegel Online, November 29, 2013. 85 Brandon Bailey, “Mark Buys Four Houses Near His Palo Alto Home,” San Jose Mercury News, October 11, 2013. 86 Allison Arieff, “What Tech Hasn’t Learned from Urban Planning,” New York Times, December 13, 2013. 87 Charlotte Allen, “Silicon Chasm: The Class Divide on America’s Cutting Edge,” Weekly Standard, December 2, 2013. 88 Tom Foremski, “Fortune Asks ‘Why Does America Hate Silicon Valley?’,” Silicon Valley Watcher, October 4, 2013. Conclusion 1 Thomas Friedman, “The Square People, Part One,” New York Times, May 13, 2014.


pages: 327 words: 84,627

The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth by Jeremy Rifkin

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, autonomous vehicles, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bike sharing, blockchain, book value, borderless world, business cycle, business process, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, decarbonisation, digital rights, do well by doing good, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, failed state, general purpose technology, ghettoisation, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, high-speed rail, hydrogen economy, impact investing, information asymmetry, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, it's over 9,000, Joseph Schumpeter, means of production, megacity, megaproject, military-industrial complex, Network effects, new economy, off grid, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, planetary scale, prudent man rule, remunicipalization, renewable energy credits, rewilding, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, sharing economy, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, Steven Levy, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, union organizing, urban planning, vertical integration, warehouse automation, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

San Antonio, Texas, is America’s seventh-largest city in population, and its public electric utility, CPS Energy, is the largest municipally owned energy and electric utility in America and a prime contributor to the revenue of the city.58 In 2009, CPS Energy and the City of San Antonio invited our TIR team to collaborate on a master plan to transition the metropolitan region into the first zero-emission Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure in the United States. Our team included twenty-five experts from around the world and across the sectors of ICT, the renewable energy industry, global transport and logistics, architecture, construction, urban planning, and economic modeling and environmental design.59 Aurora Geis, the chairwoman of CPS, headed up their team, and Cris Eugster, at the time the sustainability director and now the COO of CPS, guided the day-to-day efforts. The roadmap process took place over several months. At the time, San Antonio was pivoting between two approaches to its energy future.


pages: 304 words: 80,143

The Autonomous Revolution: Reclaiming the Future We’ve Sold to Machines by William Davidow, Michael Malone

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, AlphaGo, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Automated Insights, autonomous vehicles, basic income, benefit corporation, bitcoin, blockchain, blue-collar work, Bob Noyce, business process, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, cashless society, citizen journalism, Clayton Christensen, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, deep learning, DeepMind, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, Filter Bubble, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, general purpose technology, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, gig economy, Gini coefficient, high-speed rail, holacracy, Hyperloop, income inequality, industrial robot, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, invention of movable type, invention of the printing press, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, license plate recognition, low interest rates, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, Network effects, new economy, peer-to-peer lending, QWERTY keyboard, ransomware, Richard Florida, Robert Gordon, robo advisor, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skinner box, Snapchat, speech recognition, streetcar suburb, Stuxnet, surveillance capitalism, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, trade route, Turing test, two and twenty, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, uranium enrichment, urban planning, vertical integration, warehouse automation, zero day, zero-sum game, Zipcar

Bill Dupor, “Stimulus Spending Had Spillover Effects, Thanks to Commuters,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, October 13, 2015, https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/october-2015/stimulus-spending-had-spillover-effects-thanks-to-commuters. 33. “Manufacturing Jobs May 2013,” College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, May 2013, http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/data/CUED_Manufacturing_Jobs_May2013.pdf; Josh Bivens, “Updated Employment Multipliers for the U.S. Economy (2003),” Economic Policy Institute, August 2003, http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1224/ML12243A398.pdf (accessed June 27, 2019); and “Understanding the Multiplier Effect,” Employment in New York State, April 2005, https://www.labor.ny.gov/stats/PDFs/enys0405.pdf (accessed June 27, 2019). 34.


pages: 269 words: 83,307

Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits by Kevin Roose

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Carl Icahn, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, deal flow, discounted cash flows, Donald Trump, East Village, eat what you kill, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, fixed income, forward guidance, glass ceiling, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, hedonic treadmill, information security, Jane Street, jitney, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, knowledge worker, Michael Milken, new economy, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, plutocrats, proprietary trading, Robert Shiller, selection bias, shareholder value, side project, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, tail risk, The Predators' Ball, too big to fail, two and twenty, urban planning, We are the 99%, work culture , young professional

Then, after learning about a host of other boring securities topics, they began studying for the Series 7, an examination required of all incoming analysts at large Wall Street firms, and the Series 63, a more specialized exam required for incoming traders, salespeople, and some capital markets workers. Only after passing both exams would they be allowed to do anything resembling an actual trade. Jeremy never expected to end up on Wall Street. He was interested in sustainability, urban planning, and politics, and he had been planning to become a mechanical engineer since he was a teenager, when he spent six months and several thousand dollars of his lawn-mowing money turbocharging his car. But talking with older members of the crew team at Columbia had convinced him to apply for banking internships.


pages: 308 words: 85,880

How to Fix the Future: Staying Human in the Digital Age by Andrew Keen

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Ada Lovelace, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Andrew Keen, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, Brewster Kahle, British Empire, carbon tax, Charles Babbage, computer age, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data is the new oil, death from overwork, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, Didi Chuxing, digital capitalism, digital map, digital rights, disinformation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, fake news, Filter Bubble, Firefox, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, gig economy, global village, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet Archive, Internet of things, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, job automation, Joi Ito, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, Menlo Park, Mitch Kapor, move fast and break things, Network effects, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Norbert Wiener, OpenAI, Parag Khanna, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, post-truth, postindustrial economy, precariat, Ralph Nader, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rutger Bregman, Salesforce, Sam Altman, Sand Hill Road, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart cities, Snapchat, social graph, software is eating the world, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, subscription business, surveillance capitalism, Susan Wojcicki, tech baron, tech billionaire, tech worker, technological determinism, technoutopianism, The Future of Employment, the High Line, the new new thing, Thomas L Friedman, Tim Cook: Apple, Travis Kalanick, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, WikiLeaks, winner-take-all economy, Y Combinator, Yogi Berra, Zipcar

Harris, who is the founder of the nonprofit Time Well Spent and was described by the Atlantic as “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience,” believes that there need to be “new ratings, new criteria, new design standards, new certification standards” to ensure against addictive products.34 When I interviewed Harris for my TechCrunchTV show, he told me that the three dominant digital platforms of our networked age—Apple, Google, and Facebook—have been explicitly designed to hook our attention. “We all live in a city called the attention economy,” Harris argued, citing the work of the urban planning pioneer Jane Jacobs and suggesting that the challenges of software developers are similar to those of urban planners. And if this twenty-first-century city is to be habitable, he said, then these platform owners need to take responsibility for the impact of their products on their users. Can the Internet Save the World?


pages: 289 words: 86,165

Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

"there is no alternative" (TINA), 15-minute city, AlphaGo, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-fragile, Asian financial crisis, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, butterfly effect, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon tax, central bank independence, clean water, cloud computing, colonial rule, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, David Graeber, Day of the Dead, deep learning, DeepMind, deglobalization, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, Edward Glaeser, Edward Jenner, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, failed state, financial engineering, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Floyd, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global reserve currency, global supply chain, green new deal, hiring and firing, housing crisis, imperial preference, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, invention of the wheel, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Snow's cholera map, junk bonds, lockdown, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, means of production, megacity, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, middle-income trap, Monroe Doctrine, Nate Silver, Nick Bostrom, oil shock, open borders, out of africa, Parag Khanna, Paris climate accords, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, popular capitalism, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, remote working, reserve currency, reshoring, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, social distancing, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, TED Talk, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, UNCLOS, universal basic income, urban planning, Washington Consensus, white flight, Works Progress Administration, zoonotic diseases

The idea is to make almost everywhere one might need to go in a typical day accessible by a short walk or bike ride. Grocery stores, work, parks, schools, cafes, gyms, doctors’ offices, all would be reachable within a quarter of an hour. It sounds pleasant and obvious enough, but the idea is revolutionary. “This really goes against a hundred years of urban planning orthodoxy, the idea being that you want to separate the functions of the city,” says Samuel Kling, an expert on cities at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The prevailing idea has long been to differentiate between the residential, commercial, entertainment, and industrial areas of a city.


The Ages of Globalization by Jeffrey D. Sachs

Admiral Zheng, AlphaGo, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, British Empire, Cape to Cairo, circular economy, classic study, colonial rule, Columbian Exchange, Commentariolus, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, DeepMind, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, domestication of the camel, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, European colonialism, general purpose technology, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, income per capita, invention of agriculture, invention of gunpowder, invention of movable type, invention of the steam engine, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, lockdown, Louis Pasteur, low skilled workers, mass immigration, Nikolai Kondratiev, ocean acidification, out of africa, packet switching, Pax Mongolica, precision agriculture, profit maximization, profit motive, purchasing power parity, rewilding, South China Sea, spinning jenny, Suez canal 1869, systems thinking, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, Turing machine, Turing test, urban planning, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, wikimedia commons, zoonotic diseases

Governance for sustainable development will require a tremendous amount of consensus building. That will be hard work. Vested interests and diverse perspectives and cultures often make it difficult to achieve a national much less a global consensus on how to make needed changes—for example, on energy systems, land use, and urban planning. Multistakeholder deliberations and consensus building efforts will be needed to implement the good ideas that arise through research and development. We will also need to hold governments and businesses accountable for their commitments to the SDGs. That kind of accountability will depend on accurate and timely metrics to track progress on the SDGs.


pages: 312 words: 84,421

This Chair Rocks: A Manifiesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Atul Gawande, Buckminster Fuller, clean water, cognitive dissonance, crowdsourcing, Day of the Dead, desegregation, Downton Abbey, fixed income, follow your passion, ghettoisation, Google Hangouts, hiring and firing, income inequality, informal economy, Internet of things, invention of the printing press, job satisfaction, labor-force participation, life extension, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, Naomi Klein, obamacare, old age dependency ratio, radical life extension, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, Snapchat, stem cell, the built environment, urban decay, urban planning, white picket fence, women in the workforce

They argue that although an aging society has the potential to strain public resources like Social Security and Medicare, “We are wealthy enough for an aging population.”6 The key is to make public spending more efficient, and to realign priorities. The list could go on and on. Thousands of smart people—experts in medicine, health and workforce policy, urban planning, education, economics, law, design, and the humanities—are thinking hard about how to meet these challenges. Now is the perfect time for an active collaboration between all these fields, and more, to figure out ways to support those scenarios. Confronting ageism is foundational to all of them.


Lonely Planet London City Guide by Tom Masters, Steve Fallon, Vesna Maric

Boris Johnson, British Empire, centre right, Charles Babbage, Clapham omnibus, congestion charging, Crossrail, dark matter, death from overwork, discovery of the americas, double helix, East Village, Edward Jenner, financial independence, first-past-the-post, Ford Model T, gentrification, ghettoisation, haute cuisine, Isaac Newton, James Bridle, John Snow's cholera map, Mahatma Gandhi, market design, Nelson Mandela, place-making, Russell Brand, South of Market, San Francisco, Stephen Fry, Stephen Hawking, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning, urban renewal, Winter of Discontent, young professional

Return to beginning of chapter BACKGROUND * * * HISTORY LONDINIUM LUNDENWIC THE NORMANS MEDIEVAL LONDON TUDOR LONDON ELIZABETHAN LONDON THE ENGLISH CIVIL WARS THE RESTORATION: PLAGUE & FIRE WREN’S LONDON GEORGIAN LONDON VICTORIAN LONDON FROM EMPIRE TO WORLD WAR WWII & THE BLITZ POSTWAR LONDON PUNK LONDON THE THATCHER & MAJOR YEARS BLAIR’S BRITAIN THE ERA OF BORIS ARTS LITERATURE THEATRE MUSIC VISUAL ARTS CINEMA & TELEVISION DANCE ENVIRONMENT & PLANNING THE LAND GREEN LONDON URBAN PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT GOVERNMENT & POLITICS LOCAL GOVERNMENT NATIONAL GOVERNMENT MEDIA NEWSPAPERS MAGAZINES NEW MEDIA BROADCASTING FASHION LANGUAGE TIMELINE * * * HISTORY London’s history has been a long and turbulent two millennia in which many different settlements and long-established villages slowly grew together to form the immense city around the Roman core that still marks London’s heart today.

Many Londoners also take pride in their private gardens, which range from handkerchief-sized backyards to sprawling mini-estates, some of which open for a few days each summer through the National Gardens Scheme (NGS; 01483-211535; www.ngs.org.uk; Hatchlands Park, East Clandon, Guildford GU4 7RT). Admission usually costs £3, which goes to charity. Return to beginning of chapter URBAN PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT Central London has been considerably smartened up in recent years, and former mayor Ken Livingstone spearheaded many bold and imaginative schemes to make the city a more pleasant place to live and visit. Olympic Village development in East London is currently seeing the concentration of efforts, and the communities living in pockets of the Lea River Valley have succumbed to the inevitable and been moved on (the area included several large Roma camps that had been there for decades).


pages: 285 words: 86,853

What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing by Ed Finn

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, algorithmic bias, algorithmic management, algorithmic trading, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, bitcoin, blockchain, business logic, Charles Babbage, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Claude Shannon: information theory, commoditize, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, DeepMind, disruptive innovation, Donald Knuth, Donald Shoup, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Elon Musk, Evgeny Morozov, factory automation, fiat currency, Filter Bubble, Flash crash, game design, gamification, Google Glasses, Google X / Alphabet X, Hacker Conference 1984, High speed trading, hiring and firing, Ian Bogost, industrial research laboratory, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, iterative process, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Conway, John Markoff, Just-in-time delivery, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, late fees, lifelogging, Loebner Prize, lolcat, Lyft, machine readable, Mother of all demos, Nate Silver, natural language processing, Neal Stephenson, Netflix Prize, new economy, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, PageRank, peer-to-peer, Peter Thiel, power law, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, Republic of Letters, ride hailing / ride sharing, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, SimCity, Skinner box, Snow Crash, social graph, software studies, speech recognition, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, supply-chain management, tacit knowledge, TaskRabbit, technological singularity, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Coming Technological Singularity, the scientific method, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transaction costs, traveling salesman, Turing machine, Turing test, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, urban planning, Vannevar Bush, Vernor Vinge, wage slave

All of these markets were, of course, already technological, but they were largely inaccessible to direct algorithmic management until the advent of smartphones and ubiquitous sensors enabling the close monitoring of human and financial resources. In terms of labor and surplus value, what the algorithms of Uber, Airbnb, and their cohort capitalize on is the slack infrastructure of modern consumption: empty cars, unused bedrooms, and under-employed people. According to UCLA urban planning researcher Donald Shoup, the average car is parked 95 percent of the time; why not exploit that latent resource?34 Viewed more broadly, the interface layer is a colonization of the quiet backwaters of contemporary capitalism—the remobilization of goods and spaces after they have already been consumed or deployed.


Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System by Alexander Betts, Paul Collier

Alvin Roth, anti-communist, centre right, charter city, corporate social responsibility, Donald Trump, failed state, Filter Bubble, global supply chain, informal economy, it's over 9,000, Kibera, mass immigration, megacity, middle-income trap, mobile money, Mohammed Bouazizi, mutually assured destruction, open borders, Peace of Westphalia, peer-to-peer, race to the bottom, randomized controlled trial, rising living standards, risk/return, school choice, special economic zone, structural adjustment programs, tail risk, trade route, urban planning, zero-sum game

Mahdi, whom one of us met on a visit in 2015, explained: ‘we thought it would be better than this. What can we do here? There is not even a market. Had we known, we would not have come. As soon as we are able to we will try to move to Amman.’12 UNHCR’s model for the future is, in reality, a vision of hell. Azraq defies almost every basic rule ever learned in urban planning. It is to refugee settlements what Brasilia, Chandigarh, Canberra, and Le Corbusier’s banlieues are to cities: a well-intentioned, high-modernist catastrophe. As the anthropologist James Scott compellingly argues, to be successful human settlements have to allow scope for organic development; they must allow individuals and communities the autonomy to freely define their own environment.13 Top-down planning strips away everything that sustains vibrant and inhabitable communities.


pages: 407 words: 90,238

Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work by Steven Kotler, Jamie Wheal

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Abraham Maslow, Alexander Shulgin, Alvin Toffler, augmented reality, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, blockchain, Burning Man, Colonization of Mars, crowdsourcing, David Brooks, delayed gratification, disruptive innovation, driverless car, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Future Shock, Hacker News, high batting average, hive mind, How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?, hype cycle, Hyperloop, impulse control, independent contractor, informal economy, Jaron Lanier, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly, Larry Ellison, lateral thinking, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii, McMansion, means of production, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, microdosing, military-industrial complex, mirror neurons, music of the spheres, off-the-grid, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, PIHKAL and TIHKAL, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, Ray Kurzweil, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, science of happiness, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Steve Jobs, synthetic biology, TED Talk, time dilation, Tony Hsieh, urban planning, Virgin Galactic

Burning Man “regional burns” now occur in nearly thirty countries, from Israel to South Africa to Japan, providing global access to the experience. It’s been called a countercultural diaspora, but that might be too limiting. After all, what’s countercultural about disaster relief, intelligence-gathering, and urban planning? These projects all provided creative solutions to persistently wicked problems, ones that defied the best laid plans of the most powerful militaries, governments and aid agencies on the planet. Relying on the ingenuity, collaboration, and relentless hard work of a community forged by ecstasis, Burners are extending their impact well beyond the celebration that birthed them.


pages: 278 words: 93,540

The Full Catastrophe: Travels Among the New Greek Ruins by James Angelos

bank run, Berlin Wall, centre right, death of newspapers, disinformation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, ghettoisation, illegal immigration, income inequality, moral hazard, plutocrats, urban planning

But many smaller-scale corruption cases emerged among civil servants also wishing to partake. For instance, six women working for the nation’s largest social security organization were accused of assigning some 11 million euros in fraudulent benefits; they were charged with money laundering and other crimes. Sixty-five urban planning department employees in and around Athens were charged with felonies for systematically and arbitrarily reducing or waiving fines for building code violations (presumably, the disappearing fines did not benefit only the building owners). At the end of 2013, Greece’s finance minister wrote a letter to Greek banks asking them to provide account information on hundreds of tax auditors suspected of having undeclared income and assets of apocryphal origins, the Greek newspaper Ethnos reported.


pages: 305 words: 73,935

The Cohousing Handbook: Building a Place for Community by Chris Scotthanson, Kelly Scotthanson

Buy land – they’re not making it any more, card file, index card, intentional community, land bank, off grid, the built environment, urban planning, urban sprawl, value engineering

In planning for your community you have the opportunity to rethink the way you want to relate to the car. What transportation is really required, individually and as a community? How can the car be used more wisely? Typically we dream of the private retreat of a single-family detached home. The current model of suburban living developed rapidly after the Second World War. Architect and urban planning visionary Paolo Soleri calculates that over 70% of the land in the Los Angeles metropolitan area is devoted to the car. This includes streets and right-of-ways, but it also includes parking lots, driveways, Attach homes • Shared walls conserve heating and cooling energy, and reduce exterior siding. • Stacked apartments conserve further energy and reduce roofing.


pages: 343 words: 93,544

vN: The First Machine Dynasty (The Machine Dynasty Book 1) by Madeline Ashby

big-box store, company town, iterative process, natural language processing, place-making, retail therapy, synthetic biology, traveling salesman, urban planning

And then the houses go here," she dotted the ring around the park, speckling the sand to remind herself where the neighbourhoods would go, "and then there should be some places for people to work, so their commutes are short." She drew Ws in the sand near the homes. Javier raised his brows. "I had no idea you had such a kink for urban planning." Amy started building her first house. "I just wanted to make it better than it was," she said. "The old way, everyone would be on the road all the time. But this way, people get home earlier to do fun stuff." Javier smiled. "Wow. You really can't wait to go home, can you?" Amy's hands hovered motionless over the houses she'd just imagined.


pages: 316 words: 90,165

You Are Here: From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves by Hiawatha Bray

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Albert Einstein, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bitcoin, Boeing 747, British Empire, call centre, Charles Lindbergh, crowdsourcing, Dava Sobel, digital map, don't be evil, Easter island, Edmond Halley, Edward Snowden, Firefox, game design, Google Earth, GPS: selective availability, Hedy Lamarr / George Antheil, Isaac Newton, job automation, John Harrison: Longitude, John Perry Barlow, John Snow's cholera map, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, license plate recognition, lone genius, openstreetmap, polynesian navigation, popular electronics, RAND corporation, RFID, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Thales of Miletus, trade route, turn-by-turn navigation, uranium enrichment, urban planning, Zipcar

The GOES weather satellites now in service can distinguish objects down to 1 kilometer in size, which is adequate for watching weather patterns, if not much else. In 1972 the United States launched the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, or ERTS-1, designed to shoot pictures of the earth for use in environmental research, land-use management, and urban planning. The concept had been proposed in 1965, but met with opposition from the intelligence community. As with weather satellites, ERTS-l’s images would be made available to scientists and the general public. The new satellite used better imaging technology, capable of producing photos with a resolution of 80 meters, or 262 feet.


pages: 346 words: 90,371

Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd, Laurie Macfarlane

agricultural Revolution, asset-backed security, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, basic income, book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, credit crunch, debt deflation, deindustrialization, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, foreign exchange controls, full employment, garden city movement, George Akerlof, ghettoisation, Gini coefficient, Hernando de Soto, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land bank, land reform, land tenure, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market bubble, market clearing, Martin Wolf, means of production, Minsky moment, Money creation, money market fund, mortgage debt, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, Pareto efficiency, place-making, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, profit maximization, quantitative easing, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Florida, Right to Buy, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Robert Solow, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, shareholder value, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, universal basic income, urban planning, urban sprawl, working poor, working-age population

A key part of the model was the funding mechanism which saw the increment on land values that arose as the community developed from rural to urban collected and then continuously reinvested in community improvements. Howard subsequently went on to lead the development of nearby Welwyn Garden City in the 1920s. Although Howard’s garden city proposal was never more widely adopted, his ideas are recognised as having influenced urban planning throughout the world. And despite a famous attempt to privatise the land in the 1960s, to this day the community-controlled Letchworth Heritage Foundation is the largest landowner in the town, using income generated from the estate to fund its charitable objectives and provide services for the community.


Pirates and Emperors, Old and New by Noam Chomsky

American ideology, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, drone strike, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, land reform, liberation theology, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, union organizing, urban planning

Figures of the Barak Ministry reveal that the rate of new construction increased steadily from 1993 to 2000, when it reached five times the level of 1993, 31/2 times 1994, to be increased further under the Sharon–Peres government.36 In July 2000, contracts were awarded for 522 new dwellings in Israel’s Har Homa, a project on land expropriated from an Arab enclave in southeast Jerusalem that has lost 90 percent of its land since Israel’s takeover in 1967 through “town planning” (a euphemism for replacing Arabs by Jews, reminiscent of some uses of “urban planning” in the U.S.). The Har Homa project, on Jabal Abu Ghneim, completes Israel’s encirclement of the vastly expanded “Jerusalem” region. The project was initiated in the last months of Shimon Peres’s Labor government, put on hold after strong domestic and international protest during Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Administration, resumed energetically (and without protest) under Barak.


pages: 322 words: 88,197

Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", Ada Lovelace, adjacent possible, Alfred Russel Wallace, Antoine Gombaud: Chevalier de Méré, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Book of Ingenious Devices, Buckminster Fuller, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, Clayton Christensen, colonial exploitation, computer age, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, conceptual framework, cotton gin, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Drosophila, Edward Thorp, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, game design, global village, Great Leap Forward, Hedy Lamarr / George Antheil, HyperCard, invention of air conditioning, invention of the printing press, invention of the telegraph, Islamic Golden Age, Jacquard loom, Jacques de Vaucanson, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, Lewis Mumford, lone genius, mass immigration, megacity, Minecraft, moral panic, Murano, Venice glass, music of the spheres, Necker cube, New Urbanism, Oculus Rift, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, pets.com, placebo effect, pneumatic tube, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, profit motive, QWERTY keyboard, Ray Oldenburg, SimCity, spice trade, spinning jenny, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, supply-chain management, talking drums, the built environment, The Great Good Place, the scientific method, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trade route, Turing machine, Turing test, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, vertical integration, Victor Gruen, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, white flight, white picket fence, Whole Earth Catalog, working poor, Wunderkammern

In the 1966 film introducing Disney World, Disney spends almost no time discussing the amusement-park component of the project (what would eventually become the Magic Kingdom). Instead, he focuses extensively on his “city of tomorrow,” showing prototypes and sketches that look strikingly like the futurist cityscapes imagined by Le Corbusier almost fifty years before. But the legend of Walt’s avant-garde urban planning has a strange twist to it, one that has received less coverage over the years. In preparation for the EPCOT project, Disney went on a national tour of visionary, cutting-edge experiments in planning and community design, seeking inspiration for his own radical new city. What were the primary sacred sites for such a pilgrimage?


pages: 343 words: 91,080

Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work by Alex Rosenblat

"Susan Fowler" uber, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, algorithmic management, Amazon Mechanical Turk, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, big-box store, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, business logic, call centre, cashless society, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, cognitive load, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, data science, death from overwork, digital divide, disinformation, disruptive innovation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, emotional labour, en.wikipedia.org, fake news, future of work, gender pay gap, gig economy, Google Chrome, Greyball, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, information security, Jaron Lanier, Jessica Bruder, job automation, job satisfaction, Lyft, marginal employment, Mark Zuckerberg, move fast and break things, Network effects, new economy, obamacare, performance metric, Peter Thiel, price discrimination, proprietary trading, Ralph Waldo Emerson, regulatory arbitrage, ride hailing / ride sharing, Salesforce, self-driving car, sharing economy, side hustle, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Skype, social software, SoftBank, stealth mode startup, Steve Jobs, strikebreaker, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, Tim Cook: Apple, transportation-network company, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, urban planning, Wolfgang Streeck, work culture , workplace surveillance , Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

These alliances each contain a grain of truth, but they mask much more than they reveal. Under our noses, the company has ushered in a wave of changes touching most aspects of society, be it family life or childcare arrangements, worker conditions or management practices, commuting patterns or urban planning, or racial equality campaigns and labor rights initiatives. Uber’s wide-ranging impacts have not just upset the status quo across society but have also created a future of uncertain implications. The company has harnessed technology to create an entirely new business logic for employment, like Napster did for music and Facebook did for journalism.14 Uber is a symbol of the New Economy, a powerful case study illustrating how digital culture is changing the nature of work.15 RIDING IN CARS WITH “ENTREPRENEURS” For nearly four years, my job has mainly been to ride around in cars with strange men (and sometimes women).16 Studying Uber drivers from mid-2014 through the winter of 2018, I’ve crossed more than twenty-five cities and traversed more than five thousand miles in cars in the United States and Canada, from Juneau to Montreal.


pages: 292 words: 92,588

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World by Jeff Goodell

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Airbnb, Anthropocene, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, climate change refugee, creative destruction, data science, desegregation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Elon Musk, failed state, fixed income, Frank Gehry, global pandemic, Google Earth, Higgs boson, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Large Hadron Collider, megacity, Murano, Venice glass, negative emissions, New Urbanism, ocean acidification, Paris climate accords, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Florida, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, smart cities, South China Sea, space junk, urban planning, urban renewal, wikimedia commons

So I was more than a little surprised a few months later when I heard Mayor Levine announce that the city planned to raise a few streets in Miami Beach. And the place they were going to start, naturally enough, was Sunset Harbour. In the 1850s, Chicago was a booming outpost on the prairie, a city growing so fast that nobody gave much thought to prosaic things like urban planning or infrastructure. Wooden buildings gave way to five-story brick buildings, including big, fancy hotels. But as the population grew from 20,000 to more than 100,000 in just a decade, it became clear that chaotic build-whatever-you-want development couldn’t go on. The city’s buildings had been designed at various heights, so the wooden sidewalks were a jumble of stairs and planks, up and down and across mud holes that were, as a popular saying of the time goes, deep enough to drown a horse.


pages: 288 words: 90,349

The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Berlin Wall, Bob Geldof, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon-based life, clean water, colonial rule, corporate social responsibility, deliberate practice, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Live Aid, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Scramble for Africa, sovereign wealth fund, structural adjustment programs, sustainable-tourism, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus

If African states had prioritized the budgets and work of the ministries of agriculture and environment instead of defense and internal security—indeed, if governments had concentrated on practical measures that helped their people rather than, at times, investing in grandiose, attention-seeking projects or misguided attempts to satisfy the demands of outside investors, often at the expense of their own peoples—then perhaps long ago the woman would have been provided with land more suitable for farming than that hillside. If the continent's governments had organized their development priorities so that productive land itself had been used more wisely, natural resources conserved, and suitable urban planning undertaken, the farmer might not have been forced up that hillside. If they had addressed the inequities of land distribution left over from the colonial period, then not only might many of the conflicts that have plagued the continent been avoided or lessened in intensity, but this woman might not have been tilling that steep slope.


pages: 353 words: 91,211

The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900 by David Edgerton

agricultural Revolution, anti-communist, British Empire, Computer Numeric Control, conceptual framework, creative destruction, deglobalization, dematerialisation, desegregation, deskilling, Dr. Strangelove, endogenous growth, Fairchild Semiconductor, Ford Model T, general purpose technology, global village, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, interchangeable parts, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, means of production, megacity, microcredit, Neil Armstrong, new economy, post-Fordism, post-industrial society, Productivity paradox, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, spinning jenny, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, the long tail, Upton Sinclair, urban planning

In Texaco the history of Martinique is divided into the age of the ajoupas (shelters) and longhouses, the age of straw, the age of crate wood, the age of asbestos (fibro-cement) and the age of concrete, reflecting the key materials of the shanty towns.26 In the age of asbestos, asbestos-cement sheet was used for walls; the roofs were of corrugated iron. Thereafter the people bought the occasional bag of cement to make their world more stable and secure. One of the characters in the book is a new model urbanist who began to understand this new kind of city. Indeed, ‘self-help housing’ and ‘auto construcción’ became terms of art in urban planning, recognising that houses were being built in vast numbers, well outside the standard networks of modernity. Corrugated iron, asbestos-cement and cement were not invented in the poor world, they were first exported to it, and then locally produced. The growth of the poor world went along with a massive increase in use of these ‘old’ technologies from the rich world, and yet also, importantly, it was a story of the spread of distinctive technologies often adapted from ‘old’ technologies.


pages: 306 words: 92,704

After the Berlin Wall by Christopher Hilton

anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Great Leap Forward, land reform, Mikhail Gorbachev, Peter Eisenman, Prenzlauer Berg, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Silicon Valley, urban planning, urban renewal, women in the workforce

She points out that soon after the fall of The Wall, Dresden ‘with 465,000 inhabitants was expected to be a main centre of economic growth. The city, especially the city centre, therefore, got under extreme investment pressure. But the desire to invest soon was confronted by a problematic urban structure. Not only the total annihilation by Allied air raids on 13 February 1945, but also the post-war reconstruction under socialist urban planning left deep scars in the townscape. ‘Right beside the historical sights like Zwinger and Semper Opera one can find empty sites of enormous size, residential areas and old buildings falling into ruins. On the one hand, structural investments in the repeatedly destroyed city centre were urgently and quickly needed to restore the central functions, especially the retail business.


pages: 372 words: 96,474

Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States (P.S.) by Pete Jordan

big-box store, Exxon Valdez, financial independence, Haight Ashbury, index card, intentional community, Kickstarter, Mason jar, rent control, Ronald Reagan, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, wage slave

After all the cycling and walking and public transit riding I’d done throughout the nation, it seemed like I could put my knowledge to use to help produce better means of travel. It’d sure beat producing temporarily clean dishes. In order to get the skills to attain some sort of desksitting job in that field, I wanted to return to college and finally pursue a degree in something I was interested in: urban planning. 332 Dishwasher After mulling it over the whole week after my tumble, I told Amy Joy about my idea of returning to college. I’d first pursue a degree and then a desk-sitting job as some sort of transportation planner for a municipal agency or a nonprofit advocacy group. She liked the idea. First though: my mission.


pages: 252 words: 13,581

Cape Town After Apartheid: Crime and Governance in the Divided City by Tony Roshan Samara

conceptual framework, deglobalization, gentrification, ghettoisation, global village, illegal immigration, late capitalism, moral panic, neoliberal agenda, New Urbanism, structural adjustment programs, unemployed young men, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, Washington Consensus, working poor

As high levels of crime and grime in the business district and tourist areas pose a direct threat to this industry which represents the livelihood of thousands of Capetonians, its protection will always be a factor that influences the policing environment. It is in this sense that the tourist economy and its relationship to crime in Cape Town are indicative of a much broader trend in urban planning for the city, whereby crime is identified as the primary obstacle or challenge to development, and in turn shapes—some would say distorts—governance. There are in fact a number of clearly stated policies and plans for general urban governance, most of which explicitly address the crime problem, and some of which are essentially crime-combating plans that adopt a language of development.


pages: 347 words: 86,274

The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion by Virginia Postrel

Charles Lindbergh, cloud computing, Dr. Strangelove, factory automation, Frank Gehry, General Motors Futurama, hydroponic farming, indoor plumbing, job automation, Lewis Mumford, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, placebo effect, Ralph Waldo Emerson, reality distortion field, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, Thomas L Friedman, urban planning, urban renewal, washing machines reduced drudgery, young professional

Many of the costumes for studio-era Hollywood films were, in fact, so tight or heavy that the actresses who wore them could not sit down between takes but instead had to recline on “leaning boards.”39 Translating glamour into real-world action requires editing back into one’s projections the likely costs, distractions, and anomalies. Many an alluring architectural model or urban plan has turned dysfunctional when the real places were subjected to the stresses of wear and weather—or the actual, rather than imagined, behavior and preferences of their human occupants. Dramatic plazas become windswept no-man’s-lands; floor-to-ceiling windows have to be covered for privacy; high-rise housing projects turn into crime-ridden fortresses; residence-only suburbs require constant trips by car.


pages: 323 words: 94,406

To the Edge of the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Express, the World's Greatest Railroad by Christian Wolmar

anti-communist, Cape to Cairo, Crossrail, Kickstarter, land reform, mass immigration, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, railway mania, refrigerator car, stakhanovite, Suez canal 1869, trade route, transcontinental railway, urban planning

., p. 113. 19 Cited in my earlier books Fire & Steam and The Great Railway Revolution. 20 It is, though, barely a 15-minute walk across the river from the station, as I discovered on my trip on the Trans-Siberian in November 2012. 21 Tupper, To the Great Ocean, p. 183. 22 Soon after renamed Sir William Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., which eventually became part of Vickers Armstrong. 23 Tupper, To the Great Ocean, p. 228. 24 Ivan V. Nevzgodine, ‘The Impact of the TS Railway on the Architecture and Urban Planning of Siberian Cities’, in Ralf Roth and Marie Noelle Polino (eds), The City and the Railway in Europe (Ashgarth, 2003), p. 85. 25 Ibid., p. 87. 26 Martin Page, The Lost Pleasures of the Great Trains (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975), p. 169. 27 Felix Patrikeef and Harold Shukman, Railways and the Russo-Japanese War (Routledge, 2007), p. 3. 28 Quoted in Nevzgodine, ‘The Impact of the TS Railway’, p. 86. 29 Patrikeef and Shukman, Railways and the Russo-Japanese War, p. 45. 30 Ibid. 31 Marks, Road to Power, p. 189. 32 Ibid. 33 From Pushechnikov’s account of his work on the line, quoted in Marks, Road to Power, p. 190. 34 Ibid., p. 189. 35 Ibid., p. 130.


pages: 307 words: 88,180

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee

"World Economic Forum" Davos, AI winter, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, algorithmic bias, algorithmic trading, Alignment Problem, AlphaGo, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, basic income, bike sharing, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, cloud computing, commoditize, computer vision, corporate social responsibility, cotton gin, creative destruction, crony capitalism, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, Didi Chuxing, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, full employment, future of work, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, gig economy, Google Chrome, Hans Moravec, happiness index / gross national happiness, high-speed rail, if you build it, they will come, ImageNet competition, impact investing, income inequality, informal economy, Internet of things, invention of the telegraph, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Lean Startup, low skilled workers, Lyft, machine translation, mandatory minimum, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, minimum viable product, natural language processing, Neil Armstrong, new economy, Nick Bostrom, OpenAI, pattern recognition, pirate software, profit maximization, QR code, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, Robert Mercer, Rodney Brooks, Rubik’s Cube, Sam Altman, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, SoftBank, Solyndra, special economic zone, speech recognition, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, strong AI, TED Talk, The Future of Employment, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, vertical integration, Vision Fund, warehouse robotics, Y Combinator

The city is projected to take in $583 billion worth of infrastructure spending and reach a population of 2.5 million, nearly as many people as Chicago. The idea of building a new Chicago from the ground up is fairly unthinkable in the United States, but in China it’s just one piece of the government’s urban planning toolkit. Xiong’an is poised to be the world’s first city built specifically to accommodate autonomous vehicles. Baidu has signed agreements with the local government to build an “AI City” with a focus on traffic management, autonomous vehicles, and environmental protection. Adaptations could include sensors in the cement, traffic lights equipped with computer vision, intersections that know the age of pedestrians crossing them, and dramatic reductions in space needed for parked cars.


pages: 325 words: 89,374

Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing by John Boughton

British Empire, deindustrialization, full employment, garden city movement, gentrification, ghettoisation, housing crisis, Jane Jacobs, Jeremy Corbyn, laissez-faire capitalism, Leo Hollis, manufacturing employment, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, neoliberal agenda, new economy, New Urbanism, profit motive, rent control, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Russell Brand, starchitect, systems thinking, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the market place, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, young professional

This problem of ‘overhanging debt’ would be dealt with in later legislation, and its solution cleared the way for the flood of large-scale urban transfers that followed under New Labour. It wasn’t, however, just the organisational model of council housing that was wrong according to its opponents. On many occasions it was the new housing’s actual form that came under attack. There was, by the 1980s, an established literature challenging many of the cherished ideals of modern urban planning and redevelopment. This was represented most famously in Jane Jacobs’ 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which argued for dense, mixed-used neighbourhoods fostering, in her view, vibrant communities against the dead hand of those who would zone and isolate. This critique – and its defence of street life – was extended to the large public housing schemes that had appeared in some American inner cities.


pages: 324 words: 93,606

No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy by Linsey McGoey

"World Economic Forum" Davos, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, American Legislative Exchange Council, Bear Stearns, bitcoin, Bob Geldof, cashless society, clean water, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, colonial rule, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, crony capitalism, effective altruism, Etonian, Evgeny Morozov, financial innovation, Food sovereignty, Ford paid five dollars a day, germ theory of disease, hiring and firing, Howard Zinn, Ida Tarbell, impact investing, income inequality, income per capita, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, John Elkington, Joseph Schumpeter, Leo Hollis, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, Michael Milken, microcredit, Mitch Kapor, Mont Pelerin Society, Naomi Klein, Neil Armstrong, obamacare, Peter Singer: altruism, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, price mechanism, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, school choice, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, Steve Jobs, strikebreaker, subprime mortgage crisis, tacit knowledge, technological solutionism, TED Talk, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trickle-down economics, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois, wealth creators

Science becomes pseudo-science as the method of discovery that fuels scientific advance is subverted in favour of purposefully myopic strategies, those blind to the changing needs of different communities. Actual progress is undermined by proclamations of progress.10 In a recent book, technology writer Evgeny Morozov calls such pseudo-scientific fixes ‘solutionism’ and offers an impressive list of thinkers who criticized solutionist thinking: Jane Jacobs’s writing on urban planning, Michael Oakeshott on rationalism, Hayek on central planning, to name just a few.11 One good recent example of the shortcomings of ‘solutionist’ thinking is the proficiency targets set by No Child Left Behind legislation, where many schools have been held to strict improvement standards without additional funds offered to meet those standards.


pages: 384 words: 93,754

Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism by John Elkington

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, agricultural Revolution, Anthropocene, anti-fragile, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, autonomous vehicles, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, Boeing 737 MAX, Boeing 747, Buckminster Fuller, business cycle, Cambridge Analytica, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, David Attenborough, deglobalization, degrowth, discounted cash flows, distributed ledger, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, drone strike, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Extinction Rebellion, Future Shock, Gail Bradbrook, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, George Akerlof, global supply chain, Google X / Alphabet X, green new deal, green transition, Greta Thunberg, Hans Rosling, hype cycle, impact investing, intangible asset, Internet of things, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, Iridium satellite, Jeff Bezos, John Elkington, Jony Ive, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, M-Pesa, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, microplastics / micro fibres, more computing power than Apollo, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, new economy, Nikolai Kondratiev, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, placebo effect, Planet Labs, planetary scale, plant based meat, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, radical decentralization, Ralph Nader, reality distortion field, Recombinant DNA, Rubik’s Cube, Salesforce, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, space junk, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, supply-chain management, synthetic biology, systems thinking, The future is already here, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Tim Cook: Apple, urban planning, Whole Earth Catalog

Fine, but where did the term first originate—and what was it meant to imply? The first thing to recognize, Camillus continued, was that “wicked issues are different because traditional processes can’t resolve them.” This point had been central to the argument made back in 1973 by Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, professors of design and urban planning at the University of California at Berkeley. “A wicked problem has innumerable causes, is tough to describe, and doesn’t have a right answer,” as Camillus summed up. “Environmental degradation, terrorism, and poverty—these are classic examples of wicked problems. They’re the opposite of hard but ordinary problems, which people can solve in a finite time period by applying standard techniques.


pages: 297 words: 88,890

Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, American ideology, big-box store, Cal Newport, call centre, cognitive load, collective bargaining, COVID-19, David Brooks, death from overwork, delayed gratification, do what you love, Donald Trump, financial independence, future of work, gamification, gig economy, Gordon Gekko, helicopter parent, imposter syndrome, Inbox Zero, independent contractor, Jeff Bezos, job satisfaction, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, late capitalism, longitudinal study, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, McMansion, Minecraft, move fast and break things, precariat, remote working, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, school choice, sharing economy, side hustle, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Skype, Snapchat, Steve Jobs, TaskRabbit, TikTok, uber lyft, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Vanguard fund, work culture , working poor, workplace surveillance

You might be as sick of talking about Uber as I am, but its impact is widespread and undeniable. “Under our noses, the company has ushered in a wave of changes touching most aspects of society, be it family life or childcare arrangements, worker conditions or management practices, commuting patterns or urban planning, or racial equality campaigns and labor rights initiatives,” Alex Rosenblat argues in Uberland. It “confuses categories such as innovation and lawlessness, work and consumption, algorithms and managers, neutrality and control, sharing and employment.”18 The number of Americans who’ve actually driven for Uber is proportionally small.


Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen by Dan Heath

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airport security, Albert Einstein, bank run, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, call centre, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, colonial rule, correlation does not imply causation, cuban missile crisis, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, food desert, high-speed rail, Housing First, illegal immigration, Internet of things, mandatory minimum, millennium bug, move fast and break things, Nick Bostrom, payday loans, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, self-driving car, Skype, Snapchat, subscription business, systems thinking, urban planning, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, Y2K

Let’s leave aside for a moment the logistical implausibility of that particular nightmare. (How exactly would the 9th foot of manure have been added to the top of the pile?) Still, it was not a totally unreasonable fear: those 60,000 horses had an average daily “output” of 15 to 35 pounds of manure. At the first international urban planning meeting in New York City in 1898, the horse manure crisis was the talk of the conference. Fortunately, as we all know, the crisis never came. It was relieved by the advent of the automobile. (And, in turn, it’s now the car’s excretions—CO2 and particulates—that have caused us big problems.) To see what it’s like to be on the inside of a present-day fight against problem blindness—a fight to awaken and mobilize the public against a problem—let’s trace the work of a Brazilian activist named Deborah Delage, whose awakening came when she gave birth to her daughter.


Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", crack epidemic, desegregation, Multics, Ronald Reagan, Steven Levy, the scientific method, urban planning, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois

Urban planners complained that the twenty-eight buildings occupied only 7 percent of the ninety-six-acre plot, leaving huge swaths of vacant land that isolated the project from the wider community. Architects declared the buildings unwelcoming and practically uninhabitable from the outset, even though the design was based upon celebrated French urban-planning principles. And, most remarkably, law-enforcement officials deemed Robert Taylor too dangerous to patrol. The police were unwilling to provide protection until tenants curbed their criminality—and stopped hurling bottles or shooting guns out the windows whenever the police showed up. In newspaper headlines, Robert Taylor was variously called “Congo Hilton,” “Hellhole,” and “Fatherless World”—and this was when it was still relatively new.


pages: 302 words: 92,206

Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World by Gaia Vince

3D printing, An Inconvenient Truth, Anthropocene, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, Boris Johnson, carbon tax, charter city, circular economy, clean water, colonial exploitation, coronavirus, COVID-19, decarbonisation, degrowth, Donald Trump, Dunbar number, European colonialism, failed state, gentrification, global pandemic, Global Witness, green new deal, Haber-Bosch Process, high-speed rail, housing crisis, ice-free Arctic, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of agriculture, invention of the printing press, job automation, joint-stock company, Kim Stanley Robinson, labour mobility, load shedding, lockdown, low skilled workers, Mahatma Gandhi, Malacca Straits, mass immigration, mass incarceration, mega-rich, megacity, negative emissions, new economy, ocean acidification, old age dependency ratio, open borders, Patri Friedman, Peace of Westphalia, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, place-making, planetary scale, plyscraper, polynesian navigation, quantitative easing, randomized controlled trial, rewilding, Rishi Sunak, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special economic zone, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, undersea cable, urban planning, urban sprawl, white flight, women in the workforce, working-age population, zero-sum game, Zipcar

This makes them more vulnerable to the effects of climate change and other shocks and stresses – and a priority for mass migration. There are multiple factors behind this, including the legacy of colonial exploitation, HIV, conflict and poor governance, plus an unproductive agricultural sector that makes food costly and limits incomes. However, better urban planning, with denser housing, wider roads, and good transport and infrastructure, would vastly improve the productivity and wealth of cities in Africa during the transition to urbanization this century – and improve people’s climate resilience. It’s been a similar story, to a greater or lesser degree, across the world.


pages: 301 words: 90,276

Sunbelt Blues: The Failure of American Housing by Andrew Ross

8-hour work day, Airbnb, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, carbon footprint, Celebration, Florida, clean water, climate change refugee, company town, coronavirus, corporate raider, COVID-19, do what you love, Donald Trump, drive until you qualify, edge city, El Camino Real, emotional labour, financial innovation, fixed income, gentrification, gig economy, global supply chain, green new deal, Hernando de Soto, Home mortgage interest deduction, housing crisis, Housing First, housing justice, industrial cluster, informal economy, Jeff Bezos, land bank, late fees, lockdown, Lyft, megaproject, military-industrial complex, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage tax deduction, New Urbanism, open immigration, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peter Calthorpe, pill mill, rent control, rent gap, rent stabilization, restrictive zoning, Richard Florida, San Francisco homelessness, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social distancing, starchitect, tech bro, the built environment, traffic fines, uber lyft, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, working poor

Josh Bivens, “The Economic Costs and Benefits of Airbnb,” Economic Policy Institute, January 30, 2019, https://www.epi.org/publication/the-economic-costs-and-benefits-of-airbnb-no-reason-for-local-policymakers-to-let-airbnb-bypass-tax-or-regulatory-obligations/. 15.  David Wachsmuth et al., “The High Cost of Short-Term Rentals in New York City,” School of Urban Planning, McGill University, January 30, 2018, https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/files/newsroom/channels/attach/airbnb-report.pdf. 16.  Diana Olick, “Build-to-Rent Housing Market Explodes as Investors Rush In,” CNBC, June 26, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/suddenly-the-build-to-rent-single-family-housing-market-is-exploding.html. 17.  


The Rough Guide to Brazil by Rough Guides

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Anthropocene, anti-communist, bike sharing, car-free, clean water, Day of the Dead, digital nomad, haute cuisine, income inequality, James Watt: steam engine, land tenure, mass immigration, Murano, Venice glass, Scientific racism, sexual politics, spice trade, Stephen Fry, sustainable-tourism, trade route, trickle-down economics, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban sprawl, éminence grise

Its plain interior houses an impressive Baroque altar, while original ossuaries line the side corridor. Museu de Arte do Espírito Santo Av Jerônimo Monteiro 631 • Tues–Fri 9am–6pm, Sat & Sun 10am–5pm • Free • 27 3132 8393 Vitória’s Museu de Arte do Espírito Santo is housed in another historic gem on the edge of the centro histórico, this time the government urban planning office completed in 1925. Exhibits rotate, usually with a contemporary theme – note that the museum can be closed in between installations. FIRST FATHER: PADRE ANCHIETA Padre Anchieta, the first of a series of legendary Jesuit missionaries from Spain and Portugal to Brazil, is most famous for being one of the two founders of São Paulo, building the rough chapel the town formed around in the sixteenth century and giving his name to one of the city’s main avenues, the Via Anchieta.

The site was quickly selected by aerial surveys but the city then had to be planned, financed and built at a site 125km from the nearest rail line, 190km from the nearest airport, over 600km from the nearest paved road. Still, in Oscar Niemeyer, the city’s architect, Brasília had South America’s most able student of Le Corbusier, who was contracted to design the buildings, and alongside him, Lúcio Costa was hired for the awesome task of Brasília’s urban planning. His city plan is described variously as being in the shape of a bow and arrow, a bird in flight or an aeroplane. The main public buildings, government ministries, palace of justice and presidential palace are in the “fuselage”, an 8km-long grass mall known as the Eixo Monumental (Monumental Axis).

Widely regarded as the most influential modernist architect of the twentieth century after Le Corbusier, he also designed important buildings abroad, including the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Le Havre Cultural Centre in France. Born in Rio in 1907, he was influenced as a student by Le Corbusier’s geometric ideas on urban planning and design; his first major commission, the building of the Ministry of Education in Rio in 1937, now known as the Palácio Gustavo Capanema, shows this influence clearly. By the 1940s Niemeyer began to show his independence and originality with a series of buildings in the Belo Horizonte suburb of Pampulha, which gave a recognizably Brazilian twist to Le Corbusier, adding curves, ramps and buttresses to buildings decades ahead of their time.


pages: 934 words: 232,651

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 by Anne Applebaum

active measures, affirmative action, anti-communist, Arthur Marwick, Berlin Wall, centre right, deindustrialization, disinformation, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, indoor plumbing, Internet Archive, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, land reform, language of flowers, means of production, New Urbanism, Potemkin village, price mechanism, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific worldview, Slavoj Žižek, stakhanovite, strikebreaker, union organizing, urban planning, work culture

Each new section was opened with great fanfare—the cutting of ribbons, the drinking of toasts—often on July 22, the anniversary of the creation of the Polish United Workers’ Party, or another communist holiday. Photographs of the reconstructed Old Town taken in the 1950s show people strolling and gazing “at the miracle of reconstruction.” What had been a dark, picturesque, decaying part of the city became well lit, open, and full of tourists. As far as urban planning went, the combination of the reconstructed Old Town and the Palace of Culture was never successful, particularly when cheap, prefab apartment blocks were constructed around and in between them in subsequent decades. But in the end, the plan for the reconstruction of Warsaw was defeated not by its aesthetic mistakes but by Stalinist economics.

They too were allegedly being re-formed and reshaped by their surroundings—and they too were supposedly going to conform to the spirit of their cities. The dreams of the socialist city planners went far beyond bricks and mortar. From the beginning, their ambitions included not just the transformation of art and urban planning but of human behavior. Sztálinváros, in an early description, was supposed to be a “city without beggars, and with no periphery”—that is, with no slums on the outskirts.42 Inside the socialist city, workers were meant to follow a more “cultured” way of life than they had known in the past—one that bore an overwhelming resemblance to the life of the prewar bourgeoisie.


pages: 829 words: 229,566

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 1960s counterculture, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, An Inconvenient Truth, Anthropocene, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, big-box store, bilateral investment treaty, Blockadia, Boeing 747, British Empire, business climate, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, clean tech, clean water, Climategate, cognitive dissonance, coherent worldview, colonial rule, Community Supported Agriculture, complexity theory, crony capitalism, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, different worldview, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Dr. Strangelove, electricity market, energy security, energy transition, equal pay for equal work, extractivism, Exxon Valdez, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, financial deregulation, food miles, Food sovereignty, gentrification, geopolitical risk, global supply chain, green transition, high-speed rail, hydraulic fracturing, ice-free Arctic, immigration reform, income per capita, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet Archive, invention of the steam engine, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Jones Act, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, land bank, light touch regulation, man camp, managed futures, market fundamentalism, Medieval Warm Period, Michael Shellenberger, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, new economy, Nixon shock, Occupy movement, ocean acidification, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, open borders, patent troll, Pearl River Delta, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, post-oil, precautionary principle, profit motive, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rana Plaza, remunicipalization, renewable energy transition, Ronald Reagan, Russell Brand, scientific management, smart grid, special economic zone, Stephen Hawking, Stewart Brand, structural adjustment programs, Ted Kaczynski, Ted Nordhaus, TED Talk, the long tail, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, trickle-down economics, Upton Sinclair, uranium enrichment, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, wages for housework, walkable city, Washington Consensus, Wayback Machine, We are all Keynesians now, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks

The assertion that we have been held back by a lack of technological solutions is no more compelling. Power from renewable sources like wind and water predates the use of fossil fuels and is becoming cheaper, more efficient, and easier to store every year. The past two decades have seen an explosion of ingenious zero-waste design, as well as green urban planning. Not only do we have the technical tools to get off fossil fuels, we also have no end of small pockets where these low carbon lifestyles have been tested with tremendous success. And yet the kind of large-scale transition that would give us a collective chance of averting catastrophe eludes us.

., 15 Thoreau, Henry David, 184, 286 350.org, 140, 156, 233n, 353, 356 tidal power, 127 Tiger Management, 208 tight-rock formations, 311; see also shale, fracking of Tillerson, Rex, 111, 314 Time magazine, Planet Earth on cover of, 74, 204 Tiputini oil field, 410 Tjelmeland, Aaron, 192, 195 Tongue River, 389, 390 Tongue River Railroad (proposed), 389 tornados, 406 Toronto, 55, 65, 67, 73, 126 Total, 246 Totnes, England, 364 Toyota, 196 trade, see free trade agreements; international trade trade unions, 81, 83, 177, 204, 454 job creation and, 126–27 job protection by, 126, 178 NAFTA opposed by, 84 transaction tax, 418 TransCanada, 149, 346, 359, 361, 362 see also Keystone XL pipeline Transition Town movement, 364 Transocean, 330 Trans-Pacific Partnership, 78 transportation infrastructure, 85, 90, 127 travel, wealth and, 113 Treaty 6, 372 tree farms, 222 Trenberth, Kevin, 272, 275 Trent River, 300 trickle-down economics, 19 Trinity nuclear test, 277 triumphalism, 205, 465 Tropic of Chaos (Parenti), 49 tropics, techno-fixes and risk to, 49 Trump, Donald, 3 Tschakert, Petra, 269 Tsilhqot’in First Nation, 345 Tsipras, Alexis, 181–82, 466 Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, 323 Tutu, Desmond, 464 Tuvalu, 13 2 degrees Celsius boundary, 87–88, 89, 150, 354, 456 Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 13, 21, 56, 86–87, 214, 283 typhoons, 107, 175, 406, 465 Uganda, 222 ultra-deepwater “subsalt” drilling, 145 Undesirables (Isaacs), 167 unemployment, 180 unemployment insurance, 454 Unified Campesino Movement of Aguán, 222 Union of Concerned Scientists, 201 Clean Vehicles Program at, 237 United Kingdom, 13, 149, 170, 224, 225 compensation of slave-owners in, 415–16, 457 “dash for cash” in, 299 divestment movement in, 354 flooding in, 7, 54, 106–7 fracking in, 299–300, 313 Industrial Revolution in, 172–73, 410 negatives of privatization in, 128 politics of climate change in, 36, 150 supports for renewable energy cut in, 110 Thatcher government of, 39 World War II rationing in, 115–16 United Nations, 7, 18, 64, 87, 114 Bloomberg as special envoy for cities and climate change of, 236 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), 219–20, 224, 226 climate governance and, 280 climate summits of, 5, 11, 65, 150, 165, 200; see also specific summits Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 110 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, see Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) international agreements and, 17 Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, 135 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment of 1972, 202 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 377, 383 United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 180 United Nations Environmental Modification Convention, 278 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 272 United Nations Framework on Climate Change, 200, 410 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 76, 77, 78–79 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 167 United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992), 55, 293 United Policyholders, 109 United States, 19, 67, 68, 143 carbon emissions from, 409 coal exports from, 320, 322, 346, 349, 374, 376 Copenhagen agreement signed by, 12, 150 energy privatization reversals in, 98 environmental legislation in, 201–2 failure of climate legislation in, 226–27 Kyoto Protocol and, 218–19, 225–26 oil and gas export restrictions in, 71 opposition movement in, 9 solar energy market in, 72 WTO challenges brought against, 65 WTO challenges brought by, 64–65, 68 United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), 226–28 University College London, 415–16 uranium, 176 urban planning, green, 16 urban sprawl, 90, 91 US Airways, 1–2 U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 227 utilities, alternative models for, 130–33 U’wa, 376–77 Vagt, Robert F., 217 van Beurden, Ben, 358, 376 Vancouver, Canada, 13 Var, France, 317–18 Vassiliou, Anni, 347 vegetation, carbon and, 14 Venezuela, 179–80 Venkataraman, R., 75 venture capitalists, 252 Vermont: anti-fracking movement in, 348 local agriculture in, 404–5 Vernon, Caitlyn, 365 victory gardens, 16, 17 Vidal, John, 244 Vietnam War, 261 Virgin Earth Challenge, 257, 284–85 Virgin Green Fund, 238, 239, 253 Virgin Group, 230, 237 Virgin Airlines, 231, 238, 241–44, 249–52 Virgin Fuels, 238 Virgin Racing, 243 Virgin Trains, 231, 238, 252–53 Viteri, Franco, 388 volcanic eruptions: droughts and, 272–73 global impact of, 274 weather patterns and, 259, 270, 271–74 Volney, Constantin-François, 273 Vonnegut, Kurt, 286, 287 Vowel, Chelsea, 371 Voynet, Dominique, 218 wage controls, 125 Wallach, Lori, 359–60 Wall Street, 206, 208 in financial crisis of 2008, 9, 44 Wall Street Journal, 207, 312 Walmart, 196, 208–10 Walton, Sam, 209 Walton, Sam Rawlings, 209 Walton Family Foundation, 209 Wang Wenlin, 300 Wania, Frank, 328n Ward, Barbara, 286 Warsaw climate change summit (2013), 200–201, 276 Washington, D.C.: Keystone XL protest in, 139, 301–2 record temperatures in, 73 Washington Consensus, 81 Washington State, 319 Indigenous land rights in, 323, 374–75, 380–81 proposed coal export terminals in, 320, 322, 346, 349, 374, 380–81 Washington, Tracie, 419 water: disruption to supplies of, 14, 165 First Nations and, 384 privatization of, 133 as public utility, 7 water pollution: extractive industry and, 83, 94, 295, 296, 332, 344–47 from fracking, 328–29, 332, 344, 346 water power, 16, 101, 215 of factories, 171 steam engine vs., 171–72 Waters, Donny, 431, 432 Watt, James, 171–75, 204, 266, 394, 410 Waxman-Markey, 227 wealth: concentration of, 154, 155 decentralization of, 131 greenhouse gas emissions and, 113–14 inequality of, 123, 454–55 redistribution of, 40, 42, 453 transfers of, 5 Wealth of Nations (Smith), 173, 462 weapons, climate change and, 9 weather, extreme, 35, 102–10 weather futures, 8–9 weatherization, 93 weather patterns: global warming and, 269 historical record of, 271–76 Pinatubo eruption and, 259, 270, 271–72, 274 variations in, 269 weather patterns, intentional modification of: as weapon, 261, 278 see also Pinatubo Option; Solar Radiation Management Weintrobe, Sally, 12 Werner, Brad, 449–50, 451, 460 West Antarctic ice sheet, 13, 14, 15 West Burton, England, 300 Western Australia, 376 West, Thomas, 365 West Virginia, 332, 357n, 367 wetlands, extractive industry damage to, 425–26 Weyerhaeuser, 369 Where Do We Go from Here (King), 453 Whitehead, Andrew, 432 Whitehorn, Will, 230–31 Whitehouse, Mark, 428 Whiteman, Phillip, Jr., 386 Whole Earth Catalogue, 288 WikiLeaks, 78, 165 wilderness system, federal, 203 wildfires, 14, 52, 108, 446 Wildlife Conservation Society, 221–22 Wildlife Society, 192 Willemse, Oom Johannes, 347 Willett Advisors, 216, 235 Williams, Eric, 415 Willis, Rebecca, 90 wind farms, 110, 223, 287 “Window for Thermal Coal Investment Is Closing” (Goldman Sachs), 352 wind power, 16, 67, 70, 97, 102, 118, 122, 124, 127, 131–32, 147, 215, 237 in combined-cycle plant, 129 fracking’s negative impact on, 129, 144n large offshore, 131 manufacturers in, 68 private sector and, 100–101 Wood, Lowell, 268n, 271, 280, 288 Woolsey, R.


pages: 327 words: 97,720

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection by John T. Cacioppo

Alfred Russel Wallace, biofilm, butterfly effect, Celebration, Florida, classic study, corporate governance, delayed gratification, experimental subject, gentrification, impulse control, income inequality, Jane Jacobs, longitudinal study, mental accounting, meta-analysis, mirror neurons, placebo effect, post-industrial society, Rodney Brooks, Ted Kaczynski, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, theory of mind, urban planning, urban renewal, Walter Mischel

In Yinchuan, the capital of the Ningxia region, officials are spending over a billion dollars a year to create a huge government complex, a five-star hotel, and a residential compound for entrepreneurs, in the hope that the infrastructure will attract private real estate development. Dozens of other provincial towns have the same aspiration, hoping to turn peasant villagers into citizens of the global economy overnight. Lu Dadao, a Beijing expert on urban planning, told the Times reporter Jim Yardley: “They want it to happen fast, and they want it to be big. They have all taken up urbanization without considering what the natural speed of it should be.” In terms of health and well-being, science tells us that there are unintended negative consequences when, as Walter Lippmann put it a century ago, “we have changed our environment more quickly than we know how to change ourselves.”13 Here in the United States, progressive architects and developers have heeded Jane Jacobs’s call to take the imperatives of social connection more seriously.


pages: 269 words: 104,430

Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect on Our Lives by Catherine Lutz, Anne Lutz Fernandez

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, book value, car-free, carbon footprint, collateralized debt obligation, congestion pricing, failed state, feminist movement, Ford Model T, fudge factor, Gordon Gekko, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, inventory management, Lewis Mumford, market design, market fundamentalism, mortgage tax deduction, Naomi Klein, Nate Silver, New Urbanism, oil shock, peak oil, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ride hailing / ride sharing, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, traffic fines, traumatic brain injury, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, white flight, women in the workforce, working poor, Zipcar

Two decades further along in his own car life, thirty-five-year-old James, like many others, has traveled well past “almost.” A suburban stayat-home dad dismissed out of hand the numerous studies that show that W H AT D R I V E S U S 159 driving is bad for one’s health, on the basis that we “have no choice” but to drive as much as we do. Our landscape, sprawled out as a consequence of poor urban planning, shifting employment opportunities, inadequate public transit options, and rising housing costs, does necessitate much driving. But certainly not all, and perhaps not even most, of these miles we drive are truly unavoidable, a fact visible once we analyze how we choose (albeit to a constant drumbeat of ads) to use our vehicles, to commute alone, to drive when public transport is available, to fill our days with the business of consuming.


pages: 353 words: 98,267

The Price of Everything: And the Hidden Logic of Value by Eduardo Porter

Alan Greenspan, Alvin Roth, AOL-Time Warner, Asian financial crisis, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, British Empire, capital controls, carbon tax, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, clean water, Credit Default Swap, Deng Xiaoping, Easter island, Edward Glaeser, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial engineering, flying shuttle, Ford paid five dollars a day, full employment, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, Gordon Gekko, guest worker program, happiness index / gross national happiness, housing crisis, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jean Tirole, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, longitudinal study, loss aversion, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, means of production, Menlo Park, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Michael Milken, Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay, new economy, New Urbanism, peer-to-peer, pension reform, Peter Singer: altruism, pets.com, placebo effect, precautionary principle, price discrimination, price stability, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, search costs, Silicon Valley, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, superstar cities, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, ultimatum game, unpaid internship, urban planning, Veblen good, women in the workforce, World Values Survey, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

Seventy years of communist allocation by bureaucratic fiat produced an urban scene pockmarked by old factories decaying on prime locations downtown while residential housing becomes denser farther from the center, through rings of Stalin-era, Khrushchev-era, and Brezhnev-era apartments. A study by World Bank urban planning and housing finance experts after the collapse of the Soviet Union found that 31.5 percent of the built-up area in Moscow was occupied by industries, compared to 6 percent in Seoul and 5 percent in Hong Kong and Paris. In Paris, where people pay a premium price to live near downtown’s amenities, the population density peaks some three kilometers from the center of town.


pages: 337 words: 101,440

Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the Quest to Reinvent a Nation by Sophie Pedder

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Airbnb, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bike sharing, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, DeepMind, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, eurozone crisis, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Future Shock, ghettoisation, growth hacking, haute couture, Jean Tirole, knowledge economy, liberal capitalism, mass immigration, mittelstand, new economy, post-industrial society, public intellectual, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Tony Fadell, Travis Kalanick, urban planning, éminence grise

The room was small, stuffy and municipal. There was no bass beat to pump up the audience, no lighting effects or flags. Alone before a blank backdrop, and dressed in a suit and open-necked shirt, Emmanuel Macron looked as if he was about to do a product launch, or give a power-point presentation on local urban planning. Earnest, verging on coy, he announced that he was launching a new political movement, to be called En Marche (‘On the Move’). He wanted to put an end to the stale political divide between left and right, he said, repair national confidence, and unblock stagnant France. The idea was ‘a bit mad’, he admitted: ‘I don’t know if it will succeed.’


pages: 363 words: 98,024

Keeping at It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government by Paul Volcker, Christine Harper

Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bretton Woods, business cycle, central bank independence, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, Donald Trump, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, floating exchange rates, forensic accounting, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, global reserve currency, income per capita, inflation targeting, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, low interest rates, margin call, money market fund, Nixon shock, oil-for-food scandal, Paul Samuelson, price stability, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, reserve currency, Right to Buy, risk-adjusted returns, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Savings and loan crisis, secular stagnation, Sharpe ratio, Silicon Valley, special drawing rights, too big to fail, traveling salesman, urban planning

I know for sure why she is so respected in that organization and more widely. And now for the last time, my assistant Melanie Martha has produced a finished manuscript, transferring my virtually illegible writing into readable text and somehow ensuring that Christine’s additions and subtractions are faithfully recorded. Melanie, soon to embark on a career in urban planning, has played a valuable role in organizing my office and my time. I wish her well in her new endeavors. As mentioned, I relied on assistance from many people who diligently read all or some of this manuscript to help improve my recollections. For that I am especially grateful to Chuck Bowsher, Jacques de Larosière, John Dilulio, Tony Dowd, Edwin Gray, Judah Gribetz, Steve Harris, Frank Hydoski, Donald Kohn, Reid Morden, Bill Rhodes, Tom Seidenstein, and Ted Truman.


pages: 348 words: 102,438

Green and Prosperous Land: A Blueprint for Rescuing the British Countryside by Dieter Helm

3D printing, Airbnb, Anthropocene, barriers to entry, biodiversity loss, British Empire, carbon tax, clean water, conceptual framework, corporate social responsibility, Crossrail, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Diane Coyle, digital map, facts on the ground, food miles, Haber-Bosch Process, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, Internet of things, Kickstarter, land reform, mass immigration, microplastics / micro fibres, New Urbanism, North Sea oil, precautionary principle, precision agriculture, quantitative easing, rewilding, smart meter, sovereign wealth fund, the built environment, Tragedy of the Commons, urban planning, urban sprawl

Instead of the highly polluting model of our commuting, cycle ways and footpaths through ‘green’ Green Belt have multiple economic benefits – less pollution, more exercise, mental health benefits from the green expanses of nature and much more biodiversity. In parallel with regulation and technology to reduce the causes of air pollution, transport policy needs to integrate access to the green spaces within and around cities as part of urban planning. A broad Green Belt plan would include provision for woodlands, access to rivers and streams, wildlife corridors, flower meadows and the regeneration of substantial hedgerows. Specific trails and exercise areas, as well as opportunities, especially for children, to experience and study nature would have a high priority, and links to schools would play an important part in a rejuvenated Green Belt strategy.


pages: 404 words: 95,163

Amazon: How the World’s Most Relentless Retailer Will Continue to Revolutionize Commerce by Natalie Berg, Miya Knights

3D printing, Adam Neumann (WeWork), Airbnb, Amazon Robotics, Amazon Web Services, asset light, augmented reality, Bernie Sanders, big-box store, business intelligence, cloud computing, Colonization of Mars, commoditize, computer vision, connected car, deep learning, DeepMind, digital divide, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, driverless car, electronic shelf labels (ESLs), Elon Musk, fulfillment center, gig economy, independent contractor, Internet of things, inventory management, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, Kiva Systems, market fragmentation, new economy, Ocado, pattern recognition, Ponzi scheme, pre–internet, QR code, race to the bottom, random stow, recommendation engine, remote working, Salesforce, sensor fusion, sharing economy, Skype, SoftBank, Steve Bannon, sunk-cost fallacy, supply-chain management, TaskRabbit, TechCrunch disrupt, TED Talk, trade route, underbanked, urban planning, vertical integration, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, WeWork, white picket fence, work culture

Notes 1 Harkaway, Nick (2012) Amazon aren’t destroying publishing, they’re reshaping it, Guardian, 26 April. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/26/amazon-publishing-destroying [Last accessed 5/11/2018]. 2 Sisson, Patrick (2017) How Amazon’s ‘invisible’ hand can shape your city, Curbed, 2 May. Available from: https://www.curbed.com/2017/5/2/15509316/amazon-prime-retail-urban-planning [Last accessed 6/6/2018]. 3 Holmes, Thomas J (2005) The diffusion of Wal-Mart and economies of density, Semantic Scholar, November. Available from: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/947c/d95a37c55eefb84ccab56896b4037f5c2acd.pdf [Last accessed 6/6/2018]. 4 Machkovech, Sam (2015) Amazon Flex will pay you ‘$18-25 per hour’ to deliver Prime Now packages, Arstechnica, 29 September.


pages: 367 words: 99,765

Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks by Ken Jennings

Apollo 11, Asperger Syndrome, augmented reality, Bartolomé de las Casas, Berlin Wall, Boris Johnson, British Empire, clean water, David Brooks, digital map, don't be evil, dumpster diving, Eratosthenes, game design, Google Earth, GPS: selective availability, helicopter parent, hive mind, index card, John Harrison: Longitude, John Snow's cholera map, Mercator projection, Mercator projection distort size, especially Greenland and Africa, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Journalism, openstreetmap, place-making, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Skype, Stewart Brand, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, three-masted sailing ship, traveling salesman, urban planning

“So, uh, what is it you do study, then?” And . . . scene. It’s misleading to think of geography as a single discipline at all. Instead it’s the ultimate interdisciplinary study, because it’s made up of every other discipline viewed spatially, through the lens of place. Language, history, biology, public health, paleontology, urban planning—there are geographers studying all these subjects and aspects of geography taught in all of them. In one sense, geography’s ubiquity is an argument for its importance, but it’s also the very thing that makes it so hard to define to administrators and so easy for universities to defund and divvy up into other departments.


pages: 383 words: 98,179

Last Trains: Dr Beeching and the Death of Rural England by Charles Loft

Beeching cuts, computer age, Downton Abbey, full employment, high-speed rail, intermodal, Kickstarter, price mechanism, railway mania, Suez crisis 1956, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, urban planning

As the extent to which rail could attract freight from road would have only a marginal effect on the road programme, rail investment would continue to be judged on its likely rate of return. The second key issue Hall identified was urban traffic. Although it was the publication of Buchanan’s report on Traffic in Towns, in November 1963, that highlighted this problem publicly, the Transport and Housing ministries had begun laying the foundations of a joint group on traffic and urban planning in the spring of 1961. Hall’s report warned that ‘rail transport in the cities which have it is an asset which should not be lightly eroded’.195 The ministry had already taken this issue up with Beeching and suggested that it might wish to have advance consultation before urban services were proposed for closure.


pages: 193 words: 98,671

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper

Albert Einstein, Apple Newton, Bill Atkinson, business cycle, delayed gratification, Donald Trump, Gary Kildall, General Magic , Howard Rheingold, informal economy, iterative process, Jeff Bezos, lateral thinking, Menlo Park, natural language processing, new economy, PalmPilot, pets.com, Robert X Cringely, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, skunkworks, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, telemarketer, urban planning

Alan and co-author Robert Reimann published a significantly revised edition, About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design, in 2003. Alan's wife, Susan Cooper, is President and CEO of Cooper. They have two teenage sons, Scott and Marty, neither of whom is a nerd. In addition to software design, Alan is passionate about general aviation, urban planning, architecture, motor scooters, cooking, model trains, and disc golf, among other things. Please send him email at inmates@cooper.com or visit Cooper's Web site at www.cooper.com .


pages: 402 words: 98,760

Deep Sea and Foreign Going by Rose George

Admiral Zheng, air freight, Airbus A320, Albert Einstein, bank run, cable laying ship, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Costa Concordia, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Filipino sailors, global supply chain, Global Witness, Google Earth, intermodal, Jones Act, London Whale, Malacca Straits, Panamax, pattern recognition, profit maximization, Skype, trade route, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, urban planning, WikiLeaks, William Langewiesche

Bin Laden was not a Bin Laden – a powerful, business-minded family that uses shipping in its construction empire – for nothing. In 2004, Al-Qaeda reportedly recruited a maritime expert. In 2010, US security sources revealed that the organization had been working out how best to blow up oil tankers. Though, as the urban planning academic Stephen Cohen writes, why bother with intercontinental missiles or explosives when you can just ship everything you need in parts, and assemble it at the required destination? ‘Containers… are the poor man’s missiles: you no longer have to be a big powerful government to create catastrophe.’


pages: 346 words: 101,255

The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters by Rose George

American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Anton Chekhov, Bob Geldof, Celtic Tiger, clean water, glass ceiling, indoor plumbing, informal economy, job satisfaction, John Snow's cholera map, joint-stock company, land reform, low cost airline, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, Pepto Bismol, Potemkin village, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, Steven Pinker, urban planning

Mohando has agreed to run the Gulper business in principle, but first he needs the nuts and bolts. Sugden has come to Dar to help source the equipment, and I tag along. Not from any interest in Tanzanian aluminum factories, but because I want to see how a big vision—to remove the seas of shit that drown so many cities—can be built from little things. The complexities of urban planning make my head spin. But I can grasp a tank, a motorbike, and a pump. A piki piki—a motorbike with attached trailer—has been sourced in a suburb of Dar. Finding the right tank to attach to the trailer is trickier. Aluminum is the first suggestion, but after several hours of searching, Sugden learns that there are no fundis in Dar who know how to weld it.


Fodor's Dordogne & the Best of Southwest France With Paris by Fodor's Travel Publications Inc.

call centre, carbon tax, flag carrier, glass ceiling, happiness index / gross national happiness, haute couture, haute cuisine, Murano, Venice glass, Nelson Mandela, subprime mortgage crisis, three-masted sailing ship, urban planning, young professional

The opening of the Opéra Bastille in 1989 rejuvenated the area, however, drawing art galleries, bars, and restaurants to the narrow streets, notably along Rue de Lappe—once a haunt of Edith Piaf—and Rue de la Roquette. | Station: Bastille. Fodor’s Choice | Place des Vosges. The oldest square in Paris and—dare we say it?—the most beautiful, the Place des Vosges is one of Europe’s oldest stabs at urban planning. The precise proportions offer a placid symmetry, but things weren’t always so calm. Four centuries ago this was the site of the Palais des Tournelles, home to King Henri II and Queen Catherine de’ Medici. The couple staged regular jousting tournaments, and during one of them, in 1559, Henri was fatally lanced in the eye.


pages: 391 words: 99,963

The Weather of the Future by Heidi Cullen

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, air freight, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, availability heuristic, back-to-the-land, bank run, California gold rush, carbon footprint, clean water, colonial rule, data science, Easter island, energy security, hindcast, illegal immigration, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, Kickstarter, mass immigration, Medieval Warm Period, megacity, millennium bug, ocean acidification, out of africa, Silicon Valley, smart cities, trade route, urban planning, Y2K

As with most things in life, including global warming, there is something important to be said for personal experience. Weiss’s previous excavations had shown that between 4,600 and 4,400 years ago, Tell Leilan grew about sixfold in size, from 37 acres to more than 200 acres.1 The city’s residential quarters showed signs of urban planning, including straight streets lined with potsherds and with drainage lanes; and its acropolis contained several storerooms for grain distribution. But sometime around 4,200 years ago, this society began to fall apart and archaeological evidence indicates a mass exodus from Tell Leilan to points south.


pages: 299 words: 19,560

Utopias: A Brief History From Ancient Writings to Virtual Communities by Howard P. Segal

1960s counterculture, Alvin Toffler, Apollo 11, biodiversity loss, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, complexity theory, David Brooks, death of newspapers, dematerialisation, deskilling, energy security, European colonialism, Evgeny Morozov, Ford Model T, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, future of journalism, Future Shock, G4S, garden city movement, germ theory of disease, Golden Gate Park, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, intentional community, invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Kim Stanley Robinson, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, liberation theology, Louis Pasteur, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, means of production, megaproject, Nelson Mandela, Nicholas Carr, Nikolai Kondratiev, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), out of africa, pneumatic tube, post-war consensus, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ray Kurzweil, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Skype, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, Strategic Defense Initiative, technological determinism, technoutopianism, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, union organizing, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois, War on Poverty, warehouse robotics, Whole Earth Catalog

Contributing authors come from a diverse range of fields, including American studies, architecture, the arts, classics, cultural studies, economics, engineering, environmental studies, gender studies, history, languages and literatures, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, and urban planning. Each issue also includes dozens of reviews of recent books. Despite this overflow of intellectual riches, the exhibit was extremely well organized and very accessible to the proverbial general public. Most of these treasures were placed in forty-four new steel, glass, and stone exhibition cases, with special lighting that, for preservation purposes, was kept low.


pages: 359 words: 104,870

Extreme Rambling: Walking Israel's Separation Barrier. For Fun. by Mark Thomas

Boycotts of Israel, Dr. Strangelove, facts on the ground, liberation theology, Ocado, one-state solution, urban planning, urban sprawl

One way to do this is to connect one hill to another, one neighbourhood to another neighbourhood. To connect Jerusalem to E1 and to the city of Ma’ale Adumim.’ Then, lowering his voice almost as if he is worried others might hear, he confides, ‘If we will not do that, the other side, the Arabs, will; they are trying to connect the Arab villages.’ The notion that his urban plan will effectively cut the West Bank in two and destroy any peace plan can only be a cause of joy to him. Arieh has no intention of seeing a Palestinian state, as such a thing would be, ‘the end of a Jewish state’. Anyway, peace doesn’t seem to be his bag: first and foremost, the land is his and Palestinians have no right to it.


pages: 371 words: 98,534

Red Flags: Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy by George Magnus

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, 9 dash line, Admiral Zheng, AlphaGo, Asian financial crisis, autonomous vehicles, balance sheet recession, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, BRICs, British Empire, business process, capital controls, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, cloud computing, colonial exploitation, corporate governance, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, financial deregulation, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, floating exchange rates, full employment, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, industrial robot, information security, Internet of things, invention of movable type, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land reform, Malacca Straits, means of production, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Minsky moment, money market fund, moral hazard, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, old age dependency ratio, open economy, peer-to-peer lending, pension reform, price mechanism, purchasing power parity, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, reserve currency, rising living standards, risk tolerance, Shenzhen special economic zone , smart cities, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, special economic zone, speech recognition, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, total factor productivity, trade route, urban planning, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, working-age population, zero-sum game

A new Market Supervision Administration will deal with business regulation and competition policy, a rebranded and reorganised Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs will manage rural development and try to boost its productivity, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will have an expanded remit over pollution and climate change, a new Resources Department will have oversight over land use and urban planning, and local and tax bureaus will be merged in an attempt to re-organise fiscal responsibilities, and possibly, though we have heard this often before, introduce a property tax. The Party’s Department of Propaganda is going to take control of film, news media and state publications. Enterprising and administratively positive as these changes could be, we should not presume that organisational change itself will break new productivity ground.


pages: 349 words: 98,309

Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy by Alexandrea J. Ravenelle

active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, barriers to entry, basic income, Broken windows theory, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cashless society, Clayton Christensen, clean water, collaborative consumption, collective bargaining, company town, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, digital divide, disruptive innovation, Downton Abbey, East Village, Erik Brynjolfsson, full employment, future of work, gentrification, gig economy, Howard Zinn, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, job automation, John Zimmer (Lyft cofounder), low skilled workers, Lyft, minimum wage unemployment, Mitch Kapor, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, passive income, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer model, performance metric, precariat, rent control, rent stabilization, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, sharing economy, side hustle, Silicon Valley, strikebreaker, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, telemarketer, the payments system, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, ubercab, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, vertical integration, very high income, white flight, working poor, Zipcar

Grub Street. www.grubstreet.com/2017/11/halal-cart-chicken-and-rice-oral-history.html. Krugman, Paul. 2007. The Conscience of a Liberal. New York: W.W. Norton. Kurtzleben, Danielle. 2015. “The Rise of the Servant Economy.” Vox, February 6. Kwon, Haegi. 2005. “Public Toilets in New York City: A Plan Flushed with Success?” Master’s thesis, Department of Urban Planning, Columbia University. Ladegaard, Isak, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle, and Juliet Schor. 2017. “‘I’m Probably Going to Get One Star’: Responsibilization and Worker Vulnerabilities in the Digital Age.” Unpublished ms. Lagorio-Chafkin, Christine. 2014. “How Uber Is Going to Hire 1,000 People This Year.”


pages: 599 words: 98,564

The Mutant Project: Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans by Eben Kirksey

23andMe, Abraham Maslow, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Bernie Sanders, bioinformatics, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, Buckminster Fuller, clean water, coronavirus, COVID-19, CRISPR, cryptocurrency, data acquisition, deep learning, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, double helix, epigenetics, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, experimental subject, fake news, gentrification, George Floyd, Jeff Bezos, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, microdosing, moral panic, move fast and break things, personalized medicine, phenotype, placebo effect, randomized controlled trial, Recombinant DNA, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Skype, special economic zone, statistical model, stem cell, surveillance capitalism, tech billionaire, technological determinism, upwardly mobile, urban planning, young professional

I was in a new center of power within Asia’s economic sector: the Ping An Finance Center. The supertall skyscraper was named after its primary tenant: one of the world’s most valuable insurance brands.2 Time and space collapsed as I gazed below. Shenzhen’s twenty-first-century vision of green urban planning—with parklands and forested hills spreading throughout the landscape—was juxtaposed with agrarian landscapes on the outskirts of the megacity. I was inside the fourth-tallest building in the world. Ryan Ferrell, my source inside Dr. He’s laboratory, was leading me around Shenzhen, offering crumbs of reliable information on our encrypted chat.


pages: 307 words: 101,998

IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives by Chris Stedman

Albert Einstein, augmented reality, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, context collapse, COVID-19, deepfake, different worldview, digital map, Donald Trump, fake news, feminist movement, Ferguson, Missouri, Filter Bubble, financial independence, game design, gamification, gentrification, Google Earth, Jon Ronson, Kickstarter, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, Minecraft, move fast and break things, off-the-grid, Overton Window, pre–internet, profit motive, Ralph Waldo Emerson, sentiment analysis, Skype, Snapchat, statistical model, surveillance capitalism, technoutopianism, TikTok, urban planning, urban renewal

These are the qualities that bind a neighborhood together, that create meaning for a place that goes beyond property values to recognize the value of human connection. Delegard pointed out that these two maps show a profound difference between how residents conceptualize space and how, for example, urban planners do. Urban planning, she said, requires boundaries and clear delineations. But residents are more interested in how a neighborhood feels than how it’s zoned. When community members are given the opportunity to create a map of the place they call home, they create something differently accurate. We have a long way to go to address the inherent disparities of maps, both digital and cartographic platforms.


pages: 3,292 words: 537,795

Lonely Planet China (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Shawn Low

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, bike sharing, birth tourism , carbon footprint, clean water, colonial rule, country house hotel, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, G4S, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, income inequality, indoor plumbing, Japanese asset price bubble, Kickstarter, land reform, mass immigration, off-the-grid, Pearl River Delta, place-making, Rubik’s Cube, Shenzhen special economic zone , Skype, South China Sea, special economic zone, sustainable-tourism, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, young professional

The Bund & People's Square 1Top Sights 1Shanghai MuseumC6 2The BundG3 3Yuyuan Gardens & BazaarH7 1Sights 4Chenxiangge NunneryG6 5East Nanjing RoadE3 6Post MuseumF1 7Rockbund Art MuseumG2 8Shanghai Gallery of ArtG4 9Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA Shanghai)C5 10Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition HallC5 11Tomorrow SquareB5 2Activities, Courses & Tours 12Huangpu River CruiseH5 4Sleeping 13Astor House HotelG1 14Captain HostelG4 15Chai Living ResidencesE1 16Fairmont Peace HotelG3 17Jinjiang InnD4 18Marvel HotelD6 19Mingtown E-Tour Youth HostelB6 20Mingtown Hiker Youth HostelF2 21Mingtown Nanjing Road Youth HostelE3 22Peninsula HotelG2 23Sofitel Hyland HotelE4 24Waldorf AstoriaH4 25Yangtze Boutique ShanghaiC4 5Eating 26Hongyi PlazaF3 27Huanghe Road Food StreetB4 28Jiajia Soup DumplingsB4 29Kebabs on the GrilleB6 Lobby, PeninsulaG2 30Lost HeavenG5 31M on the BundG4 32Mr & Mrs BundG3 33Nanxiang Steamed Bun RestaurantD5 34Shanghai GrandmotherG4 South MemoryF3 35Wu Fang ZhaiD6 36Wuyue RenjiaH6 37Yang's Fry DumplingsB4 38Yunnan Road Food StreetE6 39Yuxin ChuancaiE4 6Drinking & Nightlife 40Bar RougeG3 41BarbarossaB5 Glamour BarG4 42Huxinting TeahouseH7 Long BarH4 43New HeightsG4 44Old Shanghai TeahouseG7 Sir Elly's TerraceG2 45VueH1 3Entertainment Fairmont Peace Hotel Jazz BarG3 46Shanghai Concert HallD7 47Shanghai Grand TheatreB6 48Yifu TheatreD5 7Shopping Amy Lin's PearlsA5 49Apple StoreF3 50Han City Fashion & Accessories PlazaA5 51Old StreetG7 52Shanghai Museum Art StoreC6 53Shanghai No 1 Department StoreC4 54Shanghai No 1 Food StoreD4 55Suzhou CobblersG4 Information 56Bank of ChinaG2 57China Mobile (Bund)G2 58CitibankG3 59Main China Post OfficeF1 60Tourist Information & Service CentreG7 61Tourist Information & Service CentreD4 Transport 62Bund Train Ticket OfficeF2 63Domestic Boat Tickets ShopH5 64Pu'an Rd Bus StationC7 The Bund The area around the Bund is the tourist centre of Shanghai and is the city’s most famous mile.

It's all bare concrete pillars, ventilation ducts and acres of wall space; there are a couple of divans where you can sit to admire the works on view. SHaNGHaI IN… ONE DAY Rise with the sun for early morning riverside scenes on the Bund as the vast city stirs from its slumber. Then stroll down East Nanjing Rd to People’s Sq and either the Shanghai Museum or the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. After a dumpling lunch on Huanghe Rd food street, hop on the metro at People’s Sq to shuttle east to Pudong. Explore the fun and interactive Shanghai History Museum or contemplate the Bund from the breezy Riverside Promenade, then take high-speed lifts to some of the world’s highest observation decks, in the Shanghai Tower or Shanghai World Financial Center.

The excellent museum shop sells postcards, a rich array of books, and faithful replicas of the museum's ceramics and other pieces. There are a few overpriced shops and teahouses inside the museum, as well as a snack bar, a cloakroom and an ATM. Expect to spend half, if not most of, a day here and note that the entrance is from East Yan'an Rd. Get here early as only 8000 people are allowed in daily. Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition HallMUSEUM (Shanghai Chengshi Guihua Zhanshiguan MAP GOOGLE MAP ; 100 Renmin Ave, entrance on Middle Xizang Rd; adult ¥30; h9am-5pm Tue-Sun, last entry 4pm; mPeople’s Sq) Some cities romanticise their past; others promise good times in the present. Only in China are you expected to visit places that haven’t even been built yet.


The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber, David Wengrow

"World Economic Forum" Davos, agricultural Revolution, Anthropocene, Atahualpa, British Empire, Columbian Exchange, conceptual framework, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, degrowth, European colonialism, founder crops, Gini coefficient, global village, Hernando de Soto, Hobbesian trap, income inequality, invention of agriculture, invention of the steam engine, Isaac Newton, labour mobility, land tenure, Lewis Mumford, mass immigration, means of production, Murray Bookchin, new economy, New Urbanism, out of africa, public intellectual, Scientific racism, spice trade, spinning jenny, statistical model, Steven Pinker, theory of mind, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl

In other respects, however, the sixteenth-century Aztecs seemed to the Spaniards to present a rather familiar picture of human government; certainly, more familiar than anything they encountered in the Caribbean or in the swamps and savannahs of Yucatán. Monarchy, ranks of officialdom, military cadres and organized religion (however ‘demonic’) were all highly developed. Urban planning in the Valley of Mexico, as some Spaniards remarked, seemed superior to what was found in their Castilian cities back home. Sumptuary laws, no less elaborate than in Spain, kept a respectable distance between governing and governed, dictating everything from fashion to sexual mores. Tribute and taxation were overseen by calpixque who, appointed from among the ranks of commoners, were unable to turn their knowledge of administration into political power (a preserve of noblemen and warriors).

The first compelling examples of palace architecture in cities of the southern Mesopotamian alluvium come only centuries later, in the Early Dynastic period (Moorey 1964). 66. See Crüsemann et al. (eds) 2019 for a magnificent survey of Uruk’s architectural development over the ages; although we note that their interpretation plays down those aspects of urban planning we would see as clearly relating to civic participation (especially with regard to the early phases of the Eanna sanctuary they tend to assume, even in the absence of written evidence, that any sort of grand architectural project must necessarily have been intended to establish the exclusivity of a ruling elite). 67.


pages: 1,006 words: 243,928

Lonely Planet Washington, Oregon & the Pacific Northwest by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, big-box store, bike sharing, Boeing 747, British Empire, Burning Man, butterfly effect, car-free, carbon footprint, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Day of the Dead, Frank Gehry, G4S, gentrification, glass ceiling, housing crisis, indoor plumbing, intermodal, Kickstarter, Lyft, Murano, Venice glass, New Urbanism, remote working, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, trade route, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, V2 rocket, Works Progress Administration, Zipcar

The needle anchors the complex now called the Seattle Center (map Google map; %206-684-8582; www.seattlecenter.com) and draws over one million annual visitors to its flying saucer–like observation deck and pricey rotating restaurant. Olympic Sculpture ParkPARK (map Google map; %206-654-3100; 2901 Western Ave, Belltown; hsunrise-sunset; g33) F This ingenuous feat of urban planning is an official offshoot of the Seattle Art Museum and bears the same strong eye toward design and curation. There are over 20 sculptures to stop at and admire in this green space that sprawls out over reclaimed urban decay. You can also enjoy them in passing while traversing the park’s winding trails.

Named Puerto de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles by Spanish explorer Francisco Eliza in 1791 (the name was later anglicized), Port Angeles entered history in 1862 when president Abraham Lincoln created a navy and military reserve around the natural harbor and made it the second planned city in the US (after Washington, DC). In a more drastic urban-planning move, in 1914 the city elevated its downtown streets, essentially by burying what was there and building on top of it. The underground tour is a highlight. 1Sights Ediz HookBEACH (map) A mostly flat, easy 1-mile trail offers beach access and mountain views on a clear day, along this spit looping around the bay in Port Angeles.


The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy by Bruce Katz, Jennifer Bradley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, benefit corporation, British Empire, business climate, carbon footprint, clean tech, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, company town, congestion pricing, data science, deindustrialization, demographic transition, desegregation, Donald Shoup, double entry bookkeeping, edge city, Edward Glaeser, financial engineering, global supply chain, immigration reform, income inequality, industrial cluster, intermodal, Jane Jacobs, jitney, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, lone genius, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, Masdar, megacity, megaproject, Menlo Park, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, place-making, postindustrial economy, purchasing power parity, Quicken Loans, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, smart cities, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, tech worker, TechCrunch disrupt, TED Talk, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the market place, The Spirit Level, Tony Hsieh, too big to fail, trade route, transit-oriented development, urban planning, white flight, Yochai Benkler

Metros anchor nine of the ten key New York regions: Albany in the Capital Region, Syracuse in Central New York, Rochester in the Finger Lakes, Poughkeepsie in the Mid-Hudson region, Utica in the Mohawk Valley, Binghamton in the Southern Tier, Buffalo in Western New York, and the New York City metro, which is shared by the New York City, Long Island, and the Mid-Hudson regions. The North Country region does not contain a metropolitan area. 48. Bruce Katz was one of the judges of the first year’s regional strategies, along with four other experts on national and state economic development and urban planning with experience in the public, private, and academic sectors: Cesar Perales, secretary, New York Department of State; Joan McDonald, commissioner, New York State Department of Transportation; Walter D. Broadnax, professor of public administration at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University; and Dall W.


pages: 380 words: 104,841

The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman

23andMe, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, airport security, Albert Einstein, Anthropocene, augmented reality, back-to-the-land, carbon footprint, clean water, climate change refugee, dark matter, dematerialisation, digital divide, double helix, Drosophila, epigenetics, Google Earth, Google Glasses, haute cuisine, Higgs boson, hindcast, Internet of things, Lewis Mumford, Loebner Prize, Louis Pasteur, Masdar, mass immigration, Medieval Warm Period, megacity, microbiome, mirror neurons, Neil Armstrong, Nick Bostrom, nuclear winter, ocean acidification, personalized medicine, phenotype, Ray Kurzweil, refrigerator car, rewilding, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI@home, skunkworks, Skype, space junk, stem cell, Stewart Brand, synthetic biology, TED Talk, the High Line, theory of mind, urban planning, urban renewal, We are as Gods, Whole Earth Catalog

A USC professor, Behrokh Khoshnevis, has devised a method known as Contour Crafting for printing out an entire house, layer by layer—including the plumbing, wiring, and other infrastructure—in twenty hours. When 3D printers are linked to geological maps, houses can be made to fit their terrain perfectly. Khoshnevis is designing both single houses and colonies for urban planning, or for use after hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters when fully functional emergency houses will be 3D-printed from the ground up. Boeing is 3D-printing seven hundred parts for its fleet of 747s; it’s already installed twenty thousand such parts on military aircraft. The military’s innovative design branch, DARPA, which began funding 3D printers two decades ago, finds them invaluable for repairing fighter jets in combat or supporting ground troops on the front lines.


pages: 378 words: 110,518

Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future by Paul Mason

air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, Alfred Russel Wallace, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Basel III, basic income, Bernie Madoff, Bill Gates: Altair 8800, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, business process, butterfly effect, call centre, capital controls, carbon tax, Cesare Marchetti: Marchetti’s constant, Claude Shannon: information theory, collaborative economy, collective bargaining, commons-based peer production, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Graeber, deglobalization, deindustrialization, deskilling, discovery of the americas, disinformation, Downton Abbey, drone strike, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, eurozone crisis, factory automation, false flag, financial engineering, financial repression, Firefox, Fractional reserve banking, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, full employment, future of work, game design, Glass-Steagall Act, green new deal, guns versus butter model, Herbert Marcuse, income inequality, inflation targeting, informal economy, information asymmetry, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, late capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market clearing, means of production, Metcalfe's law, microservices, middle-income trap, Money creation, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Norbert Wiener, Occupy movement, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, Pearl River Delta, post-industrial society, power law, precariat, precautionary principle, price mechanism, profit motive, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, reserve currency, RFID, Richard Stallman, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, scientific management, secular stagnation, sharing economy, Stewart Brand, structural adjustment programs, supply-chain management, technological determinism, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Transnistria, Twitter Arab Spring, union organizing, universal basic income, urban decay, urban planning, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, wages for housework, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Yochai Benkler

And he identified something crucial to its technological paradigm: cooperation between labour and capital. The system was now so profitable that the British bosses no longer needed to use the methods of Oliver Twist. The workday was limited to ten hours, child labour was reduced, diseases of poverty were suppressed by urban planning. Now, wrote Engels, employers were apt ‘to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to acquiesce in the existence and power of trade unions’.13 The British workforce had expanded to include millions of unskilled, poor and precarious workers. But Engels recognized a ‘permanent improvement’ for two specific groups: the factory workers and those in ‘the great trade unions’ – by which he meant skilled jobs dominated by adult men.


pages: 446 words: 108,844

The Driver: My Dangerous Pursuit of Speed and Truth in the Outlaw Racing World by Alexander Roy

Bonfire of the Vanities, book value, Google Earth, messenger bag, post-work, urban planning, urban sprawl

Every morning each car will receive a route card indicating the next checkpoint. So that’s it. The only rule is to get to the checkpoints safely. So have a safe drive and I hope to see all of you in Miami.” CHAPTER 10 Two Minutes to Midnight What about the police? Although I’d taken criminology and urban planning in college, and although I’d tried to apply these to studies of traffic congestion in scholarly journals such as Transportation, Econometrica, and the American Economic Review, no researcher had ever investigated their convergence with gross flouting of the law by large groups of high-speed cars.


pages: 322 words: 107,576

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Asperger Syndrome, classic study, confounding variable, correlation does not imply causation, disinformation, Edward Jenner, experimental subject, food desert, hygiene hypothesis, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, John Snow's cholera map, Louis Pasteur, meta-analysis, Nelson Mandela, nocebo, offshore financial centre, p-value, placebo effect, public intellectual, publication bias, Richard Feynman, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), sugar pill, systematic bias, the scientific method, urban planning

Who puts the issue of social inequality driving health inequality onto our screens? Where’s the human interest in prohibiting the promotion of bad foods, facilitating access to healthier foods by means of taxation, or maintaining a clear labelling system? Where is the spectacle in ‘enabling environments’ that naturally promote exercise, or urban planning that prioritises cyclists, pedestrians and public transport over the car? Or in reducing the ever-increasing inequality between senior executive and shop-floor pay? When did you ever hear about elegant ideas like ‘walking school buses’, or were stories about their benefits crowded out by the latest urgent front-page food fad news?


pages: 329 words: 106,831

All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Video Games Conquered Pop Culture by Harold Goldberg

activist lawyer, Alexey Pajitnov wrote Tetris, Apple II, cellular automata, Columbine, Conway's Game of Life, Fairchild Semiconductor, G4S, game design, Ian Bogost, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Mars Rover, Mikhail Gorbachev, PalmPilot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ray Oldenburg, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, SimCity, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, The Great Good Place, Thorstein Veblen, urban planning

Forget Godzilla and plastic hot rod cars. Figuring out what to do with his life didn’t happen easily for Wright. He didn’t want to take on the family business, which was a dead end to him and entrapping. So his mother sold the company. He didn’t quite finish college, so being an astronaut was out of the question. But he did study urban planning at Louisiana State and at the New School in New York City. Part of him still wanted to get his hands dirty, to make those models real at a real world job, like an architect … maybe. And he wanted to make games … well, maybe. But then again, he liked robots, which he could control with the Apple II computer his mother bought for him.


pages: 411 words: 108,119

The Irrational Economist: Making Decisions in a Dangerous World by Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Paul Slovic

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrei Shleifer, availability heuristic, bank run, behavioural economics, Black Swan, business cycle, Cass Sunstein, classic study, clean water, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, complexity theory, conceptual framework, corporate social responsibility, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, cross-subsidies, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, endowment effect, experimental economics, financial innovation, Fractional reserve banking, George Akerlof, hindsight bias, incomplete markets, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, iterative process, Kenneth Arrow, Loma Prieta earthquake, London Interbank Offered Rate, market bubble, market clearing, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Oklahoma City bombing, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, placebo effect, precautionary principle, price discrimination, price stability, RAND corporation, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, social discount rate, source of truth, statistical model, stochastic process, subprime mortgage crisis, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, too big to fail, transaction costs, ultimatum game, University of East Anglia, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto

What are the implications of this pilot metaphor for future-choice decisions? First, many future-choice decisions have a temporal structure—similar to that of the Tokyo-San Francisco flight path—that can be broken down into several segments. Consider, for example, the many scenarios involved in urban planning or career development. However, in contrast to the Tokyo- San Francisco flight, which has a precise goal (i.e., arrival at a specific spot in San Francisco), the end-states of these future-choice decisions are not necessarily well defined. On the other hand, they undoubtedly are driven by a “direction” or values (e.g., creation of a viable city, achievement of personal and professional success).


Lonely Planet's Best of USA by Lonely Planet

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, big-box store, bike sharing, Burning Man, car-free, carbon footprint, Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Strangelove, East Village, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francisco Pizarro, Frank Gehry, Golden Gate Park, haute cuisine, mass immigration, obamacare, off-the-grid, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, the High Line, the payments system, transcontinental railway, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, Works Progress Administration

. (%504-581-4629; www.auduboninstitute.org; 6500 Magazine St; adult/child 2-12yr/senior $19/14/15; h10am-4pm Tue-Fri, to 5pm Sat & Sun Sep-Feb, 10am-5pm Mon-Fri, to 6pm Sat & Sun Mar-Aug; c) 1 City Park & Mid-City City Park Park Live oaks, Spanish moss and lazy bayous frame this masterpiece of urban planning. Three miles long and 1 mile wide, dotted with gardens, waterways, bridges and home to a captivating art museum, City Park is bigger than Central Park in NYC, and it’s New Orleans’ prettiest green space. It’s also a perfect ‘local’ park, in the sense that it is an only slightly tamed expression of the forest and Louisiana wetlands that are the natural backdrop of the city. (%504-482-4888; www.neworleanscitypark.com; Esplanade Ave & City Park Ave) New Orleans Museum of Art Museum Inside City Park, this elegant museum was opened in 1911 and is well worth a visit both for its special exhibitions and top-floor galleries of African, Asian, Native American and Oceanic art – don’t miss the outstanding Qing dynasty snuff-bottle collection.


pages: 410 words: 106,931

Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra

anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Brexit referendum, British Empire, classic study, colonial rule, continuation of politics by other means, creative destruction, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Evgeny Morozov, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Fellow of the Royal Society, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Santayana, global village, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, informal economy, invisible hand, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, Oklahoma City bombing, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, planetary scale, plutocrats, power law, precariat, public intellectual, Republic of Letters, Scientific racism, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, smart cities, Snapchat, stem cell, technological solutionism, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Timothy McVeigh, trade route, traveling salesman, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto, wage slave, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

As the UN predicted, the ‘developing world’ was soon full of men uprooted from rural habitats and condemned to drift in the big city – those eventually likely to focus their rage against the modernizing West and its agents in Muslim countries. One of those thwarted migrants muttering ‘You’ll reckon with me yet’ in the last years of the twentieth century was a lower middle-class young man from Cairo writing a master’s thesis on urban planning. Describing the despoliation of a neighbourhood in the old Syrian city of Aleppo by highways and modernist high rises, he called for them all to be demolished and the area to be rebuilt along traditional lines, with courtyard homes and market stalls. He saw this as part of a restoration of Islamic culture.


Lonely Planet Jamaica by Lonely Planet

British Empire, buttonwood tree, carbon footprint, estate planning, European colonialism, fixed-gear, food miles, jitney, Kickstarter, talking drums, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning

Nazareth Moravian ChurchCHURCH ( GOOGLE MAP ; Maidstone) South of the B6, perched atop the Don Figuerero Mountains, 7km from Mile Gully, is this humble church, which would look as comfortable on the American prairie as it does in the Jamaican bush. Founded in 1840, Maidstone is one of Jamaica’s post-emancipation, pre-planned ‘free villages,’ an early experiment at the intersection of urban planning and social policy. The annual Emancipation Day Fair is celebrated at Maidstone on August 1, with mento bands, Jonkanoo celebrations, and maypole and quadrille dancing. 4Sleeping Villa IsabelGUESTHOUSE$ ( GOOGLE MAP ; %789-5829; www.villaisabelja.com; Mile Gully; r US$35-45; aW) This friendly place with three comfortable en-suite rooms makes a good base for hiking and biking in the picturesque countryside.


pages: 370 words: 112,602

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Albert Einstein, Andrei Shleifer, business process, business process outsourcing, call centre, Cass Sunstein, charter city, clean water, collapse of Lehman Brothers, congestion charging, demographic transition, diversified portfolio, experimental subject, hiring and firing, Kickstarter, land tenure, low interest rates, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, microcredit, moral hazard, purchasing power parity, randomized controlled trial, Richard Thaler, school vouchers, Silicon Valley, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Thomas Malthus, tontine, urban planning

A follow-up experiment that Wantchekon conducted before the 2006 election suggests that voters are indeed prepared to support those politicians who take seriously the job to design and explain social policies. 40 Wantchekon and other civil society leaders in Benin started by organizing a broad consultation: “Election 2006: What Policy Alternative?” There were four panels on education, public health, governance, and urban planning, and four experts (two from Benin and two from neighboring Niger and Nigeria) provided a white paper with policy recommendations. These were all broad proposals, without clientelist appeal. All the parties represented in the National Assembly, as well as representatives from various NGOs, attended the conference.


pages: 297 words: 108,353

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles by William Quinn, John D. Turner

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, algorithmic trading, AOL-Time Warner, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bitcoin, blockchain, book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, buy and hold, capital controls, Celtic Tiger, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Corn Laws, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, debt deflation, deglobalization, Deng Xiaoping, different worldview, discounted cash flows, Donald Trump, equity risk premium, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, eurozone crisis, fake news, financial deregulation, financial intermediation, Flash crash, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Akerlof, government statistician, Greenspan put, high-speed rail, information asymmetry, initial coin offering, intangible asset, Irish property bubble, Isaac Newton, Japanese asset price bubble, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, land bank, light touch regulation, low interest rates, margin call, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, Northern Rock, oil shock, Ponzi scheme, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, railway mania, Right to Buy, Robert Shiller, Shenzhen special economic zone , short selling, short squeeze, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, South Sea Bubble, special economic zone, subprime mortgage crisis, technology bubble, the built environment, total factor productivity, transaction costs, tulip mania, urban planning

In keeping with its commitment to reducing the 138 JAPAN IN THE 1980S 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 1964 1967 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 Figure 8.1 Japanese land price index for six major cities, 1964–201017 economic role of the state, the government decided not to direct urban development itself. Instead, a series of tax breaks, subsidies and financing initiatives were granted to private real-estate companies, while the Ministry of Construction heavily deregulated the process of urban planning.18 This, combined with the liberalisation of mortgage lending and ultra-low interest rates, massively increased real-estate investment. The subsequent effect on urban land prices can be seen in Figure 8.1. Between 1985 and 1987, the price of land in the six major Japanese cities rose by 44 per cent.


pages: 339 words: 103,546

Blood and Oil: Mohammed Bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power by Bradley Hope, Justin Scheck

"World Economic Forum" Davos, augmented reality, Ayatollah Khomeini, Boston Dynamics, clean water, coronavirus, distributed generation, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Elon Musk, Exxon Valdez, financial engineering, Google Earth, high net worth, Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Masayoshi Son, megaproject, MITM: man-in-the-middle, new economy, NSO Group, Peter Thiel, public intellectual, ride hailing / ride sharing, Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, South of Market, San Francisco, sovereign wealth fund, starchitect, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, tech billionaire, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, traumatic brain injury, Travis Kalanick, Uber for X, urban planning, Virgin Galactic, Vision Fund, WeWork, women in the workforce, young professional, zero day

That was one side of a frenzied 2018 for Mohammed, a year in which he would push through social and economic transformation plans at a dizzying pace and in full public view. In the coming months he would meet with presidents, CEOs, and tech billionaires including Elon Musk and Bill Gates, publicly proclaiming an open and innovative future for Saudi Arabia. He would make massive commitments to virtual reality and solar power and cutting-edge urban planning. “The most influential Arab leader. Transforming the world at 32,” blared the cover of an unfamiliar magazine titled The New Kingdom (priced at $13.99) that showed up on newsstands across the United States just ahead of the prince’s visit. The other side of Mohammed’s year was conducted in the shadows, in the form of stepped-up surveillance, arrests, kidnappings, and violence aimed at perceived enemies at home and abroad.


pages: 406 words: 108,266

Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel by Stephen Budiansky

Abraham Wald, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, business cycle, Douglas Hofstadter, fear of failure, Fellow of the Royal Society, four colour theorem, Georg Cantor, Gregor Mendel, Gödel, Escher, Bach, John von Neumann, laissez-faire capitalism, P = NP, P vs NP, Paul Erdős, rent control, scientific worldview, the scientific method, Thorstein Veblen, Turing machine, urban planning

A derisive ditty in the local Viennese dialect satirized der Ringstraßenstil and its two famous architects: Der Sicardsburg und van der Nüll, Haben beide keinen Stüll. Griechisch, gotisch, Renaissance, Das ist ihnen alles aans! That Sicardsburg and van der Nüll, Have no style that you can name. Gothic, Greek, and Renaissance, To them they’re all the same! But as an example of successful urban planning the Ringstraße was, and remains, superb, the most visually striking of any city of the time, full of life and vitality, culture and commerce, its brightly lit coffeehouses, elegant hotels, grand town palaces of the Ephrussis, Rothschilds, Wittgensteins, and the other great families whose fortunes grew with Austria’s plunge into commerce and industry, all woven into Vienna’s legendary charm.


pages: 338 words: 104,684

The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy by Stephanie Kelton

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Apollo 11, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, blockchain, bond market vigilante , book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, collective bargaining, COVID-19, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, discrete time, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, fiat currency, floating exchange rates, Food sovereignty, full employment, gentrification, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, global supply chain, green new deal, high-speed rail, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, inflation targeting, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investor state dispute settlement, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, liquidity trap, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Mason jar, Modern Monetary Theory, mortgage debt, Naomi Klein, National Debt Clock, new economy, New Urbanism, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, obamacare, open economy, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, price anchoring, price stability, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, reserve currency, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco homelessness, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Tax Reform Act of 1986, trade liberalization, urban planning, working-age population, Works Progress Administration, yield curve, zero-sum game

There are, of course, many other options. What’s important here is not whether this example is a good idea or not, but that we begin to imagine how the government’s fiscal capacity can help deploy real resources effectively to achieve a clear public policy objective. As we rethink the kind of health care, education, urban planning, scientific research, agriculture, and housing we need for our future, how might our knowledge of MMT shift our focus to the real resources we need and suggest ways where a change in fiscal policy can help? Can you imagine an economy where private enterprise and public investment all combine to raise living standards for everyone?


pages: 383 words: 105,387

The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World by Tim Marshall

Apollo 11, Ayatollah Khomeini, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, COVID-19, David Sedaris, disinformation, Donald Trump, drone strike, Elon Musk, European colonialism, failed state, glass ceiling, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, low earth orbit, Malacca Straits, means of production, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, space junk, Strategic Defense Initiative, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, uranium enrichment, urban planning, women in the workforce

Yet Athens produced more brilliant minds – from Socrates to Aristotle – than any other place the world has seen before or since.’ Athenians loved to venture abroad and learn from other cultures. As the philosopher Plato put it in an indelicate phrase, ‘What the Greeks borrow from foreigners, they perfect.’ What they perfected has given us so much, for example Hippodamus, the father of urban planning; the great philosophers such as Aristotle; in medicine, Hippocrates; in mathematics, Pythagoras; and the world’s first known female mathematician, Hypatia. An estimated 150,000 English words derive from Greek, democracy, acrobat and sarcasm among them. We can also thank Greek antiquity for the term hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian – relating to long words.


pages: 395 words: 115,753

The Metropolitan Revolution: The Rise of Post-Urban America by Jon C. Teaford

anti-communist, back-to-the-city movement, big-box store, conceptual framework, desegregation, Detroit bankruptcy, East Village, edge city, estate planning, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, Gunnar Myrdal, Haight Ashbury, housing crisis, illegal immigration, Jane Jacobs, Joan Didion, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, plutocrats, Potemkin village, rent control, restrictive zoning, Seaside, Florida, Silicon Valley, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Victor Gruen, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, young professional

Jenkins, “Before Downtown: Cleveland, Ohio, and Urban Renewal, 1949–1958,” Journal of Urban History 27 (2001): 488–89. 50. Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 240. 51. John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, 1920–1974 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), p. 169. 52. John Barlow Martin, “Incident at Fernwood,” Harper’s Magazine, October 1949, p. 89. 53. Ibid., p. 95. 54. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto, pp. 55, 58–59. 55. Ibid., p. 77. 56. Abrams, Forbidden Neighbors, p. 118. 57.


pages: 549 words: 116,200

With a Little Help by Cory Efram Doctorow, Jonathan Coulton, Russell Galen

autonomous vehicles, big-box store, Burning Man, call centre, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, death of newspapers, don't be evil, game design, Google Earth, high net worth, lifelogging, lolcat, margin call, Mark Shuttleworth, offshore financial centre, packet switching, Ponzi scheme, reality distortion field, rolodex, Sand Hill Road, sensible shoes, skunkworks, Skype, traffic fines, traveling salesman, Turing test, urban planning, Y2K

He'd grown up hearing his dad wax rhapsodic about the amazing computer he'd invented, so his relevance filters were heavily tilted to BIGMAC news. He'd heard the whole story, and was surprised to discover that he was putative half-owner of BIGMAC's sourcecode. He was only too glad to promise to turn it over to the trust when it was created. He said he thought he could talk his younger brother, a post-doc in Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, into it. "Rusty never really got what Dad saw in that thing, but he'll be happy to offload any thinking about it onto me, and I'll dump it onto you. He's busy, Rusty." 2877 I thanked him and addressed BIGMAC, who had been listening in on the line. "I think we've got a plan


pages: 425 words: 117,334

City on the Verge by Mark Pendergrast

big-box store, bike sharing, clean water, Community Supported Agriculture, cotton gin, crowdsourcing, desegregation, edge city, Edward Glaeser, food desert, gentrification, global village, high-speed rail, housing crisis, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, independent contractor, Jane Jacobs, jitney, land bank, Lewis Mumford, liberation theology, mass incarceration, McMansion, megaproject, New Urbanism, openstreetmap, power law, Richard Florida, streetcar suburb, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the High Line, transatlantic slave trade, transit-oriented development, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, W. E. B. Du Bois, walkable city, white flight, young professional

The contents reflect original research, extensive historical reading, news synthesis, nearly four hundred interviews, and old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism. In Part One, chapter styles trade off with one another. One set of chapters offers an unbroken linear narrative of the BeltLine’s evolution and struggle, while alternating chapters offer expansive perspectives on Atlanta’s history, transportation and racial issues, housing, public health, urban planning, education, and more. Part Two offers a panoramic view of the city from the ground level, with chapters exploring the neighborhoods adjacent to the BeltLine, towns “outside the Perimeter”—or OTP—of the city proper, and, finally, the troubled downtown “hole” in the BeltLine donut. By the end we’ve brought the story up to date and look to Atlanta’s future.


A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge Concise Histories) by Barbara D. Metcalf, Thomas R. Metcalf

affirmative action, Berlin Wall, British Empire, classic study, colonial rule, commoditize, demand response, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, gentleman farmer, income inequality, joint-stock company, Khyber Pass, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, means of production, new economy, scientific management, Silicon Valley, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, telemarketer, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning

., Elites in South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). Swati Chattopadhyay’s Representing Calcutta (New York: Routledge, 2005), in a suggestive and original fashion, places the ordering of nineteenth-century Bengali, and British Indian, society within the framework of Calcutta’s urban planning and design. On resistance movements, Ranajit Guha’s influential Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (Oxford and Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984) should be consulted. Extended quotations are taken from Sita Ram, From Sepoy to Subedar (London: Routledge, 1970); for Halhed, from Rosane Rocher, ‘British Orientalism’ (citied above); for Valentia, from Curzon of Kedleston, British Government in India (London: Cassell & Co., 1925); for Trevelyan, from G.


Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabriel Weinberg, Lauren McCann

Abraham Maslow, Abraham Wald, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, anti-pattern, Anton Chekhov, Apollo 13, Apple Newton, autonomous vehicles, bank run, barriers to entry, Bayesian statistics, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Black Swan, Broken windows theory, business process, butterfly effect, Cal Newport, Clayton Christensen, cognitive dissonance, commoditize, correlation does not imply causation, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, dark pattern, David Attenborough, delayed gratification, deliberate practice, discounted cash flows, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, Dunning–Kruger effect, Edward Lorenz: Chaos theory, Edward Snowden, effective altruism, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, experimental subject, fake news, fear of failure, feminist movement, Filter Bubble, framing effect, friendly fire, fundamental attribution error, Goodhart's law, Gödel, Escher, Bach, heat death of the universe, hindsight bias, housing crisis, if you see hoof prints, think horses—not zebras, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, illegal immigration, imposter syndrome, incognito mode, income inequality, information asymmetry, Isaac Newton, Jeff Bezos, John Nash: game theory, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, lateral thinking, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, LuLaRoe, Lyft, mail merge, Mark Zuckerberg, meta-analysis, Metcalfe’s law, Milgram experiment, minimum viable product, moral hazard, mutually assured destruction, Nash equilibrium, Network effects, nocebo, nuclear winter, offshore financial centre, p-value, Paradox of Choice, Parkinson's law, Paul Graham, peak oil, Peter Thiel, phenotype, Pierre-Simon Laplace, placebo effect, Potemkin village, power law, precautionary principle, prediction markets, premature optimization, price anchoring, principal–agent problem, publication bias, recommendation engine, remote working, replication crisis, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Metcalfe, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, school choice, Schrödinger's Cat, selection bias, Shai Danziger, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, speech recognition, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, Streisand effect, sunk-cost fallacy, survivorship bias, systems thinking, The future is already here, The last Blockbuster video rental store is in Bend, Oregon, The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, uber lyft, ultimatum game, uranium enrichment, urban planning, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, warehouse robotics, WarGames: Global Thermonuclear War, When a measure becomes a target, wikimedia commons

Governments and large corporations have dedicated staff for scenario analysis. They are continually thinking up and writing reports about what the world could look like in the future and how their citizenry or shareholders might fare under those scenarios. Many academics, especially in political science, urban planning, economics, and related fields, similarly engage in prognosticating about the future. And of course, science fiction is essentially an entire literary genre dedicated to scenario analysis. To do scenario analysis well, you must conjure plausible yet distinct futures, ultimately considering several possible scenarios.


pages: 379 words: 114,807

The Land Grabbers: The New Fight Over Who Owns the Earth by Fred Pearce

activist lawyer, Asian financial crisis, banking crisis, big-box store, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, blood diamond, British Empire, Buy land – they’re not making it any more, Cape to Cairo, carbon credits, carbon footprint, clean water, company town, corporate raider, credit crunch, Deng Xiaoping, Elliott wave, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, farmers can use mobile phones to check market prices, Garrett Hardin, Global Witness, index fund, Jeff Bezos, Kickstarter, Kondratiev cycle, land reform, land tenure, Mahatma Gandhi, market fundamentalism, megacity, megaproject, Mohammed Bouazizi, Nelson Mandela, Nikolai Kondratiev, offshore financial centre, out of africa, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, Ronald Reagan, smart cities, structural adjustment programs, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, undersea cable, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, WikiLeaks

The Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort outside Abu Dhabi, which is owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family, denies any link. “There are very wealthy people behind it, but the truth is complex” was the nearest I got. The only known official is the chairman, Falah al Ahbabi, a civil servant who is also the general manager of the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council. His day job is to “green” the city, a centerpiece of which is the expansion of the existing wildlife park into a 2,200-acre complex with thousands more animals and “themed African, Arabian and Asian safari encampments.” There are those who fear—on the basis of what has happened at other wildlife reserves elsewhere in Africa operated by mysterious people from the Gulf emirates—that some of Boma’s animals may end up in the new wildlife park.


pages: 387 words: 120,092

The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge by Ilan Pappe

affirmative action, Ayatollah Khomeini, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, disinformation, double helix, facts on the ground, feminist movement, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, mass immigration, Mount Scopus, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, one-state solution, postnationalism / post nation state, stem cell, Suez canal 1869, urban planning, Yom Kippur War

Thus, Zvi Efrat revisited the iconic photography of the 1950s, which in fact recorded the destruction of Palestine even though the photographs were commissioned to commemorate the forestation of the country; the Jewish National Fund had planted European pine trees all over the villages destroyed and depopulated by the IDF during the 1948 war.32 Galia Zlamansov Levi examined how the Bible was taught in Israeli schools as a text that justified military occupation and dispossession, minus any exploration of moral issues or questions of justice. Alexander Kedar looked at the Israeli land law regime and presented it as a colonialist structure in its intent, praxis and objectives.33 Haim Bereshit deconstructed the history of urban planning in Jaffa as a microcosm of the Zionist policy of de-Arabisation of the country.34 Ilan Gur-Ze’ev discussed the physical structure of the University of Haifa, built on Mount Carmel, as a project aimed at ‘erasing the existence of the other cultures on the mountain … its phallic towers eradicating the memory of the destroyed Palestinian villages as well as the natural flora of the area’.35 Every medium through which the historical narrative of Zionism and the essence of the idea of Israel were conveyed was examined, deconstructed and exposed as a text that hid, distorted, rejected and oppressed the Other, whoever that might be.


A People’s History of Computing in the United States by Joy Lisi Rankin

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Albert Einstein, Apple II, Bill Gates: Altair 8800, Charles Babbage, Compatible Time-Sharing System, computer age, Computer Lib, corporate social responsibility, digital divide, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Grace Hopper, Hacker Ethic, Howard Rheingold, Howard Zinn, it's over 9,000, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, John von Neumann, language acquisition, Mark Zuckerberg, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Mother of all demos, Multics, Network effects, Norbert Wiener, pink-collar, profit motive, public intellectual, punch-card reader, RAND corporation, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Ted Nelson, the market place, urban planning, Whole Earth Catalog, wikimedia commons

Osgood and Umpleby thought it was valuable and eye-­opening for individuals to confront such choices. They initially framed their proj­ect, called DELPHI (like the site of the ancient Greek oracle), in the language of ­f utures research, a burgeoning field. F ­ utures research entailed planning for the ­f uture (including urban planning), developing methods of forecasting, and involving the public in both planning and forecasting.11 GE had established TEMPO (Technical Management Planning Organ­ization) for this purpose, and the Air Force’s already well-­k nown RAND Corporation had been founded to coordinate long-­range planning with government research and development decisions.12 As he worked intensively with PLATO on the DELPHI proj­ect, Umpleby re­imagined the possibilities and the purpose of the system.


pages: 426 words: 117,027

Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought by Barbara Tversky

Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, Asperger Syndrome, augmented reality, clean water, cognitive load, continuous integration, double helix, en.wikipedia.org, fundamental attribution error, Hans Rosling, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), John Snow's cholera map, Lao Tzu, meta-analysis, mirror neurons, natural language processing, neurotypical, patient HM, Richard Feynman, Steven Pinker, TED Talk, the new new thing, theory of mind, urban planning

Kristensen, & A. Michelsen (Eds.), Transvisuality: The cultural dimension of visuality: Vol. 1: Boundaries and creative openings (pp. 142–156). Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press. Tversky, B. (2016). Lines: Orderly and messy. In Y. Portugali & E. Stolk (Eds.), Complexity, cognition, urban planning and design (pp. 237–250). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. Klee: A line is a dot that went for a walk Klee, P. (n.d.). A line is a dot that went for a walk. Paul Klee: Paintings, Biography and Quotes. Retrieved from http://www.paulklee.net/paul-klee-quotes.jsp Points, lines, planes Kandinsky, W. (1947).


pages: 397 words: 114,841

High Steel: The Daring Men Who Built the World's Greatest Skyline by Jim Rasenberger

AOL-Time Warner, Bear Stearns, collective bargaining, Donald Trump, East Village, Ford Model T, illegal immigration, Lewis Mumford, MITM: man-in-the-middle, scientific management, strikebreaker, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, union organizing, urban planning, vertical integration, young professional

The “bridge over the sea,” as the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge has been called, was to be the last link in the interborough highway system that Robert Moses had begun with the Triborough Bridge 25 years earlier. Moses, the master-builder of New York, was back to perform one last monumental act of urban planning. Othmar Ammann was back to engineer one last superlative bridge. Bridge building had slackened after the Depression, pausing for World War II, then picked up again in the late 1940s. Americans demanded automobiles, and automobiles demanded new highways and tunnels and, of course, bridges. In the five boroughs of New York City alone, ironworkers erected 28 bridges in the 28 years between the completion of the George Washington in 1931 and the start of the Verrazano-Narrows in 1959.


pages: 426 words: 118,913

Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously About the Planet by Roger Scruton

An Inconvenient Truth, barriers to entry, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, Climategate, Climatic Research Unit, corporate social responsibility, demand response, Easter island, edge city, endowment effect, energy security, Exxon Valdez, failed state, food miles, garden city movement, Garrett Hardin, ghettoisation, happiness index / gross national happiness, Herbert Marcuse, hobby farmer, Howard Zinn, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, Lewis Mumford, market friction, Martin Wolf, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, Peter Singer: altruism, phenotype, precautionary principle, rent-seeking, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Sam Peltzman, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, tacit knowledge, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the market place, Thomas Malthus, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, University of East Anglia, urban planning, urban sprawl, Vilfredo Pareto, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

The Bauhaus under Hannes Meyer was an explicitly socialist establishment, influenced by the ‘democratic centralism’ of Lenin; its contribution to urbanization was the comprehensive plan, involving the demolition of streets and settlements and their replacement by tower blocks of workers’ flats. Urban planning was henceforth seen as an integral feature of the architect’s task, which was no longer concerned with fitting in but with replacing whole neighbourhoods and even cities. The modernist styles emerged from the spirit of the top-down plan, which replaced that of the side-constraint all across the Western world at the same time, and with the same force, as the spirit of socialism.


pages: 458 words: 116,832

The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism by Nick Couldry, Ulises A. Mejias

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, behavioural economics, Big Tech, British Empire, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, cloud computing, colonial rule, computer vision, corporate governance, dark matter, data acquisition, data is the new oil, data science, deep learning, different worldview, digital capitalism, digital divide, discovery of the americas, disinformation, diversification, driverless car, Edward Snowden, emotional labour, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, Evgeny Morozov, extractivism, fake news, Gabriella Coleman, gamification, gig economy, global supply chain, Google Chrome, Google Earth, hiring and firing, income inequality, independent contractor, information asymmetry, Infrastructure as a Service, intangible asset, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, job automation, Kevin Kelly, late capitalism, lifelogging, linked data, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, military-industrial complex, move fast and break things, multi-sided market, Naomi Klein, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, PageRank, pattern recognition, payday loans, Philip Mirowski, profit maximization, Ray Kurzweil, RFID, Richard Stallman, Richard Thaler, Salesforce, scientific management, Scientific racism, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Shoshana Zuboff, side hustle, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, smart cities, Snapchat, social graph, social intelligence, software studies, sovereign wealth fund, surveillance capitalism, techlash, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, Thomas Davenport, Tim Cook: Apple, trade liberalization, trade route, undersea cable, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois, wages for housework, work culture , workplace surveillance

As smartness starts to drive urban regeneration, it will become harder to hold on to the forms of knowledge lost through the capitalization of life. New urban environments will emerge, such as the proposal by Google’s Sidewalk Labs for downtown Toronto’s waterfront district, built on personalization (“really smart, people-centered urban planning”) and iron corporate control of the “intelligent signals” generated by a datafied environment.201 To have a chance of resisting this, we must hold onto earlier forms of social knowledge: voice, public accountability and the public value of social understanding, visibility rather than opacity, contextual social explanation, and above all a concern with the role of these values in challenging injustice.


pages: 500 words: 115,119

Adriatic: A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age by Robert D. Kaplan

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Anton Chekhov, Berlin Wall, British Empire, coronavirus, COVID-19, dematerialisation, disinformation, Donald Davies, Donald Trump, European colonialism, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, geopolitical risk, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, mega-rich, megacity, open borders, Parag Khanna, Pax Mongolica, South China Sea, Suez canal 1869, trade route, urban planning

Of course, there is another side to this romance, as a Greek friend, who is a specialist in economic crime, tells me over a drink here. The emphasis on (and the strength of) family can also lead to corruption, since family bonds have historically come before legal norms and other ethical boundaries. Modern Greece’s tradition of a weak state—where services such as urban planning and garbage collection are feeble, and so too is tax collection—is partly traceable to the panorama I see before me on my first evening in Corfu Town. There has been an implicit bargain between government and people here since the mid-nineteenth century: we will give you little but we will also take little from you.


pages: 296 words: 118,126

The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration by Jake Bittle

augmented reality, clean water, climate anxiety, climate change refugee, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, decarbonisation, digital map, Donald Trump, energy transition, four colour theorem, gentrification, Google Earth, housing crisis, illegal immigration, immigration reform, longitudinal study, McMansion, off-the-grid, oil shock, place-making, Ralph Waldo Emerson, risk tolerance, smart cities, tail risk, Tipper Gore, Tragedy of the Commons, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, white flight, Yom Kippur War, young professional

In the United States alone, at least twenty million people may move as a result of climate change, more than twice as many as moved during the entire span of the Great Migration. Climate migration is often discussed as a phenomenon that is tangential to the climate crisis itself, a secondary impact that has future implications for issues like immigration and urban planning. Nothing could be further from the truth. By the middle of the century, housing displacement will be the most visible and ubiquitous consequence of climate change, the one dynamic that unites the sinking islands of the Sundarbans with the desiccated landscapes of Guatemala and Chad. It will function as the currency of climate damage, the common consequence of climate-driven famine and climate-driven bankruptcy and climate-driven armed conflict.


pages: 415 words: 127,092

Dawn of Detroit by Tiya Miles

British Empire, classic study, European colonialism, food desert, gentleman farmer, gentrification, mass incarceration, Naomi Klein, profit motive, trade route, transit-oriented development, urban planning, white flight

Serendipitously, an interdisciplinary group of faculty members and graduate students at the University of Michigan began meeting to jointly explore the notion of introducing a new field of scholarly enquiry called the Detroit School of Urban Studies, in line with the Chicago and LA schools coined in previous decades. Our Department of Afroamerican and African Studies was centrally involved in this activity along with faculty in Social Work, Sociology, Urban Planning, and the Residential College, so I sat in on these discussions with urban planners, sociologists of the city, and twentieth-century urban historians, which heightened and sharpened my interest in Detroit. Although my peers were discussing postindustrial society, food deserts, green spaces, mass incarceration, and the pitfalls of gentrification, I could see links between this modern (and postmodern) Detroit and the Detroit of the colonial and early American eras when slavery was practiced.


pages: 400 words: 124,678

The Investment Checklist: The Art of In-Depth Research by Michael Shearn

accelerated depreciation, AOL-Time Warner, Asian financial crisis, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, book value, business cycle, call centre, Carl Icahn, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, commoditize, compensation consultant, compound rate of return, Credit Default Swap, currency risk, do what you love, electricity market, estate planning, financial engineering, Henry Singleton, intangible asset, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, London Interbank Offered Rate, margin call, Mark Zuckerberg, money market fund, Network effects, PalmPilot, pink-collar, risk tolerance, shareholder value, six sigma, Skype, Steve Jobs, stock buybacks, subscription business, supply-chain management, technology bubble, Teledyne, time value of money, transaction costs, urban planning, women in the workforce, young professional

Lay was later convicted of conspiracy and fraud after Enron failed. Alfred Taubman gave significant gifts to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and buildings named for him include the Taubman Medical Library and Taubman Health Care Center. There is even a school within the university named for him, the Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning. Yet he spent a year in jail after being convicted in 2001 for price fixing at auction house Sotheby’s. Dennis Kozlowski, the former CEO of conglomerate Tyco International, donated millions to Seton Hall University, and its Stillman School of Business was housed in an academic building named for Kozlowski.


pages: 366 words: 123,151

The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today by Ted Conover

airport security, Atahualpa, carbon footprint, Deng Xiaoping, East Village, financial independence, Google Earth, mass immigration, megacity, mutually assured destruction, New Urbanism, nuclear winter, off grid, Ronald Reagan, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning, urban renewal

It does, however, have a reputation for crime, and lots and lots of people. But people are interesting. So is crime. Finally, I chose Lagos because, as a subject, it seems to inspire extreme reactions. Most typically, Lagos is Exhibit A for observers worrying about the population explosion and urban planning crises in the Third World. Western observers, perhaps rightly, seem to fear it, linking it to the possibility of apocalyptic disease or massive civil unrest. Nigeria, writes Jeffrey Tayler in The Atlantic, “is lurching toward disaster.” Rapid urban growth, argues Mike Davis in Harper’s, “has been a recipe for the inevitable mass production of slums.


pages: 421 words: 120,332

The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future by Laurence C. Smith

Boeing 747, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, clean water, climate change refugee, Climategate, colonial rule, data science, deglobalization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Easter island, electricity market, energy security, flex fuel, G4S, global supply chain, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, guest worker program, Hans Island, hydrogen economy, ice-free Arctic, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of agriculture, invisible hand, land tenure, Martin Wolf, Medieval Warm Period, megacity, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, Pearl River Delta, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, side project, Silicon Valley, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, standardized shipping container, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, urban planning, Washington Consensus, Y2K

Evaporation losses from power plants are much smaller than the total withdrawal but are still significant in water-stressed areas. In very dry places, it becomes increasingly difficult to guarantee enough water for cooling purposes at all. In the first study of its kind, Martin Pasqualetti, a professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University,239 scrutinized how much water consumption (i.e., evaporation) Arizona’s different energy technologies require in order to produce one megawatt-hour of electricity. What he found may surprise you: Water Losses Embedded in Arizona Electricity Generation From Pasqualetti’s data we learn that the water consumption of energy production is not only large, but varies tremendously depending on the type of energy being used.


pages: 326 words: 48,727

Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth by Mark Hertsgaard

addicted to oil, An Inconvenient Truth, Berlin Wall, business continuity plan, carbon footprint, clean water, climate change refugee, Climategate, Climatic Research Unit, congestion pricing, corporate governance, cuban missile crisis, decarbonisation, defense in depth, disinformation, en.wikipedia.org, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fixed income, food miles, Great Leap Forward, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Kickstarter, megacity, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, ocean acidification, peak oil, Port of Oakland, precautionary principle, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, smart grid, South China Sea, the built environment, transatlantic slave trade, transit-oriented development, two and twenty, University of East Anglia, urban planning

New Orleans, Florida, Shanghai, and many other places remain more vulnerable than necessary because their political and economic leaders, many citizens, and even some scientists continue to doubt that burning fossil fuels poses grave risks to their future. Being smart also means planning ahead. The human and economic disaster that followed Hurricane Katrina illustrated what can happen when government fails to plan ahead, just as the improved flood defenses and climate-friendly urban planning found in King County and the Netherlands show what can be accomplished when governments ask and answer the climate question. Individuals have responsibilities, too; among other things, they must be prepared to evacuate from high-risk locations and not dawdle when authorities order them to go.


pages: 407 words: 123,587

The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq by Rory Stewart

Ayatollah Khomeini, British Empire, clean water, Etonian, full employment, Khartoum Gordon, lateral thinking, Masdar, microcredit, public intellectual, trade route, unemployed young men, urban planning

I returned a week later on a plane to Kuwait with some middle-aged Irish and Scottish engineering consultants and CPA South’s new tourism adviser. These men, who were based in Basra and had worked in many countries, were steady, slow-moving, and phlegmatic. They were good at telecommunication technology and electric networks and urban planning but not very interested in sheikhs and politics. In accordance with CPA instructions, they went by bus to spend a day and a night at the Kuwait Hilton beach resort, but because our Amara office was tiny—a tenth the size of the Basra office—and we were short of time, I took a taxi to the border, persuaded a Humvee to give me a lift across no-man’s land, and met my bodyguard team at the other side.


pages: 404 words: 124,705

The Village Effect: How Face-To-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter by Susan Pinker

assortative mating, Atul Gawande, autism spectrum disorder, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, call centre, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, cognitive dissonance, David Brooks, delayed gratification, digital divide, Edward Glaeser, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, estate planning, facts on the ground, fixed-gear, game design, happiness index / gross national happiness, indoor plumbing, intentional community, invisible hand, Kickstarter, language acquisition, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, medical residency, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, mirror neurons, neurotypical, Occupy movement, old-boy network, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), place-making, Ponzi scheme, Ralph Waldo Emerson, randomized controlled trial, Ray Oldenburg, Silicon Valley, Skype, social contagion, social intelligence, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, The Great Good Place, the strength of weak ties, The Wisdom of Crowds, theory of mind, tontine, Tony Hsieh, Twitter Arab Spring, urban planning, Yogi Berra

We have a strong sense of the people we meet up with online, and the medium is not the message, they write, adding this odd postscript: “People rarely interact with strangers over the internet.”26 Yet there is an undeniable fact: due to the convenience and power of the Internet, many of us now live, shop, go to school, and work alone. With classes now posted online and the proliferation of MOOCs (massive open online courses), many college students don’t bother to leave their rooms. Just as the sidewalk vanished in much of American urban planning in the mid-twentieth century, when the car became the dominant form of transportation, the post office, newsstand, bookstore, and video store—all places where we crossed paths just a few years ago—are becoming obsolete. True, there are lots of online conversations and apps that connect people, and cafés are more common on street corners than supermarkets.


pages: 413 words: 119,379

The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth by Tom Burgis

Airbus A320, Berlin Wall, blood diamond, BRICs, British Empire, central bank independence, clean water, colonial rule, corporate social responsibility, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, F. W. de Klerk, financial engineering, flag carrier, Gini coefficient, Global Witness, Livingstone, I presume, McMansion, megacity, megaproject, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, purchasing power parity, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, structural adjustment programs, trade route, transfer pricing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, zero-sum game

In 2009, fifteen years after Mandela became president, the richest 20 per cent of South Africans garnered 68 percent of the national income; the figure reached 70 per cent in 2011.11 By some measures the gap between rich and poor has widened since the end of apartheid.12 That is the legacy of apartheid-era urban planning, two-tier education and countless other lingering distortions of white rule. But it also fits the pattern of inequality that stems from the resource curse. When the simmering rage of black South Africans who were still barely scraping by after two decades of majority rule finally exploded, the detonation came, inevitably, at a mine.


pages: 407 words: 121,458

Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff by Fred Pearce

additive manufacturing, air freight, Berlin Wall, biodiversity loss, blood diamond, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, congestion charging, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, demographic transition, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, food miles, ghettoisation, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, Kibera, Kickstarter, mass immigration, megacity, Nelson Mandela, new economy, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, peak oil, Pearl River Delta, profit motive, race to the bottom, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, Steve Jobs, the built environment, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

Priti Mahesh and Ravi Agarwal showed me the horrors of Mandoli, and Tony Roberts of Computer Aid International introduced me to Nairobi computer refurbishers. Mathis Wackernagel welcomed me to the Ecological Footprints conference in Siena. The late Paul van Vlissingen, laird of Africa, berated me for an earlier article, before inviting me to his home near Utrecht to explain all. Peter Hall and Jesse Ausubel told me much about urban planning, green and otherwise. Thanks, as always, to the two Jims, Lovelock and Hansen, for their erudition on climate change and the science of our planet. Jack Caldwell was, similarly, a guru on demographics. Parts of this journey, and much of my background knowledge, would not have been possible without the support of Jeremy Webb and the commissioning editors of New Scientist over many years.


The Regency Revolution: Jane Austen, Napoleon, Lord Byron and the Making of the Modern World by Robert Morrison

British Empire, Charles Babbage, colonial rule, Corn Laws, corporate social responsibility, financial independence, full employment, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, land tenure, Mahatma Gandhi, New Urbanism, railway mania, stem cell, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, upwardly mobile, urban planning, wage slave

(Irving), 62 Sketches of America (Fearon), 221 slavery, 9, 26, 78, 154, 180, 195, 196, 211–16, 223, 234, 249, 265 Smith, George, 85 Smith, Harry, 187 Smith, John Thomas, 233–4, 290 Vagabondiana, 16, 234, 235 Smith, Sydney, 61, 93, 243 Smith, Thomas, 34 Smithfield, London, 90, 135 Snow Storm (Turner), 260–61 Soane, John, 95, 97–8, 190 social class, urban planning and, 233–4 socialism, 228, 247–9, 288 Society for the Suppression of Vice, 143, 154 sodomy, 145, 149–50, 151, 157 Somerset riots, 51 Southey, Robert and Battle of Waterloo, 178 on Benbow’s pornography business, 143 on blood sports, 77 on consumerism, 87 on crime, 14, 19 and Ladies of Llangollen, 147 and opium, 203 Owen and, 249 and Quarterly Review, 244 Simond and, 152 Telford and, 270 Spa Fields riots, 47–9, 49, 285 Sporting Magazine, 80 Sporting Sketches during a Short Stay in Hindustane (Williams), 193 sports, 75–82 blood sports, 76–7 boxing, 77–81, 82, 92 cricket, 75, 82, 173, 262 field sports, 76, 86 gambling and, 81 horse racing, 75–6, 82 sports journalism, 80–81 Stafford, Lord, see Leveson-Gower, George Granville, 2nd Marquess of Stafford Stanhope, Lady Hester, 189 Stanley, Patrick, 31 “Star Spangled Banner, The”, 185 Statesman’s Manual (Coleridge), 38 Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales (Wentworth), 210 steam press, 278 steel alloys, 276 Stephenson, George, 229, 272–4, 273 Stodart, James, 276 Story of Rimini, The (Leigh Hunt), 26, 162 Stour Valley, 257, 258 Strathnaver, Scotland, 33 streetlights, 21 sugar plantations, 159, 212 Suisse, Nicholas, 124 Sumbawa, Indonesia, 197 surgery, 15, 204 Surrey House of Correction (Brixton Prison), 24 Sutherland, Lady Elizabeth, 32–3 Sydney, Australia, 207–11 syphilis, 141–2, 191 Talavera, Battle of, 170 Tales (Crabbe), 251–2 Tales of the Hall (Crabbe), 252 Talfourd, Thomas Noon, 42, 67 Tambora, Mount, eruption of, 197–8 Task, The (Cowper), 56 Tecumseh, 181, 183 Tegg, Thomas, 143 Telford, Thomas, 242, 269–70 Tennyson, Alfred, 113 textile industry, 33–5, 51 Thackeray, William Makepeace, xiv, 124, 286 Thames River, 12, 89–90, 229, 230, 262, 272 theater, 61–75 comedy, 64–8 tragedy, 68–75 Thebes, Egypt, 190 Thistlewood, Arthur, 47–9, 285 Thornton, William, 186 Thorpe, William, 34 Times, The, 20, 66, 278, 286 Tissot, Samuel Auguste, 164 “To Miss Sophia Headle” (Campbell), 147 Tomkins, Peltro W., 96 Tooley Street, London, 12 Tories, 5, 8, 24, 28, 35, 36–7, 40, 46, 47, 84, 202 Tour of Dr.


pages: 412 words: 128,042

Extreme Economies: Survival, Failure, Future – Lessons From the World’s Limits by Richard Davies

Abraham Maslow, agricultural Revolution, air freight, Anton Chekhov, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, big-box store, cashless society, clean water, complexity theory, deindustrialization, digital divide, eurozone crisis, failed state, financial innovation, Ford Model T, Garrett Hardin, gentleman farmer, Global Witness, government statistician, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, it's over 9,000, James Hargreaves, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, joint-stock company, large denomination, Livingstone, I presume, Malacca Straits, mandatory minimum, manufacturing employment, means of production, megacity, meta-analysis, new economy, off grid, oil shale / tar sands, pension reform, profit motive, randomized controlled trial, rolling blackouts, school choice, school vouchers, Scramble for Africa, side project, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Skype, spinning jenny, subscription business, The Chicago School, the payments system, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, Travis Kalanick, uranium enrichment, urban planning, wealth creators, white picket fence, working-age population, Y Combinator, young professional

There is still nearly 2 km to drive before, over the brow of a hill, the settlement finally comes into view. It is built on land that forms a huge shallow bowl. The homes are arranged on these gentle banks, with hospitals and a large mosque in the bottom of the bowl, in the centre. From afar you can see the strict urban planning, with rows and columns of houses that form a perfect mathematical grid. The Syrian refugees’ homes gleam silver and white against the oranges and reds of the desert floor. From a distance the geometric symmetry and order give it a kind of minimalist beauty. Up close the camp is less pleasant.


Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World by Michael Schuman

Admiral Zheng, British Empire, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, European colonialism, Great Leap Forward, land bank, moveable type in China, Pearl River Delta, place-making, Rubik’s Cube, Shenzhen special economic zone , South China Sea, special economic zone, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

The Chinese were actually late to the state-building game; by the time Erlitou rose, Hammurabi was already proclaiming his famous code in Babylon. The pyramids at Giza were some 1,500 years old by the time of the Duke of Zhou. And the great Harappan civilization of the Indus River valley, with its oddly standardized urban planning and undeciphered script, had already come and gone. But the residents of China, comfortably ensconced on the far eastern end of Asia, had no way of knowing any of that. The distances were too great, and the available technology too feeble to bridge them. Though the Chinese might have had some scant contact with Central and South Asia during the Zhou period, they remained pretty thoroughly isolated from other major civilizations until the late second century BC.


From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia by Pankaj Mishra

anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, British Empire, classic study, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, Deng Xiaoping, European colonialism, financial innovation, Great Leap Forward, invention of the telegraph, joint-stock company, Khartoum Gordon, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, Monroe Doctrine, New Urbanism, plutocrats, profit motive, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, the scientific method, upwardly mobile, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, young professional

Like the Ottoman sultan, his nominal overlord (and petulant rival), Khedive Ismail (1830-95) had returned from the Paris Exposition in 1867 with a determination to make his capital resemble the magnificent city of the Second Empire. Accordingly, the compulsively polygamous khedive installed the rich – mainly European, Syrian and Sephardic Jewish businessmen – in Cairo’s new western flank, relegating such unattractive sights as the poor to other designated areas. One result of his urban planning was that everywhere near the Nile arose eyesores, as Stanley Lane-Poole, the chronicler of Cairo, wrote: ‘unsightly and ill-built palaces in which viceregal extravagance and ostentation have found an outlet’.48 Like Istanbul, Cairo attracted its share of foreign buccaneers. A new rail line from Alexandria, completed in 1858, shattered its previous isolation from the Mediterranean.


pages: 533 words: 125,495

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, autonomous vehicles, availability heuristic, Ayatollah Khomeini, backpropagation, basic income, behavioural economics, belling the cat, Black Lives Matter, butterfly effect, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, classic study, clean water, Comet Ping Pong, coronavirus, correlation coefficient, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, critical race theory, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, David Attenborough, deep learning, defund the police, delayed gratification, disinformation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Easter island, effective altruism, en.wikipedia.org, Erdős number, Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science, fake news, feminist movement, framing effect, George Akerlof, George Floyd, germ theory of disease, high batting average, if you see hoof prints, think horses—not zebras, index card, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Nash: game theory, John von Neumann, libertarian paternalism, Linda problem, longitudinal study, loss aversion, Mahatma Gandhi, meta-analysis, microaggression, Monty Hall problem, Nash equilibrium, New Journalism, Paul Erdős, Paul Samuelson, Peter Singer: altruism, Pierre-Simon Laplace, placebo effect, post-truth, power law, QAnon, QWERTY keyboard, Ralph Waldo Emerson, randomized controlled trial, replication crisis, Richard Thaler, scientific worldview, selection bias, social discount rate, social distancing, Social Justice Warrior, Stanford marshmallow experiment, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, sunk-cost fallacy, TED Talk, the scientific method, Thomas Bayes, Tragedy of the Commons, trolley problem, twin studies, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, Walter Mischel, yellow journalism, zero-sum game

It would have made little sense for our ancestors a century ago to have scrimped for our benefit—say, diverting money from schools and roads to a stockpile of iron lungs to prepare for a polio epidemic—given that we’re six times richer and have solved some of their problems while facing new ones they could not have dreamed of. At the same time we can curse some of their shortsighted choices whose consequences we are living with, like despoiled environments, extinct species, and car-centered urban planning. The public choices we face today, like how high a tax we should pay on carbon to mitigate climate change, depend on the rate at which we discount the future, sometimes called the social discounting rate.19 A rate of 0.1 percent, which reflects only the chance we’ll go extinct, means that we value future generations almost as much as ourselves and calls for investing the lion’s share of our current income to boost the well-being of our descendants.


pages: 371 words: 122,273

Tenants: The People on the Frontline of Britain's Housing Emergency by Vicky Spratt

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, basic income, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Buy land – they’re not making it any more, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, COVID-19, credit crunch, cryptocurrency, edge city, en.wikipedia.org, full employment, garden city movement, gender pay gap, gentrification, gig economy, global pandemic, housing crisis, Housing First, illegal immigration, income inequality, Induced demand, Jane Jacobs, Jeremy Corbyn, land bank, land reform, land value tax, lockdown, longitudinal study, low interest rates, mass immigration, mega-rich, meta-analysis, negative equity, Overton Window, Own Your Own Home, plutocrats, quantitative easing, rent control, Right to Buy, Rishi Sunak, Rutger Bregman, side hustle, social distancing, stop buying avocado toast, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, working-age population, young professional, zero-sum game

None the less it’s the intention – so lacking today – that deserves acknowledgement and ought not to be brushed over. Croydon, where my family is from, is an edge city; a town that yearns for its own city status. It is only a fifteen-minute train ride from London Bridge, but it is in some ways unlike the capital’s other satellite towns. It receives bad press for its poor urban planning and being an architectural hotchpotch; a jumble of substandard rabbit hutch flats in office-to-residential (‘permitted development rights’) conversions, new build tower blocks and mid-century buildings, including the octagonal ‘No 1 Croydon’ or ‘50p building’, designed by Richard Seifert. Seifert headed up the firm of architects who built Centre Point – the brutalist building that rises up as you exit Tottenham Court Road tube station.


pages: 578 words: 141,373

Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain by John Grindrod

Apollo 11, Berlin Wall, Bletchley Park, garden city movement, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, housing crisis, Jane Jacobs, Kickstarter, Leo Hollis, Lewis Mumford, Martin Parr, megastructure, military-industrial complex, Neil Kinnock, New Urbanism, Right to Buy, side project, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Traffic in Towns by Colin Buchanan, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, women in the workforce, young professional

Richards’ ‘prairie planning’ critique of the first wave of new towns had shaped the vision of Cumbernauld’s original chief planner, Hugh Wilson. ‘There was a move towards a more compact town,’ he explained. ‘The designated area was the smallest of any new town, at just over 4,000 acres. The site dictated it. It had to be.’ Garden city ideals were out, dense urban planning was in. This unpromising windy ridge to the northeast of Glasgow was expected to house almost three times as many people per acre as fellow new town East Kilbride. Four fifths of the population were due to come from the overcrowded areas of Glasgow, prompting Guardian journalist Mary Stott to comment in 1965 that ‘presumably they will not mind being packed as neatly and carefully into this small space as sardines into their tin.’1 Yet it wasn’t the housing that bore resemblance to sardine tins; it was the central area megastructure.


pages: 538 words: 141,822

The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov

"World Economic Forum" Davos, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, Alvin Toffler, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, borderless world, Buckminster Fuller, Californian Ideology, Cass Sunstein, citizen journalism, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, Columbine, computer age, conceptual framework, crowdsourcing, digital divide, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, don't be evil, Evgeny Morozov, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, global village, Google Earth, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, invention of radio, invention of the printing press, invisible hand, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, John von Neumann, lolcat, Marshall McLuhan, Mitch Kapor, Naomi Klein, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, peer-to-peer, pirate software, pre–internet, Productivity paradox, public intellectual, RAND corporation, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Sinatra Doctrine, Skype, Slavoj Žižek, social graph, Steve Jobs, Streisand effect, technological determinism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, The Wisdom of Crowds, urban planning, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce

Information, Communication & Society 9, no. 1 (2006): 20-38. Gladney, G. A. “Technologizing of the Word: Toward a Theoretical and Ethical Understanding.” Journal of Mass Media Ethics 6, no. 2 (1991): 93-105. Graham, S., and S. Marvin. “Planning Cybercities? Integrating Telecommunications into Urban Planning.” Town Planning Review 70, no. 1 (1999): 89-114. Grier, David Alan. When Computers Were Human. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Grint, K., and S. Woolgar. “On Some Failures of Nerve in Constructivist and Feminist Analyses of Technology.” Science, Technology & Human Values 20, no. 3 (1995): 286.


pages: 556 words: 141,069

The Profiteers by Sally Denton

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, clean water, company town, corporate governance, crony capitalism, disinformation, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, energy security, Fall of the Berlin Wall, G4S, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Joan Didion, Kitchen Debate, laissez-faire capitalism, Lewis Mumford, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, new economy, nuclear winter, power law, profit motive, Robert Hanssen: Double agent, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, trickle-down economics, uranium enrichment, urban planning, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, wikimedia commons, William Langewiesche

At the millennium, he reversed his earlier credo that under his watch the company would never be a conglomerate and that “the engineering and construction business will always be our primary purpose.” His new vision entailed a broad span of diversification to rival that of any other conglomerate in the world, evolving from engineering and construction into mobile telecommunications, water delivery, disaster relief, urban planning, nuclear waste, management of government facilities, homeland security, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, counterterrorism technology, environmental remediation, data collection, aerospace, megaproject financing, telecom start-ups, e-commerce, and more. This global power grab was of massive proportions unlike anything seen in world history.


pages: 510 words: 141,188

Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom by Katherine Eban

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Bernie Madoff, Frances Oldham Kelsey, global pandemic, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, Ponzi scheme, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Skype, Upton Sinclair, urban planning

Its skyline was branded by global capitalism: Accenture, Motorola, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and many others tacked their logos onto newly acquired buildings. Thousands of people and cars, as well as numerous shopping malls, followed, with the encouragement of the Haryana Urban Development Authority, which seemed to have no urban plan other than to welcome developers. Ranbaxy, too, established its research headquarters here, on an elegant, well-guarded campus. Amid Gurgaon’s building frenzy, there were few restrictions and little in the way of infrastructure. A patchwork of after-the-fact water treatment plants, sewers, subway stations, and power lines could not keep up with the demand.


pages: 497 words: 143,175

Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies by Judith Stein

1960s counterculture, accelerated depreciation, activist lawyer, affirmative action, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, desegregation, do well by doing good, Dr. Strangelove, energy security, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, feminist movement, financial deregulation, floating exchange rates, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, income per capita, intermodal, invisible hand, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Martin Wolf, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, post-industrial society, post-oil, price mechanism, price stability, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Simon Kuznets, strikebreaker, three-martini lunch, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, working poor, Yom Kippur War

Satisfied with the state of the economy in 1977, Carter set out to doctor the world, negotiating the Panama Canal treaties and the Camp David accords, which produced an Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1978. The laundry list of proposed Democratic reforms—a consumer agency, national health insurance, full employment, extensive urban plans—reflected the belief that the economy was on the mend and that there was plenty of money now to complete the social agenda of the 1960S. Looked at this way, the Keynesian world was seemingly born anew. But the economy also revealed surging imports, balance-of-payment deficits, a falling dollar, and, critically, low productivity.


pages: 418 words: 128,965

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alfred Russel Wallace, Andy Rubin, AOL-Time Warner, Apple II, barriers to entry, British Empire, Burning Man, business cycle, Cass Sunstein, Clayton Christensen, commoditize, corporate raider, creative destruction, disinformation, disruptive innovation, don't be evil, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, Eben Moglen, Ford Model T, Howard Rheingold, Hush-A-Phone, informal economy, intermodal, Internet Archive, invention of movable type, invention of the telephone, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, John Markoff, Joseph Schumpeter, Menlo Park, open economy, packet switching, PageRank, profit motive, radical decentralization, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Metcalfe, Ronald Coase, scientific management, search costs, seminal paper, sexual politics, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Skype, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Telecommunications Act of 1996, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the long tail, the market place, The Wisdom of Crowds, too big to fail, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, vertical integration, Yochai Benkler, zero-sum game

Oversimplified as this may seem, we shall find the idea more easily acceptable if we consider that bigness, or oversize, is really much more than just a social problem.… Whenever something is wrong, something is too big.”10 Kohr’s student, the economist E. F. Schumacher, in 1973 wrote Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered, developing the concept of “enoughness” and sustainable development.11 Jane Jacobs, the great theorist of urban planning, expresses a no less incendiary disdain for centralization, and as in Hayek, the indictment is based on an inherent neglect of humanity. In her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she relies on careful firsthand observations made while walking around cities and new developments to determine how Olympian planners like Robert Moses were going wrong.12 There was no understanding, let alone regard, for the organic logic of the city’s neighborhoods, a logic discernible only on foot.


pages: 483 words: 134,377

The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor by William Easterly

air freight, Andrei Shleifer, battle of ideas, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business process, business process outsourcing, Carmen Reinhart, classic study, clean water, colonial rule, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, discovery of the americas, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, Ford Model T, Francisco Pizarro, fundamental attribution error, gentrification, germ theory of disease, greed is good, Gunnar Myrdal, income per capita, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, John Snow's cholera map, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, low interest rates, M-Pesa, microcredit, Monroe Doctrine, oil shock, place-making, Ponzi scheme, public intellectual, risk/return, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, tacit knowledge, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, urban planning, urban renewal, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, World Values Survey, young professional

During the Depression, squatters formed a camp called Packing Box City at the north end of the block.24 The block’s fortunes did not improve with the end of the Depression.A report in 1946 noted that the entire neighborhood around Greene Street had reached “a state of depreciation and obsolescence.”25 Urban planners began to study how to fix the problem. Urban planning in the United States marked the last manifestation of the most enthusiastic New Dealers’ wish to see experts plan the US economy. It also exemplified faith in technocrats who were appointed public officials, like Robert Moses in New York, with few checks on their power. The US Housing Act of 1949 endorsing “slum clearance” would give a technocrat like Moses the power to tear down whole neighborhoods and replace them with public housing.26 But the technocrat Moses would face some fierce democrats on Greene Street.


Fodor's Normandy, Brittany & the Best of the North With Paris by Fodor's

call centre, car-free, carbon tax, flag carrier, glass ceiling, happiness index / gross national happiness, haute couture, haute cuisine, Henri Poincaré, high-speed rail, Kickstarter, Murano, Venice glass, Nelson Mandela, subprime mortgage crisis, urban planning, young professional

The opening of the Opéra Bastille in 1989 rejuvenated the area, however, drawing art galleries, bars, and restaurants to the narrow streets, notably along Rue de Lappe—once a haunt of Edith Piaf—and Rue de la Roquette. | Station: Bastille. Fodor’s Choice | Place des Vosges. The oldest square in Paris and—dare we say it?—the most beautiful, the Place des Vosges is one of Europe’s oldest stabs at urban planning. The precise proportions offer a placid symmetry, but things weren’t always so calm. Four centuries ago this was the site of the Palais des Tournelles, home to King Henri II and Queen Catherine de’ Medici. The couple staged regular jousting tournaments, and during one of them, in 1559, Henri was fatally lanced in the eye.


pages: 311 words: 130,761

Framing Class: Media Representations of Wealth and Poverty in America by Diana Elizabeth Kendall

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", AOL-Time Warner, Bernie Madoff, blue-collar work, Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, content marketing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, David Brooks, declining real wages, Donald Trump, employer provided health coverage, ending welfare as we know it, fixed income, framing effect, gentrification, Georg Cantor, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, haute couture, housing crisis, illegal immigration, income inequality, junk bonds, Michael Milken, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, payday loans, Ponzi scheme, Ray Oldenburg, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco homelessness, Saturday Night Live, systems thinking, telemarketer, The Great Good Place, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, trickle-down economics, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, vertical integration, work culture , working poor

Taubman, principal owner of Sotheby’s, in a price-fixing scheme. Just down the hill, University of Michigan students were entering the A. Alfred Taubman Medical Library to study for exams. Nearby, aspiring designers were completing end-of-term projects at the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. . . . Mr. Taubman, who attended Michigan but left before graduating, has given more than $35 million to the university. His generosity does not stop there. His name is on institutes at Harvard and Brown, he leads a list of the most generous donors at Michigan State University, and he has given millions to Detroit area charities.63 In articles about the Taubman scandal and how it might affect naming-rights issues at universities and medical centers, media writers chronicled Taubman’s good works and frequently concluded with statements such as this: “Mr.


pages: 493 words: 139,845

Women Leaders at Work: Untold Tales of Women Achieving Their Ambitions by Elizabeth Ghaffari

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Albert Einstein, AltaVista, Bear Stearns, business cycle, business process, cloud computing, Columbine, compensation consultant, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, dark matter, deal flow, do what you love, family office, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial independence, follow your passion, glass ceiling, Grace Hopper, high net worth, John Elkington, knowledge worker, Larry Ellison, Long Term Capital Management, longitudinal study, Oklahoma City bombing, performance metric, pink-collar, profit maximization, profit motive, recommendation engine, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, thinkpad, trickle-down economics, urban planning, women in the workforce, young professional

I was doing a lot of legal work on a volunteer basis for those groups and then for Heal the Bay. Then people started calling me, asking me to do similar kinds of legal work as a paid attorney. I didn’t solicit legal work deliberately—it happened because people who needed legal advice were aware that I did that kind of work. I did environmental work, urban planning, and administrative law. A lot of the work I did related to permitting and development issues concerning the city charter, the regulations, or California law. I helped people understand the required procedure for approving an environmental impact report. A great deal of environmental law work actually concerns itself with administrative law because that’s how it’s carried out.


pages: 447 words: 141,811

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, An Inconvenient Truth, Apollo 11, Atahualpa, British Empire, cognitive dissonance, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, David Graeber, Easter island, Edmond Halley, European colonialism, Francisco Pizarro, glass ceiling, global village, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, income per capita, invention of gunpowder, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, life extension, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Neil Armstrong, out of africa, personalized medicine, Ponzi scheme, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, stem cell, Steven Pinker, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning, zero-sum game

A second and equally important reason why empires actively spread a common culture was to gain legitimacy. At least since the days of Cyrus and Qín Shǐ Huángdì, empires have justified their actions – whether road-building or bloodshed – as necessary to spread a superior culture from which the conquered benefit even more than the conquerors. The benefits were sometimes salient – law enforcement, urban planning, standardisation of weights and measures – and sometimes questionable – taxes, conscription, emperor worship. But most imperial elites earnestly believed that they were working for the general welfare of all the empires inhabitants. China’s ruling class treated their country’s neighbours and its foreign subjects as miserable barbarians to whom the empire must bring the benefits of culture.


On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World by Timothy Cresswell

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Alvin Toffler, Boeing 747, British Empire, desegregation, deskilling, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Future Shock, global village, illegal immigration, Lewis Mumford, mass immigration, moral panic, post-Fordism, Rosa Parks, scientific management, technoutopianism, The Chicago School, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, urban planning

As Rebecca Solnit has argued, “The grid gives the work the aesthetic of science—dispassionate, orderly, coherent.”15 As well as playing the role of a modern aesthetic of order, the grid also metaphorically evoked the production of space under capitalism. In urban and rural America the imposition of a grid had made the creation of transferable property easier. Space had been made a standardized commodity abstracted from ecology and topography.16 Richard Sennett invokes the use of the grid in urban planning as the production of “neutral space” designed to dominate and subdue the population and erase the variability of “place.”17 Just as the imposition of grids on space made the formally anarchic world legible, so the grid that forms the backdrop to Muybridge’s horses makes mobility legible. But this legibility was, finally, aesthetic more than it was scientific.


pages: 389 words: 136,320

Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent by Harvey Silverglate

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", Berlin Wall, Home mortgage interest deduction, illegal immigration, Julian Assange, junk bonds, mandatory minimum, medical malpractice, Michael Milken, mortgage tax deduction, national security letter, offshore financial centre, pill mill, Potemkin village, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, short selling, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, technology bubble, urban planning, WikiLeaks

Hamilton, president of the Wilson Center, said that he learned from his contacts in Iran that “her interrogations had focused almost entirely on activities of the Wilson Center.”7 Her detention, he exclaimed, was “an affront to the rule of law and common decency.”8 Iranian intelligence continued its dragnet of U.S.-Iranian dual citizens. Just three days later, on May 11, authorities detained Kian Tajbakhsh, described by the Associated Press as “an urban planning expert who has also worked for the World Bank and is a senior research fellow at the New School in New York,”9 and by June they had snared Ali Shakeri, described as “a peace activist and founding board member at the University of California at Irvine’s Center for Citizen Peacebuilding.”10 These detentions, for reasons of Iranian “security,” had followed the arrest of Parnaz Azima, an Iranian-American journalist-scholar working in Prague for the United States-financed Radio Farda, a Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe.11 She was eventually released, but in March 2008, she was convicted and sentenced in absentia to one year in prison for “spreading anti-state propaganda.”


pages: 470 words: 130,269

The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas by Janek Wasserman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Abraham Wald, Albert Einstein, American Legislative Exchange Council, anti-communist, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, business cycle, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, different worldview, Donald Trump, experimental economics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gunnar Myrdal, housing crisis, Internet Archive, invisible hand, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, New Journalism, New Urbanism, old-boy network, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, price mechanism, price stability, public intellectual, RAND corporation, random walk, rent control, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game, éminence grise

The greatest demonstration of this assertiveness came with the construction of the Ringstrasse, the major artery girding the historic city center.7 As industrial growth accelerated at midcentury, Vienna and its suburbs underwent profound changes. In 1850, the city incorporated its surrounding districts; however, the medieval city wall still separated the two areas. In 1857, Kaiser Franz Josef announced that the walls would be razed. In 1858, the government initiated a competition for a new urban plan. Many of Vienna’s most famous edifices were erected as part of this plan: the neo-Romantic State Opera House, the Natural History and Fine Arts Museums, the neoclassical Parliament building, the Burgtheater, the neo-Gothic City Hall, the neo-Renaissance University of Vienna. When the imperial and municipal governments bickered over finances, private investors and banking institutions took over construction.


Stacy Mitchell by Big-Box Swindle The True Cost of Mega-Retailers, the Fight for America's Independent Businesses (2006)

accelerated depreciation, big-box store, business climate, business cycle, clean water, collective bargaining, corporate personhood, drop ship, European colonialism, Haight Ashbury, income inequality, independent contractor, inventory management, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, low skilled workers, Maui Hawaii, Menlo Park, new economy, New Urbanism, price discrimination, race to the bottom, Ray Oldenburg, RFID, Ronald Reagan, The Chicago School, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Great Good Place, the long tail, union organizing, urban planning, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

Massachusetts Executive O‰ce of Health and Human Services, “Employers Who Have 50 or More Employees Using Public Health Assistance,” Feb. 1, 2006; Howard Fischer, “Wal-Mart 1st in State Aid Enrollees,” Arizona Daily Star, July 30, 2005; Brian Baskin, “Top 9 Employers in State Have 9,698 Getting Public Aid; 3,971 of Them Work at Wal-Mart,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Mar. 17, 2005. 60. “Is the proposed Ikea in New Rochelle Worth It?” Journal News, Oct. 31, 2000 (citing an analysis of the eƒect of a big-box store on nearby home values done by Elliot Sclar, an urban planning professor at Columbia University); Thomas Muller and Elizabeth Humstone, What Happened When Wal-Mart Came to Town? A Report on Three Iowa Communities with a Statistical Analysis of Seven Iowa Counties (Washington, D.C.: National Trust For Historic Preservation, 1996). 61. Steven Falk, “Goodbye, Fees; Hello, Costco,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 18, 2003; Public Policy Institute of California, “City Competition for Sales Taxes: Symptom of a Larger Problem?”


A Paradise Built in Hell: Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Anthropocene, Berlin Wall, Burning Man, centre right, Community Supported Agriculture, David Graeber, different worldview, dumpster diving, gentrification, Golden Gate Park, illegal immigration, Loma Prieta earthquake, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, public intellectual, race to the bottom, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent control, San Francisco homelessness, South of Market, San Francisco, Thomas Malthus, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, War on Poverty, yellow journalism

It enters a state of flux from which it must reset upon a principle, a creed, or purpose. It is shaken perhaps violently out of rut and routine. Old customs crumble, and instability rules.” That is, disasters open up societies to change, accelerate change that was under way, or break the hold of whatever was preventing change. One urban-planning adviser who came to Halifax commented, “The disaster simply had the effect of bringing to a point certain things which were pending at the time.” The nature of this change, these things pending, is not made clear in Prince’s opening manifesto, though he does admit, “catastrophe always means social change.


pages: 909 words: 130,170

Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time by James Suzman

agricultural Revolution, AlphaGo, Anthropocene, basic income, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, clean water, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, cyber-physical system, David Graeber, death from overwork, deepfake, do-ocracy, double entry bookkeeping, double helix, fake news, financial deregulation, Ford Model T, founder crops, Frederick Winslow Taylor, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of writing, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kibera, Kickstarter, late capitalism, lateral thinking, market bubble, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, ocean acidification, Parkinson's law, Peter Singer: altruism, post-industrial society, post-work, public intellectual, Rubik’s Cube, Schrödinger's Cat, scientific management, sharing economy, social intelligence, spinning jenny, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, trickle-down economics, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, urban planning, work culture , zoonotic diseases

London’s Harley Street, Hatton Garden, Savile Row, Soho and the Square Mile all retain close associations with trades that have been going on for centuries. Others, like Camden for offbeat urban fashion or Tottenham Court Road for electronics, are associated with relatively new ones. The historical association of specific neighbourhoods with particular trades was not a quirk of zoning regulations or the result of careful urban planning. Nor was it the consequence of the fact that it makes good commercial sense for consumers looking for particular items to be able to go to one part of town to compare different wares on offer. It was because in the pulsing, plural hearts of big cities, people found companionship and comfort among others who did similar work and so shared similar experiences, with the result that in cities people’s individual social identities often merged with the trades they performed.


pages: 418 words: 134,401

First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (And Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents by Gary Ginsberg

affirmative action, anti-communist, cuban missile crisis, desegregation, forensic accounting, gentleman farmer, invisible hand, Kitchen Debate, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Seymour Hersh, SoftBank, Ted Sorensen, traveling salesman, two and twenty, urban planning

There was nothing better than writing amid the fun, clamor, and sometimes chaos of us all being together, and I’ll miss it once life resumes its normal cadence. None of them were immune from my annoying queries, especially Susanna, whom I was constantly interrupting from her own studies to tap her impeccable judgment. She still managed to earn her master’s degree in urban planning this past winter. To all three, I am forever grateful for the joy of their companionship and for the love and support they provided throughout. Discover Your Next Great Read Get sneak peeks, book recommendations, and news about your favorite authors. Tap here to learn more. Photo Credits Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery: here, here, here.


pages: 502 words: 132,062

Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence by James Bridle

Ada Lovelace, Airbnb, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Anthropocene, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, autonomous vehicles, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, blockchain, Californian Ideology, Cambridge Analytica, carbon tax, Charles Babbage, cloud computing, coastline paradox / Richardson effect, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, corporate personhood, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Douglas Hofstadter, Elon Musk, experimental subject, factory automation, fake news, friendly AI, gig economy, global pandemic, Gödel, Escher, Bach, impulse control, James Bridle, James Webb Space Telescope, John von Neumann, Kickstarter, Kim Stanley Robinson, language acquisition, life extension, mandelbrot fractal, Marshall McLuhan, microbiome, music of the spheres, negative emissions, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, planetary scale, RAND corporation, random walk, recommendation engine, self-driving car, SETI@home, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, speech recognition, statistical model, surveillance capitalism, techno-determinism, technological determinism, technoutopianism, the long tail, the scientific method, The Soul of a New Machine, theory of mind, traveling salesman, trolley problem, Turing complete, Turing machine, Turing test, UNCLOS, undersea cable, urban planning, Von Neumann architecture, wikimedia commons, zero-sum game

Reflecting on the abundance of complex life he encountered while writing his book My First Summer in the Sierra, he wrote simply: ‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.’16 Ecology is the study of these interrelationships: those unbreakable cords which tie everything to everything else. Crucially, those relationships extend to things as well as beings: ecology is just as interested in how the availability of nesting materials affects bird populations, or how urban planning shapes the spread of diseases, as it is in how honeybees pollinate marigolds and cleaner wrasses delouse surgeonfish. And that’s just biological ecology. Ecology is fundamentally different to the other sciences in that it describes a scope and an attitude of study, rather than a field. There is an ecology – and ecologists – of mathematics, behaviour, economics, physics, history, art, linguistics, psychology, warfare, and almost any other discipline that you can think of.


pages: 470 words: 128,328

Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal

Abraham Maslow, airport security, Albert Einstein, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, citizen journalism, clean water, collaborative economy, crowdsourcing, delayed gratification, en.wikipedia.org, fear of failure, G4S, game design, hedonic treadmill, hobby farmer, Ian Bogost, jimmy wales, mass immigration, Merlin Mann, Network effects, new economy, oil shock, peak oil, planetary scale, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Stallman, science of happiness, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI@home, Silicon Valley, SimCity, smart meter, Stewart Brand, The Wisdom of Crowds, Tony Hsieh, Tragedy of the Commons, urban planning, We are as Gods, web application, Whole Earth Catalog

Meanwhile, according to Herodotus, the Lydians who’d sailed off in search of a new home settled to great success in what is now the Tuscan region of Italy, where they developed into the highly sophisticated Etruscan culture. The Etruscans, of course, are known today as the single most important influence on Roman culture. Historians widely agree that it was the Etruscans who originally developed the great skills of urban planning and civil engineering, and that it was the Etruscans’ efforts to advance art, agriculture, and government that provided the foundations for the world-changing Roman Empire—and, therefore, much of Western civilization as we know it. But were the game-playing Lydians really so influential in the course of human civilization?


The power broker : Robert Moses and the fall of New York by Caro, Robert A

Albert Einstein, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, bank run, benefit corporation, British Empire, card file, centre right, East Village, Ford Model T, friendly fire, ghettoisation, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, housing crisis, Internet Archive, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, land reform, Lewis Mumford, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rent control, Right to Buy, scientific management, Southern State Parkway, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional

But the unfortunate element in searching for the explanation of Moses' refusal is that in the perspective of the history of New York City it is unimportant. Whether Moses refused to change the route for a personal or political reason, the point is that his reason was the only one that counted. Neighborhood feelings, urban planning considerations, cost, aesthetics, common humanity, common sense—none of these mattered in laying out the routes of New York's great roads. The only consideration that mattered was Robert Moses' will. He had the power to impose it on New York. "Highly efficient" was the only description of the Nassau Management Company given at the Board of Estimate hearing.

There were moments of triumph, such as his speech at the annual dinner of the Building Trades Employers Association in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1969, when, after Roger Corbetta of Corbetta Construction introduced him ("a great man, a great builder, a man of history . . . this great dirt mover . . . this master builder"), the hundreds of men in the audience rose to their feet and cheered and cheered for long minutes. The Daily News gave good play to his pronouncements; when, in 1969, former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, urging the infusion of "young blood" into city planning, criticized "the jaded planning of Robert Moses" and said it had made New York an example of how not to conduct urban planning, the News replied, "We'd just like to observe that when Udall can show a list of accomplishments—in power, transportation and conservation—one tenth as long as Moses', it will be time enough for him to shoot off his yap." During the mayoral election of 1969, he backed the ultraconservative Democratic candidate, Mario Procaccino (he preferred the more intellectual Republican candidate, John J.

Congress, 686, 934; and the Depression, 345, 538; House Un-American Activities Committee, 471, 1026, 1029, 1031-2; Senate hearings on Title I, 979-82, 1006 U.S. War Department, 662, 663, 671, 672-4, 675 Upper Manhattan Expressway, proposed, 769, 896, 923, 925, 1152 Urban, Josef, 338 urban decay and public works, see housing: general information urban planning, 781, 792, 1156; for balanced transportation system, 897-908 passim, 913-18, 919, 944, 946-9, 958; and federal funds, 616; Paul Moses and, 578; RM consulted on, 571-2; RM opposed to, 915-16; unifying concept in, 578, 654, 669, 793 urban renewal, see housing: Title I U.S. News & World Report, 918 utilities: Lehman and, 403-4, 412, 414-15; Paul Moses and, 578; 586-7; Power Trust and, 403, 404, 407, 412; Public Service Commission and, 403-4; rates, 409, 414; Republican Party and, 402-3, 404, 406, 407 Valentine, Lewis J., 450, 451, 516 Valley Stream, 158, 159, 182, 183, 316 Valley Stream State Park, 8, 220, 238, 258, 3H,3I3, 314 Van Arsdale, Harry, 735-8, 1056, 1059, 1078, 1124, 1135, 1138, 1148, 1160 Van Cortlandt Park, 325, 481, 534, 538, 543; marred by RM's West Side plan, 544, 554, 1000; marsh in, 544, 545, 565, 566, 846, 989 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 148, 149, 163 Vanderbilt, Mrs.


pages: 928 words: 159,837

Florence & Tuscany by Lonely Planet

Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, European colonialism, haute couture, Kickstarter, period drama, Pier Paolo Pasolini, post-work, retail therapy, sensible shoes, Skype, trade route, urban planning

But Pienza’s favourite son, Pope Pius II (1405–64), possessed all of these qualities. Born Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the man was everywhere, evidenced by how many times we drop his name in this chapter alone. He was a tireless traveller, writer of erotic and comic stories, poet laureate, diplomat, bishop, exhaustive autobiographer (13 volumes!) and medieval urban-planning trendsetter. And most of that occurred before he got the top job. Noted above all for being the ‘humanist pope’, this towering intellectual figure is also remembered for his tireless diplomacy in the face of uncooperative leaders and insurmountable odds. Palazzo Piccolomini (www.palazzopiccolominipienza.it; 30min guided tours adult/reduced €7/5; 10am-6.30pm Tue-Sun mid-Mar–mid-Oct, to 4.30pm mid-Oct–mid-Mar) To your right as you face the cathedral, this magnificent palace was the pope’s residence and is considered Rossellino’s masterpiece.


pages: 497 words: 144,283

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization by Parag Khanna

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 9 dash line, additive manufacturing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, Basel III, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, borderless world, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, BRICs, British Empire, business intelligence, call centre, capital controls, Carl Icahn, charter city, circular economy, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, complexity theory, continuation of politics by other means, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, data is the new oil, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Detroit bankruptcy, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital map, disruptive innovation, diversification, Doha Development Round, driverless car, Easter island, edge city, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy security, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, failed state, Fairphone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, Ferguson, Missouri, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, forward guidance, gentrification, geopolitical risk, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, Hernando de Soto, high net worth, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, ice-free Arctic, if you build it, they will come, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, industrial robot, informal economy, Infrastructure as a Service, interest rate swap, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, John von Neumann, Julian Assange, Just-in-time delivery, Kevin Kelly, Khyber Pass, Kibera, Kickstarter, LNG terminal, low cost airline, low earth orbit, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, mass affluent, mass immigration, megacity, Mercator projection, Metcalfe’s law, microcredit, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Monroe Doctrine, Multics, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, off grid, offshore financial centre, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, openstreetmap, out of africa, Panamax, Parag Khanna, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, Planet Labs, plutocrats, post-oil, post-Panamax, precautionary principle, private military company, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, Quicken Loans, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, rolling blackouts, Ronald Coase, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, Stuxnet, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, tech worker, TED Talk, telepresence, the built environment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler, young professional, zero day

Not bad for a country whose sugar-driven economy of the 1960s generated a per capita income of $200.*1 FROM EXCLAVE TO ENCLAVE The NIC 2030 report actually used the wrong term for SEZs, referring to them as “enclaves.” In fact, the perception of foreign-run zones on national soil implies that they are exclaves, restricted and walled off—“spatially fortified” in urban planning parlance—both segmented from the economy (requiring specially imported skills) and segregated from the society (isolated from local communities). The test of whether a country leverages SEZs—as China and Mauritius have done—thus lies in translating the presence of exclave bubbles into national economic development.


pages: 538 words: 145,243

Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World by Joshua B. Freeman

anti-communist, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Charles Babbage, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, company town, Corn Laws, corporate raider, cotton gin, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, driverless car, en.wikipedia.org, factory automation, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, household responsibility system, indoor plumbing, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, James Hargreaves, joint-stock company, knowledge worker, mass immigration, means of production, mittelstand, Naomi Klein, new economy, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Pearl River Delta, post-industrial society, Ralph Waldo Emerson, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, special economic zone, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, strikebreaker, techno-determinism, technoutopianism, the built environment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, women in the workforce, working poor, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game

., 1989; William Serrin, Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town (New York: Random House, 1992). 2.Lindsay-Jean Hard, “The Rouge: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow,” Urban and Regional Planning Economic Development Handbook, University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Dec. 4, 2005, http://www.umich.edu/~econdev/riverrouge/; Perry Stern, “Best Selling Vehicles in America—September Edition,” Sept. 2, 2016, http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/autos-passenger/best-selling-vehicles-in-america-%E2%80%94-september-edition/ss-AAiquE5#image=21. 3.Laurence Gross, The Course of Industrial Decline: The Boott Cotton Mills of Lowell, Mass., 1835–1955 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 44–45, 102–03, 229, 238–40. 4.Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott, “The Meanings of Deindustrialization,” in Cowie and Heathcott, eds., Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 4.


pages: 499 words: 144,278

Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World by Clive Thompson

"Margaret Hamilton" Apollo, "Susan Fowler" uber, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 4chan, 8-hour work day, Aaron Swartz, Ada Lovelace, AI winter, air gap, Airbnb, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Amazon Web Services, Andy Rubin, Asperger Syndrome, augmented reality, Ayatollah Khomeini, backpropagation, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, blue-collar work, Brewster Kahle, Brian Krebs, Broken windows theory, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, cellular automata, Charles Babbage, Chelsea Manning, Citizen Lab, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, computer vision, Conway's Game of Life, crisis actor, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, Danny Hillis, data science, David Heinemeier Hansson, deep learning, DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, disinformation, don't be evil, don't repeat yourself, Donald Trump, driverless car, dumpster diving, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ernest Rutherford, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fake news, false flag, Firefox, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Free Software Foundation, Gabriella Coleman, game design, Geoffrey Hinton, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Google Hangouts, Google X / Alphabet X, Grace Hopper, growth hacking, Guido van Rossum, Hacker Ethic, hockey-stick growth, HyperCard, Ian Bogost, illegal immigration, ImageNet competition, information security, Internet Archive, Internet of things, Jane Jacobs, John Markoff, Jony Ive, Julian Assange, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, Larry Wall, lone genius, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Shuttleworth, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, Menlo Park, meritocracy, microdosing, microservices, Minecraft, move 37, move fast and break things, Nate Silver, Network effects, neurotypical, Nicholas Carr, Nick Bostrom, no silver bullet, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, OpenAI, operational security, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, PageRank, PalmPilot, paperclip maximiser, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, pink-collar, planetary scale, profit motive, ransomware, recommendation engine, Richard Stallman, ride hailing / ride sharing, Rubik’s Cube, Ruby on Rails, Sam Altman, Satoshi Nakamoto, Saturday Night Live, scientific management, self-driving car, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Silicon Valley startup, single-payer health, Skype, smart contracts, Snapchat, social software, software is eating the world, sorting algorithm, South of Market, San Francisco, speech recognition, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, tech worker, techlash, TED Talk, the High Line, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, Wall-E, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, WeWork, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Y Combinator, Zimmermann PGP, éminence grise

The whole reason the humanities are still a crucial field of study is that they help us understand the grayscale, maddening complexities of human behavior. They help us define our vision for society and the human spirit, which is the crucial first step before grappling with which tools—coding? plumbing? urban planning?—can help us achieve it. So anyone who’s got young children likely beheld the florid rise of STEM mania and wondered, Should my kid learn to code? As with most things, the real answer is the dull middle ground. As several coders and educators put it to me: Sure, all elementary schools should introduce kids to at least some coding at some point, to help them discover themselves whether they’re drawn to it.


pages: 344 words: 161,076

The Rough Guide to Barcelona 8 by Jules Brown, Rough Guides

active transport: walking or cycling, bike sharing, centre right, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, Kickstarter, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal

It’s one of seventeen “autonomous communities” recognized by the new Spanish constitution of 1978, with Catalunya defined as a “nationality” (rather than, crucially, a “nation”) by the original 1979 Statute of Autonomy. The Catalan government – the Generalitat – based in Barcelona, enjoys a high profile, employing eighty thousand people in sixteen departments or ministries, controlling social services, urban planning, culture, regional transport, industry, trade, tourism, fisheries and agriculture. However, as long as the budget is based on tax collected by central government and then returned proportionately, the scope for real independence is limited, as the Generalitat has no tangible resources of its own and is forced to share jurisdiction on strategic matters such as health, education and justice with the Spanish state.


pages: 466 words: 146,982

Venice: A New History by Thomas F. Madden

big-box store, buy low sell high, centre right, colonial rule, Columbine, Costa Concordia, double entry bookkeeping, facts on the ground, financial innovation, indoor plumbing, invention of movable type, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Murano, Venice glass, spice trade, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning

Yet for all the pomp, the city that had transfixed generations of poets and artists left Napoleon cold. It was, he believed, a hodgepodge of old and new without character or discipline. Shortly after his departure, the royal government announced a plan to reform and renew its cityscape. Napoleon wanted to introduce to Venice the modern style of urban planning, which included classical forms, geometric simplicity, manicured public parks, and broad avenues. These were the principles on which Paris was being rebuilt, as were other cities such as Washington, D.C., across the ocean. In an urban environment as thoroughly built up as Venice, though, this necessarily meant demolitions.


pages: 475 words: 155,554

The Default Line: The Inside Story of People, Banks and Entire Nations on the Edge by Faisal Islam

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bond market vigilante , book value, Boris Johnson, British Empire, capital controls, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, Crossrail, currency risk, dark matter, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, energy security, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, Eyjafjallajökull, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial repression, floating exchange rates, forensic accounting, forward guidance, full employment, G4S, ghettoisation, global rebalancing, global reserve currency, high-speed rail, hiring and firing, inflation targeting, Irish property bubble, junk bonds, Just-in-time delivery, labour market flexibility, light touch regulation, London Whale, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, margin call, market clearing, megacity, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, mini-job, mittelstand, Money creation, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, mutually assured destruction, Myron Scholes, negative equity, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, open economy, paradox of thrift, Pearl River Delta, pension reform, price mechanism, price stability, profit motive, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, reshoring, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, shareholder value, sovereign wealth fund, tail risk, The Chicago School, the payments system, too big to fail, trade route, transaction costs, two tier labour market, unorthodox policies, uranium enrichment, urban planning, value at risk, WikiLeaks, working-age population, zero-sum game

The local newspaper, owned by the developer, attacked the mayor, while el Pocero’s workers demonstrated outside the municipal office, demanding the mayor issue the necessary licences. In other places, there was clear corruption. A 1997 law had loosened most constraints on development, opening the floodgates to corruption. ‘Where there’s construction, there’s crime,’ admitted the urban planning coordinator in Prime Minister Zapatero’s Socialist government, which was in office through the boom and the subsequent bust. On the coast, from Marbella to Valencia, tens of thousands of homes were completed without planning permission after bribes were paid to local officials. Only the construction companies benefited.


Rome by Lonely Planet

bike sharing, bread and circuses, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, double helix, G4S, gentrification, Index librorum prohibitorum, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, low cost airline, Murano, Venice glass, Pier Paolo Pasolini, retail therapy, Skype, urban planning

Key Borromini Works Chiesa di San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane Chiesa di Sant’Agnese in Agone Chiesa di Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza Prospettiva (Perspective Corridor), Palazzo Spada One of the first great Counter-Reformation churches was the Jesuit Chiesa del Gesù, designed by the leading architect of the day, Giacomo della Porta (1533−1602). In a move away from the style of earlier Renaissance churches, the facade has pronounced architectural elements that create a contrast between surfaces and a play of light and shade. The end of the 16th century and the papacy of Sixtus V (1585−90) marked the beginning of major urban-planning schemes. Domenico Fontana (1543−1607) and other architects created a network of major thoroughfares to connect previously disparate parts of the sprawling medieval city, and decorative obelisks were erected at vantage points throughout Rome. Fontana also designed the main facade of Palazzo del Quirinale, the immense palace that served as the pope’s summer residence for almost three centuries.


pages: 565 words: 151,129

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism by Jeremy Rifkin

3D printing, active measures, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, autonomous vehicles, back-to-the-land, benefit corporation, big-box store, bike sharing, bioinformatics, bitcoin, business logic, business process, Chris Urmson, circular economy, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, commons-based peer production, Community Supported Agriculture, Computer Numeric Control, computer vision, crowdsourcing, demographic transition, distributed generation, DIY culture, driverless car, Eben Moglen, electricity market, en.wikipedia.org, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Free Software Foundation, Garrett Hardin, general purpose technology, global supply chain, global village, Hacker Conference 1984, Hacker Ethic, industrial robot, informal economy, information security, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), intermodal, Internet of things, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John Elkington, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, longitudinal study, low interest rates, machine translation, Mahatma Gandhi, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market design, mass immigration, means of production, meta-analysis, Michael Milken, mirror neurons, natural language processing, new economy, New Urbanism, nuclear winter, Occupy movement, off grid, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer lending, personalized medicine, phenotype, planetary scale, price discrimination, profit motive, QR code, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, rewilding, RFID, Richard Stallman, risk/return, Robert Solow, Rochdale Principles, Ronald Coase, scientific management, search inside the book, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, social web, software as a service, spectrum auction, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, the built environment, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, the long tail, The Nature of the Firm, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, urban planning, vertical integration, warehouse automation, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, web application, Whole Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Review, WikiLeaks, working poor, Yochai Benkler, zero-sum game, Zipcar

The capitalist paradigm, long accepted as the best mechanism for promoting the efficient organization of economic activity, is now under siege on two fronts. On the first front, a new generation of interdisciplinary scholarship that has brought together previously distinct fields—including the ecological sciences, chemistry, biology, engineering, architecture, urban planning, and information technology—is challenging standard economic theory (which is wedded to the metaphors of Newtonian physics) with a new theoretical economics grounded in the laws of thermodynamics. Standard capitalist theory is virtually silent on the indissoluble relationship between economic activity and the ecological constraints imposed by the laws of energy.


pages: 598 words: 134,339

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier

23andMe, Airbnb, airport security, AltaVista, Anne Wojcicki, AOL-Time Warner, augmented reality, behavioural economics, Benjamin Mako Hill, Black Swan, Boris Johnson, Brewster Kahle, Brian Krebs, call centre, Cass Sunstein, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, Citizen Lab, cloud computing, congestion charging, data science, digital rights, disintermediation, drone strike, Eben Moglen, Edward Snowden, end-to-end encryption, Evgeny Morozov, experimental subject, failed state, fault tolerance, Ferguson, Missouri, Filter Bubble, Firefox, friendly fire, Google Chrome, Google Glasses, heat death of the universe, hindsight bias, informal economy, information security, Internet Archive, Internet of things, Jacob Appelbaum, James Bridle, Jaron Lanier, John Gilmore, John Markoff, Julian Assange, Kevin Kelly, Laura Poitras, license plate recognition, lifelogging, linked data, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, moral panic, Nash equilibrium, Nate Silver, national security letter, Network effects, Occupy movement, operational security, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, payday loans, pre–internet, price discrimination, profit motive, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, real-name policy, recommendation engine, RFID, Ross Ulbricht, satellite internet, self-driving car, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, smart grid, Snapchat, social graph, software as a service, South China Sea, sparse data, stealth mode startup, Steven Levy, Stuxnet, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, telemarketer, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, undersea cable, unit 8200, urban planning, Wayback Machine, WikiLeaks, workplace surveillance , Yochai Benkler, yottabyte, zero day

I worry that the generation currently in charge is too scared of the terrorists, and too quick to give corporations anything they want. I hope I’m wrong. THE BIG DATA TRADE-OFF Most of this book is about the misuse and abuse of our personal data, but the truth is, this data also offers incredible value for society. Our data has enormous value when we put it all together. Our movement records help with urban planning. Our financial records enable the police to detect and prevent fraud and money laundering. Our posts and tweets help researchers understand how we tick as a society. There are all sorts of creative and interesting uses for personal data, uses that give birth to new knowledge and make all of our lives better.


pages: 651 words: 161,270

Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism by Sharon Beder

American Legislative Exchange Council, battle of ideas, benefit corporation, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, business climate, centre right, clean water, corporate governance, Exxon Valdez, Gary Taubes, global village, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, John Elkington, laissez-faire capitalism, military-industrial complex, oil shale / tar sands, Oklahoma City bombing, old-boy network, planned obsolescence, precautionary principle, price mechanism, profit maximization, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, shareholder value, telemarketer, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, two and twenty, urban planning

He also noted the “complaints from nearby residents regarding noxious odours and VOC [volatile organic compound] emissions from the LWP”. He claimed that “a facility that emits toxic, carcinogenic, persistent and bioaccumulative compounds to the environment, particularly within 250 metres of residential housing, clearly contradicts all of the principles of sound urban planning and environmental responsibility”. Yet the proximity of the athletes’ village to the Liquid Waste Plant was known to Greenpeace when it offered its design for the village; and the Greenpeace literature on the ‘Green Games,’ whilst praising the solar design of the village and the other environmental virtues of the Olympic Games, makes no mention of the plant and the dangers it poses.


pages: 538 words: 147,612

All the Money in the World by Peter W. Bernstein

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, AOL-Time Warner, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Bill Gates: Altair 8800, book value, call centre, Carl Icahn, Charles Lindbergh, clean tech, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, currency peg, David Brooks, Donald Trump, estate planning, Fairchild Semiconductor, family office, financial engineering, financial innovation, George Gilder, high net worth, invisible hand, Irwin Jacobs: Qualcomm, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job-hopping, John Markoff, junk bonds, Larry Ellison, Long Term Capital Management, Marc Andreessen, Martin Wolf, Maui Hawaii, means of production, mega-rich, Menlo Park, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, new economy, Norman Mailer, PageRank, Peter Singer: altruism, pez dispenser, popular electronics, Quicken Loans, Renaissance Technologies, Rod Stewart played at Stephen Schwarzman birthday party, Ronald Reagan, Sand Hill Road, school vouchers, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, shareholder value, short squeeze, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley startup, SoftBank, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, tech baron, tech billionaire, Teledyne, the new new thing, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, traveling salesman, urban planning, wealth creators, William Shockley: the traitorous eight, women in the workforce

(Chapters 1, 5, 11, 12) Gwen Kinkead, a prizewinning journalist and author, was a senior editor at Worth and Fortune magazines, and has contributed to The New Yorker and the New York Times. (Chapters 4, 7, 8) Alex Ulam is a New York City–based freelance writer who specializes in architecture and urban planning. His work has appeared in Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, Wired, Archaeology, and the National Post of Canada. (Chapter 6) Introduction The Forbes 400 is the dominant symbol of wealth in America. It recalls the earlier 400 list of Mrs. Astor but differs from hers in one telling respect.


How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight by Julian Guthrie

Albert Einstein, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Charles Lindbergh, cosmic microwave background, crowdsourcing, Dennis Tito, Doomsday Book, Easter island, Elon Musk, Fairchild Semiconductor, fear of failure, fixed-gear, Frank Gehry, Gene Kranz, gravity well, Herman Kahn, high net worth, Iridium satellite, Isaac Newton, ITER tokamak, Jacquard loom, Jeff Bezos, Johannes Kepler, Larry Ellison, Leonard Kleinrock, life extension, low earth orbit, Mark Shuttleworth, Mars Society, Menlo Park, meta-analysis, Murray Gell-Mann, Neil Armstrong, Oculus Rift, off-the-grid, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, packet switching, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, pets.com, private spaceflight, punch-card reader, Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman: Challenger O-ring, Ronald Reagan, Scaled Composites, side project, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, SpaceShipOne, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Strategic Defense Initiative, urban planning, Virgin Galactic

Michael, who had played football at Great Neck High and loved math the way Peter loved space, was having the opposite experience. Between tennis shots, Michael told Peter about a program at MIT called UROP, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, giving undergraduate students the chance to work on research in fields as varied as nuclear science, urban planning, and solar-photovoltaic systems for houses. Michael told Peter that he was working on fusion experiments involving the building of a scaled-down version of a tokamak, a vacuum inside a circular steel tube that used magnetic fields to confine fusion. His project leader was Professor Louis Smullin, who had helped create the school’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and was head of the radiation laboratory in the early 1940s when the lab developed airborne radar used during World War II.


The Rough Guide to Brussels 4 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) by Dunford, Martin.; Lee, Phil; Summer, Suzy.; Dal Molin, Loik

Berlin Wall, bike sharing, British Empire, car-free, Fall of the Berlin Wall, gentrification, glass ceiling, low cost airline, Peace of Westphalia, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning

Unperturbed, the city’s guilds swiftly had their headquarters rebuilt, using their control of the municipal council both to impose regulations on the sort of construction that was permitted and to ward off the Habsburg governor’s notions of a royal – as distinct from bourgeois – main square. The council was not to be trifled with. In an early example of urban planning, it decreed: “(We) hereby forbid the owners to build houses on the lower market [ie the Grand-Place] without the model of the facade … first being presented to the Council … Any construction erected contrary to this provision shall be demolished at the expense of the offender.” By these means, the guilds were able to create a homogeneous Grand-Place, choosing to rebuild in a distinctive and flamboyant Baroque which made the square more ornate and more imposing than before.


pages: 486 words: 150,849

Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History by Kurt Andersen

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air traffic controllers' union, airline deregulation, airport security, Alan Greenspan, always be closing, American ideology, American Legislative Exchange Council, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, artificial general intelligence, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bear Stearns, Bernie Sanders, blue-collar work, Bonfire of the Vanities, bonus culture, Burning Man, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Cass Sunstein, centre right, computer age, contact tracing, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate raider, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, deep learning, DeepMind, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, Elon Musk, ending welfare as we know it, Erik Brynjolfsson, feminist movement, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Future Shock, game design, General Motors Futurama, George Floyd, George Gilder, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Herbert Marcuse, Herman Kahn, High speed trading, hive mind, income inequality, industrial robot, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, It's morning again in America, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, jitney, Joan Didion, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kevin Roose, knowledge worker, lockdown, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, mass immigration, mass incarceration, Menlo Park, Naomi Klein, new economy, Norbert Wiener, Norman Mailer, obamacare, Overton Window, Peter Thiel, Picturephone, plutocrats, post-industrial society, Powell Memorandum, pre–internet, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, Right to Buy, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Seaside, Florida, Second Machine Age, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, social distancing, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, stock buybacks, strikebreaker, tech billionaire, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tim Cook: Apple, too big to fail, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, union organizing, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, urban planning, urban renewal, very high income, wage slave, Wall-E, War on Poverty, We are all Keynesians now, Whole Earth Catalog, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, working poor, young professional, éminence grise

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by the Manhattan journalist-turned-activist Jane Jacobs, became the manifesto of a successful and powerful new movement in 1961; by the end of the decade, historic preservation was fully institutionalized, and in the 1970s saving and renovating nice old buildings and neighborhoods was becoming the default.*3 At the same moment, architecture and urban planning rediscovered the amusements and lessons of history. Architects were designing new buildings with columns and pitched roofs and pediments and colorful finishes—a so-called postmodern reaction by elite architects, who used the old-fashioned design moves and materials that the modernist elite had declared taboo for half a century.


pages: 807 words: 154,435

Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making for an Unknowable Future by Mervyn King, John Kay

Airbus A320, Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, Albert Michelson, algorithmic trading, anti-fragile, Antoine Gombaud: Chevalier de Méré, Arthur Eddington, autonomous vehicles, availability heuristic, banking crisis, Barry Marshall: ulcers, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, bitcoin, Black Swan, Boeing 737 MAX, Bonfire of the Vanities, Brexit referendum, Brownian motion, business cycle, business process, capital asset pricing model, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, DeepMind, demographic transition, discounted cash flows, disruptive innovation, diversification, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Dutch auction, easy for humans, difficult for computers, eat what you kill, Eddington experiment, Edmond Halley, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Edward Thorp, Elon Musk, Ethereum, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental economics, experimental subject, fear of failure, feminist movement, financial deregulation, George Akerlof, germ theory of disease, Goodhart's law, Hans Rosling, Helicobacter pylori, high-speed rail, Ignaz Semmelweis: hand washing, income per capita, incomplete markets, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, Jim Simons, Johannes Kepler, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Snow's cholera map, John von Neumann, Kenneth Arrow, Kōnosuke Matsushita, Linda problem, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, Louis Pasteur, mandelbrot fractal, market bubble, market fundamentalism, military-industrial complex, Money creation, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, Monty Hall problem, Nash equilibrium, Nate Silver, new economy, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, nudge theory, oil shock, PalmPilot, Paul Samuelson, peak oil, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, Phillips curve, Pierre-Simon Laplace, popular electronics, power law, price mechanism, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, railway mania, RAND corporation, reality distortion field, rent-seeking, Richard Feynman, Richard Thaler, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, sealed-bid auction, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Socratic dialogue, South Sea Bubble, spectrum auction, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Suez crisis 1956, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Chicago School, the map is not the territory, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Davenport, Thomas Malthus, Toyota Production System, transaction costs, ultimatum game, urban planning, value at risk, world market for maybe five computers, World Values Survey, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

., 92 Tolstoy, Leo, 222 ; War and Peace , 433 Tomasello, Michael, 274 Tom’s coffee house (City of London), 55 Tooby, John, 165 Toyota, 409 tram project in Edinburgh, 364–5 , 370 transport modelling, 363–5 , 370 , 371 , 372 , 396 , 404 , 407 Treverton, Greg, 20 , 22 Tribe, Laurence, 207 Trichet, Jean-Claude, 350 , 357 , 399 Truman, Harry, 45 , 292–3 Trump, Donald, 249 truth, scientific, 100 , 357 Tucker, Albert, 248–9 , 251 , 253 , 382 , 392 Tuckett, David, 227 , 229–30 Tversky, Amos, 121 , 135–6 , 144–7 , 149 , 215 , 393–4 Ukraine conflict, 99 uncertainty: ‘aleatory’ and ‘epistemic’, 23 ; and Bank of England ‘fan charts’, 103–5 ; bogus quantification, 85–6 , 423 ; and confidence, 86 , 87–9 , 403 ; creativity and imaginative thinking, 47 , 130 , 418–19 ; critiques of ‘American school’, 133–7 ; dictionary definition, 37 ; as different to risk, 12–14 , 15–16 , 17 , 74 , 305–6 , 355 , 420 ; and evolutionary rationality, 16–17 , 47 , 152–3 , 154–5 , 171–2 , 272 , 401 , 428–31 ; and ‘expert’ forecasters, 21–2 , 221–2 ; the ‘hedgehog’ and the ‘fox’, 222 , 398 , 412 ; hegemony of optimisation, 40–2 , 110–14 ; ‘I don’t know’ answer, 11–12 , 46 , 88–9 , 91–2 , 98 , 145 , 296 , 400 , 403 , 414 ; ill-defined problems, 97–8 , 99 ; ‘law of the excluded middle’, 98–9 ; and likelihood, 86–7 , 89–91 , 403 ; in medicine, 44–5 ; ‘Monte Carlo simulations’, 365 ; mysteries resolved by advances in knowledge, 32–3 ; ordinary usage of term, 421 ; problems of complexity and context, 149–53 ; and responsibility, 9 ; Rumsfeld’s musings on, 7–8 ; and secure reference narratives, 127 , 426–31 , 432 ; Taleb’s ‘anti-fragility’, 422 ; Taleb’s ‘black swans’, 14 , 38–40 , 42 ; ‘tame’ problems and ‘wicked’ problems, 22–6 , 43–4 ; technical meaning in economics, 12 , 421 ; unknown unknowns, 3–5 , 7–8 , 20 , 23–4 , 38–40 , 42 , 57 , 346 , 363 ; unsolvable mysteries, 33–4 , 44 ; vagueness and ambiguity, 97–100 ; von Neumann–Morgenstern axioms, 111 , 133 , 435–44 ; see also axiomatic rationality; probabilistic reasoning; reference narrative concept Union Pacific Railroad, 48 United Nations, 390 urban planning, 22 , 424–5 utilitarianism, 110–11 , 401 ; expected utility , 111–14 , 115–18 , 124–5 , 127 , 128–30 , 135 , 400 , 435–44 ; use of term ‘utility’ in economics, xiv , 436 Valdivia earthquake (Chile, 1960), 237–8 Value at risk models (VaR), 366–8 , 405 , 424 Vickrey, William, 256 Vietnam War, 99 , 135 , 167–8 , 281–2 , 295 , 298–300 , 330 , 412–13 Viniar, David, 6 , 9 , 58 , 68 , 109 , 150 , 176 , 202 , 235 , 366 Voltaire, 187 , 199 Wack, Pierre, 222–3 Waldfogel, Joel, 191 , 193 Walmart, 227 Walras, Leon, 343 Walton, Sam, 227 Wang Laboratories, 27 , 31 Wansell, Geoffrey, 198 Warren, Dr Robin, 284 water supply business, 182–3 Watergate scandal, 4 Waterloo, Battle of (1815), 188 Watson, James, 156 Watson, Thomas, 282 Watson Jr, Thomas, 27 Waze, 395–6 Webber, Melvin, 22 WebTAG, 363–4 , 365 , 371 , 404 , 407 Welles, Orson, 418–19 ‘What is going on here?’


pages: 566 words: 160,453

Not Working: Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone? by David G. Blanchflower

90 percent rule, active measures, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, bank run, banking crisis, basic income, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Black Swan, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Clapham omnibus, collective bargaining, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, declining real wages, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, driverless car, estate planning, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, full employment, George Akerlof, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Growth in a Time of Debt, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, independent contractor, indoor plumbing, inflation targeting, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, John Bercow, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, longitudinal study, low interest rates, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market clearing, Martin Wolf, mass incarceration, meta-analysis, moral hazard, Nate Silver, negative equity, new economy, Northern Rock, obamacare, oil shock, open borders, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Own Your Own Home, p-value, Panamax, pension reform, Phillips curve, plutocrats, post-materialism, price stability, prisoner's dilemma, quantitative easing, rent control, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, selection bias, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, trade liberalization, universal basic income, University of East Anglia, urban planning, working poor, working-age population, yield curve

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, he of Black Swan fame, has argued that what we have seen is a rebellion against the inner circle of policymakers who are telling us (1) what to do, (2) what to eat, (3) how to speak, (4) how to think, and (5) whom to vote for. He calls them the Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI). See “The Intellectual Yet Idiot,” Medium.com, September 16, 2016. He says, colorfully, the IYI has been wrong, historically, on “Stalinism, Maoism, GMOs, Iraq, Libya, Syria, lobotomies, urban planning, low carbohydrate diets, gym machines, behaviorism, transfats, Freudianism, portfolio theory, linear regression, Gaussianism, Salafism, dynamic stochastic equilibrium modeling, housing projects, selfish gene, election forecasting models, Bernie Madoff (pre-blowup) and p- values. But he is convinced that his current position is right.”


The Mission: A True Story by David W. Brown

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Berlin Wall, Columbine, Gregor Mendel, heat death of the universe, Isaac Newton, James Webb Space Telescope, Kickstarter, Kuiper Belt, low earth orbit, Mars Rover, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, obamacare, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, orbital mechanics / astrodynamics, Pluto: dwarf planet, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Silicon Valley, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Strategic Defense Initiative, transcontinental railway, urban planning, women in the workforce, Y2K, zero-sum game

Chapter 10 This Earth of Majesty, This Seat of Mars THEY GATHERED IN THE MAIN BALLROOM OF THE Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center in the Woodlands, Texas, just north of Houston. Outside, sunset was fast approaching, and streetlamps and string lights woke higgledy-piggledy. The commercial center of the Woodlands could feel like a bland movie set: inoffensive, Main Street Modern, urban planning by way of plastic-injection molding, designed for the singular purpose of attracting convention crowds and facilitating their need to socialize and have a bite and booze in locations both picturesque and in walking distance, and whatever happened after, chaste or otherwise, was on the forgathered, because the anodyne polyurethane environs would do nothing to stoke primal urges.


The State and the Stork: The Population Debate and Policy Making in US History by Derek S. Hoff

affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Alfred Russel Wallace, back-to-the-land, British Empire, business cycle, classic study, clean water, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, demographic transition, desegregation, Edward Glaeser, feminist movement, full employment, garden city movement, Garrett Hardin, George Gilder, Gregor Mendel, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, Herman Kahn, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jane Jacobs, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, labor-force participation, Lewis Mumford, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, New Economic Geography, new economy, old age dependency ratio, open immigration, Paul Samuelson, peak oil, pensions crisis, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Scientific racism, secular stagnation, Simon Kuznets, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, Tragedy of the Commons, trickle-down economics, urban planning, urban sprawl, W. E. B. Du Bois, wage slave, War on Poverty, white flight, zero-sum game

If this trend continues unattended we shall become increasingly concentrated in the coming decades—our large metropolitan regions will become more congested while valuable rural areas continue to decline.”56 Nixon himself increasingly thought about the population issue in terms of the city, though his analysis of urban population growth contained more racial rhetoric than concerns about urban planning. In a taped discussion with Ehrlichman about the population commission, Nixon bluntly stated that many people thought about population control in terms of controlling the “Negro masses.” After Nixon then suggested individuals not using birth control “are the people who shouldn’t have kids,”57 the conversa- defusing the population bomb 205 tion turned immediately to Black migration patterns.


pages: 1,324 words: 159,290

Grand Transitions: How the Modern World Was Made by Vaclav Smil

8-hour work day, agricultural Revolution, AltaVista, Anthropocene, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, biodiversity loss, Biosphere 2, Boeing 747, caloric restriction, caloric restriction, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, circular economy, clean water, complexity theory, correlation does not imply causation, COVID-19, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, disruptive innovation, energy transition, European colonialism, Extinction Rebellion, Ford Model T, garden city movement, general purpose technology, Gini coefficient, Google Hangouts, Great Leap Forward, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, hydraulic fracturing, hydrogen economy, income inequality, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of movable type, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Just-in-time delivery, knowledge economy, Law of Accelerating Returns, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, megacity, meta-analysis, microplastics / micro fibres, ocean acidification, oil shale / tar sands, old age dependency ratio, peak oil, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, power law, precision agriculture, purchasing power parity, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, Republic of Letters, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Singularitarianism, Skype, Steven Pinker, Suez canal 1869, the built environment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, total factor productivity, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, working-age population

The most radical steps involved large-scale demolition and reordering of old quarters, with Georges Eugène Haussmann’s bold transformation of central Paris being the most influential example, which was followed in other European cities, including Brussels, Vienna, Madrid, and Prague (Haussmann 1893; Camiller 2002). Public transportation became both faster and more affordable with the introduction of electric streetcars, subways, and suburban trains. More comprehensive urban planning approaches began to emerge, including Ebenezer Howard’s influential concept of English garden cities (Meacham 1999). Benefits of cities continue to be shared much less equitably than they should be in societies whose main concern would be a modicum of a decent quality of life for all (especially for children) rather than the unending quest for individual riches.


pages: 2,323 words: 550,739

1,000 Places to See in the United States and Canada Before You Die, Updated Ed. by Patricia Schultz

Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, American Society of Civil Engineers: Report Card, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Boeing 747, Bretton Woods, Burning Man, California gold rush, car-free, Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, company town, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, country house hotel, David Sedaris, Day of the Dead, Donald Trump, East Village, El Camino Real, estate planning, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Guggenheim Bilbao, Haight Ashbury, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, interchangeable parts, Mars Rover, Mason jar, Maui Hawaii, Mikhail Gorbachev, Murano, Venice glass, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, out of africa, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, scientific management, sexual politics, South of Market, San Francisco, Suez canal 1869, The Chicago School, three-masted sailing ship, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, wage slave, white picket fence, Works Progress Administration, Yogi Berra, éminence grise

The level of detail is astounding, as is the historical scope: Scattered among the buildings and roads, unexpected touches like an Indian village, a coal mine, a Barnum & Bailey Circus rehearsal, a miniature Benjamin Franklin, and Gieringer’s own father (the village harness maker) reveal its creator’s surrealist view of time and urban planning. The highlight comes every half hour as night descends on Gieringer’s world, and the town’s lights come on, as images of sunset, the American flag, and Christ himself are projected onto the walls, accompanied by Kate Smith singing “God Bless America.” For a certain kind of visitor—and you know who you are—this is the kind of odd, yet curiously revelatory, experience that small-town travel is all about.

Highlights include political works—the famous “Lansdowne” portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart and Alexander Gardner’s portrait of Abraham Lincoln—and popculture items, such as Andy Warhol’s silkscreen of Michael Jackson. The Renwick Gallery building was constructed in 1859. The National Building Museum opened in 1985 with a mission to celebrate American architecture and urban planning. It is housed in the former home of the U.S. Pension Bureau, whose Renaissance-style Great Hall is among Washington’s most impressive spaces, nearly as long as a football field, with massive Corinthian columns supporting its 159-foot ceiling. No wonder it’s been used as the site of 14 presidential inaugural balls.

Victorian Village in the Mountains EUREKA SPRINGS Arkansas Literally built into the side of the Ozarks, the tiny village of Eureka Springs is a charming collection of Victorian architecture and higgledy-piggledy streets snaking past cliff-clinging homes, confounding new visitors. Folks easily fall in love with this place, so appealingly antithetical to modern urban planning. It is the only city in the country whose entire downtown area is on the National Register of Historic Places—and there’s not a traffic light to be found. With a population that hovers around 2,000, Eureka Springs is tucked away in the remote and lush northwest corner of Arkansas. Surrounded by miles of lakes and rivers and packed with small shops, galleries, B&Bs, and hotels, Eureka Springs’ Victorian charm is remarkably intact.


Italy by Damien Simonis

active transport: walking or cycling, airport security, bike sharing, Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, company town, congestion charging, dark pattern, discovery of the americas, Frank Gehry, haute couture, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, Kickstarter, Kinder Surprise, large denomination, low cost airline, Murano, Venice glass, pension reform, period drama, Peter Eisenman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, retail therapy, Skype, spice trade, starchitect, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

Rome Open Tour ( 06 977 45 499; www.romeopentour.com; 24hr ticket adult/child €18/8, 48hr ticket €23/10; tours every 15min from 9am-7pm) has nine stops: Stazione Termini, Piazza Venezia, the Colosseum, Circo Massimo, Isola Tiberina, St Peter’s, Castel Sant’Angelo, Via Veneto and Piazza Barberini. The bus stops for 25 minutes at each stop and there’s a multilingual audio­guide commentary. You can catch the bus from any stop and buy tickets on board. ArCult ( 339 650 3172; www.arcult.it) offers excellent tours focusing on Rome’s contemporary architecture and urban planning. Run by architects, the customisable tours visit sites such as EUR, the Auditorium Parco della Musica, the Chiesa Dives in Misericordia and the Ara Pacis. A half-day tour starts at €200, for two to 10 people, so it makes sense to get a like-minded group together. Scooter HR Incentives (www.happyrent.com) offers tours of Rome on vintage Vespas and Lambrettas – the best and most authentic way to travel in the city.

Its tourist office ( 0578 74 99 05; Corso Il Rossellino; 10am-1pm & 3-7pm Wed-Mon) is located within the Museo Diocesano. Spin 360 degrees in Piazza Pio II and you’ve taken in Pienza’s major monuments. Gems of the Renaissance, they were all constructed in a mere three years between 1459 and 1462. The square is named after the pope who, in one of the earliest examples of urban planning, commissioned the architect Bernardo Rossellino to rebuild the little town of his birth. Highlights of the cathedral ( 8.30am-1pm & 2.15-7pm), with its Renaissance facade, are a superb marble tabernacle by Rossellino, and five altarpieces, all by Sienese artists. Palazzo Piccolomini, Padre Pio II’s country residence, is considered to be Rossellino’s masterpiece.

Return to beginning of chapter IONIAN COAST In stark contrast to the dramatic Tyrrhenian coast, the Ionian coast is a listless, flat affair dotted with large tourist resorts. However, the Greek ruins at Metaponto and Policoro, with their accompanying museums, bring alive the enormous influence of Magna Graecia in southern Italy. Metaponto Metaponto’s Greek ruins are a rare site where archaeologists have managed to map the entire ancient urban plan. Settled by Greeks in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Metapontum was probably an outpost of Sibari (in Calabria) and acted as a buffer between there and Taranto. Its most famous resident was Pythagoras, who founded a school here after being banished from Crotone (also Calabria) in the 6th century BC.


Eastern USA by Lonely Planet

1960s counterculture, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, bike sharing, Bretton Woods, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, Day of the Dead, desegregation, Donald Trump, East Village, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, gentleman farmer, gentrification, glass ceiling, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute cuisine, Hernando de Soto, illegal immigration, immigration reform, information trail, interchangeable parts, jitney, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, license plate recognition, machine readable, Mason jar, mass immigration, McMansion, megacity, Menlo Park, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, Quicken Loans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, the built environment, the High Line, the payments system, three-martini lunch, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, walkable city, white flight, Works Progress Administration, young professional

New Orleans has always been a beacon for the misfits of America. Now add entrepreneurs, techies and actors to that list. The newly coined ‘Silicon Bayou’ and ‘Hollywood South’ – at least four flicks are being shot on location here at any given time lately – are also becoming a litmus test for new frontiers of urban planning. Brad Pitt’s Make It Right campaign (Click here) has turned much of the Lower Ninth Ward into a model sustainable neighborhood with a retro futuristic vibe so cool that it’s worth a visit just to gawk at the homes. New Orleans Top Sights National World War II MuseumC7 Ogden Museum of Southern ArtC7 Sights 1Aquarium of the AmericasE5 2Backstreet Cultural MuseumD2 3Canal St FerryE5 4Historic New Orleans CollectionD3 5InsectariumD5 6Jackson SqE3 7Louis Armstrong ParkD2 8Louisiana Children's MuseumD6 9Louisiana State Museum (Cabildo)E3 10Louisiana State Museum (Presbytère)E3 11New Orleans African American Museum of Art, Culture & HistoryD1 12Old Ursuline ConventE2 13Solomon Victory TheaterC7 14St Augustine's ChurchD1 15St Louis CathedralE3 16St Louis Cemetery No 1C3 17Wine Institute of New Orleans (WINO)D6 Activities, Courses & Tours 18Confederacy of CruisersF2 19Friends of the CabildoE3 20New Orleans GlassWorks & Printmaking StudioD6 21New Orleans School of CookingD4 Sleeping 22Cornstalk HotelE3 23Hotel Maison de VilleD3 24Lamothe HouseF2 25Le PavillonC5 26Loft 523D5 27Prytania Park HotelB8 Eating 28BayonaD3 29ButcherD7 30Café du MondeE3 31Central GroceryE3 32Clover GrillE3 33CochonD7 34Coop'sE3 35Croissant d'Or PatisserieE2 36Dooky ChaseA1 37Green GoddessD4 38GW FinsD4 39Yo Mama'sD3 Drinking 40Mimi's in the MarignyG1 41R BarE2 42Spotted CatF2 43ToniqueD2 Entertainment 44Preservation HallD3 45Snug HarborF2 46Three MusesF2 Shopping 47Faulkner House BooksE3 Sights & Activities FRENCH QUARTER Elegant, Caribbean-colonial architecture, lush gardens and wrought-iron accents are the visual norm in the French Quarter.

Getting Back on Track Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath have reshaped much of the Gulf Coast. Locals have negotiated the tricky path through redevelopment, the return of displaced peoples, wetlands restoration and outsider involvement. Though revitalization has been successful in some areas – including parts of New Orleans, which has become a spawning ground for new frontiers of urban planning – progress has been painfully slow in other areas, especially the poorer ones. In April 2010 the Gulf Coast suffered another major blow: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Roughly five million barrels of crude oil gushed into the water before British Petroleum plugged the leak.


The Rough Guide to Jerusalem by Daniel Jacobs

centre right, en.wikipedia.org, facts on the ground, Frank Gehry, gentrification, haute cuisine, Khartoum Gordon, low cost airline, Mount Scopus, Skype, Suez canal 1869, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, Wall-E

The author, an Israeli architect and historian, has written six specialized volumes in Hebrew on the architecture of Jerusalem, but this glorious coffee-table book, with lots of colour photos, is of much more interest to a non-specialist reader, while still offering plenty of heavyweight discussion about construction and urban planning from biblical times to the present day. 287 18/06/09 2:56 PM Philipp Misselwitz and Tim Rieneits (eds) City of Collision: Jerusalem and the Principles of Conflict Urbanism. A collection of essays on the way Jerusalem’s ethnic divisions are determining its shape and growth. Some of them are very interesting, but they’d be a whole lot more so if the authors could make their points in plain English rather than sociological jargon.


pages: 510 words: 163,449

How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It by Arthur Herman

British Empire, California gold rush, classic study, creative destruction, do-ocracy, Edward Jenner, financial independence, gentleman farmer, global village, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Joan Didion, joint-stock company, laissez-faire capitalism, land tenure, mass immigration, means of production, new economy, New Urbanism, North Sea oil, oil shale / tar sands, Republic of Letters, Robert Mercer, spinning jenny, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, tontine, transcontinental railway, trickle-down economics, urban planning, urban renewal, vertical integration, working poor

What finally arose was a tidy and confortable urban town house—“a small house,” he used to say, although “a large house for an author.” Hume let his old place to James Boswell, and happily settled into life in his fashionable new neighborhood. “Our New Town,” he wrote enthusiastically to a correspondent, “exceeds anything you have in any part of the world.” Edinburgh’s New Town was, and still is, a model of successful urban planning (although, interestingly, it took almost twenty years before it began to break even). It is the model, one might almost say the ideal, of all middle-class residential suburbs and “planned communities,” from Milton Keynes and Hampstead in England to Scarsdale (New York) and Reston (Virginia). It combined elegant urban living with beautiful natural views, charming, flower-lined parks, and discreetly convenient shops, taverns, and oyster houses clustered around Shakespeare Square.


pages: 600 words: 165,682

The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 by Gershom Gorenberg

anti-communist, bank run, colonial rule, facts on the ground, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Mount Scopus, old-boy network, Suez crisis 1956, urban planning, Yom Kippur War

Ze’evi was also told to include Mount Scopus, strategic ridges, sites with Jewish historical significance, and land for future urban development—and as far as possible to avoid adding Arab suburbs and villages.9 Decisions about the contested city would be first political and military, and only afterward—if at all—a matter of urban planning. Ze’evi worked hastily. Like others in the army’s general staff and in the cabinet, he was also haunted by the Sinai war of 1956. Most drew the opposite lesson from Zalman Aran; by preemptive annexation, they believed, Israel could hold at least some land this time.10 And if it had to pull back from the rest, it would insist on much more in return than American or U.N. assurances.


pages: 559 words: 169,094

The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America by George Packer

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert, bank run, Bear Stearns, big-box store, citizen journalism, clean tech, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, company town, corporate raider, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, DeepMind, deindustrialization, diversified portfolio, East Village, El Camino Real, electricity market, Elon Musk, Fairchild Semiconductor, family office, financial engineering, financial independence, financial innovation, fixed income, Flash crash, food desert, gentrification, Glass-Steagall Act, global macro, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, high-speed rail, housing crisis, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, intentional community, Jane Jacobs, Larry Ellison, life extension, Long Term Capital Management, low skilled workers, Marc Andreessen, margin call, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Maui Hawaii, Max Levchin, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Neal Stephenson, Neil Kinnock, new economy, New Journalism, obamacare, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, oil shock, PalmPilot, Patri Friedman, paypal mafia, peak oil, Peter Thiel, Ponzi scheme, proprietary trading, public intellectual, Richard Florida, Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Silicon Valley startup, single-payer health, smart grid, Snow Crash, Steve Jobs, strikebreaker, tech worker, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the scientific method, too big to fail, union organizing, uptick rule, urban planning, vertical integration, We are the 99%, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, white flight, white picket fence, zero-sum game

Van Sickler and his wife, who also worked at the paper, bought a 1930 brick bungalow in Seminole Heights, a historic neighborhood just north of downtown Tampa that was starting to get funky after a period of blight. It brought a taste of those nights walking around the Cleveland Flats, but Van Sickler found the whole “Next Great City” business suspect. When he was covering city hall at The Palm Beach Post, he’d gotten deeply interested in urban planning—for a while he even thought about switching careers, until he realized that city planners had even less clout than reporters. But his bookshelves filled up with titles like A Field Guide to Sprawl, The History of the Lawn, Suburban Nation, and the pair that were his bibles: The Power Broker and The Death and Life of Great American Cities.


A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the 19th Century by Witold Rybczynski

California gold rush, City Beautiful movement, clean water, cotton gin, David Brooks, fail fast, gentleman farmer, Golden Gate Park, hiring and firing, joint-stock company, Lewis Mumford, Louis Pasteur, New Urbanism, place-making, scientific management, three-masted sailing ship, transcontinental railway, urban planning, urban renewal

“Then the roads leading up that valley to Jamaica Pond would be the beginning of a Park-way leading from the Back Bay to the Arboretum and West Roxbury Park.” “They might be.” “Suppose then that we put our two professional heads together again and see if we can’t make a practicable plan for that purpose and get the city to adopt it.” “Agreed.” Olmsted did not work on any more large urban plans after the rejection of Tacoma and the failure of his Bronx proposal. He understood that Americans were simply not willing to make the sort of long-term public investments required by city planning. Pragmatically, he restricted his efforts to what city administrations were willing to do: parks, parkways, and drainage systems.


pages: 533

Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech by Jamie Susskind

3D printing, additive manufacturing, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, airport security, algorithmic bias, AlphaGo, Amazon Robotics, Andrew Keen, Apollo Guidance Computer, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, automated trading system, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Boeing 747, brain emulation, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business process, Cambridge Analytica, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cashless society, Cass Sunstein, cellular automata, Citizen Lab, cloud computing, commons-based peer production, computer age, computer vision, continuation of politics by other means, correlation does not imply causation, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, digital divide, digital map, disinformation, distributed ledger, Donald Trump, driverless car, easy for humans, difficult for computers, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, end-to-end encryption, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Filter Bubble, future of work, Future Shock, Gabriella Coleman, Google bus, Google X / Alphabet X, Googley, industrial robot, informal economy, intangible asset, Internet of things, invention of the printing press, invention of writing, Isaac Newton, Jaron Lanier, John Markoff, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, knowledge economy, Large Hadron Collider, Lewis Mumford, lifelogging, machine translation, Metcalfe’s law, mittelstand, more computing power than Apollo, move fast and break things, natural language processing, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, new economy, Nick Bostrom, night-watchman state, Oculus Rift, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, pattern recognition, payday loans, Philippa Foot, post-truth, power law, price discrimination, price mechanism, RAND corporation, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Stallman, ride hailing / ride sharing, road to serfdom, Robert Mercer, Satoshi Nakamoto, Second Machine Age, selection bias, self-driving car, sexual politics, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, smart contracts, Snapchat, speech recognition, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, tech bro, technological determinism, technological singularity, technological solutionism, the built environment, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas L Friedman, Tragedy of the Commons, trolley problem, universal basic income, urban planning, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, work culture , working-age population, Yochai Benkler

A more unorthodox system would be one in which we could delegate our votes on certain issues, not just to politicians but to anyone we liked. Instead of abstaining on issues we don’t know or care about, we could give our proxy vote to people who do know or care about them. On matters of national security, for instance, I might want a serving army officer to vote on my behalf; on questions of urban planning, I might want a celebrity architect to cast my vote; on healthcare I might delegate my say to a consortium of nurses, doctors, and patient groups. A digital platform for this model of democracy has already been pioneered by the creators of DemocracyOS47 and used by various political parties in Europe.


Fodor's Venice and Northern Italy by Fodor's

car-free, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, Murano, Venice glass, trade route, urban planning, young professional

At the eastern entrance to town, in the Piazza Arco d’Augusto and commanding a fine view over Aosta and the mountains, is the Arco di Augusto (Arch of Augustus) , built in 25 bc to mark Rome’s victory over the Celtic Salassi tribe. (The sloping roof was added in 1716 in an attempt to keep rain from seeping between the stones.) The present-day layout of streets in this small city tucked away in the Alps more than 644 km (400 mi) from Rome is the clearest example of Roman urban planning in Italy. Well-preserved Roman walls form a perfect rectangle around the center of Aosta, and the regular pattern of streets reflects its role as a military stronghold. Saint Anselm, born in Aosta, later became archbishop of Canterbury in England. The Collegiata di Sant’Orso is the sort of church that has layers of history in its architecture.


pages: 670 words: 169,815

Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World by Kwasi Kwarteng

Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, British Empire, classic study, colonial rule, Corn Laws, corporate governance, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of penicillin, Etonian, illegal immigration, imperial preference, invisible hand, Khartoum Gordon, land reform, sceptred isle, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, urban planning, Yom Kippur War

So the condominium arrangement saved the British government money, although people who objected to the unusual arrangement pointed out that the Egyptian share of the cost amounted to no more than an eighth or a seventh of a single battleship in 1930 currency terms.2 Even though the sovereignty of the Sudan was shared between Egypt and Britain, the supreme civil and military command was vested in the British-nominated governor general; Kitchener was the first man appointed to this eminent position, and Sir Reginald Wingate was the second. Kitchener had begun the rebuilding of Khartoum, which had been razed to the ground by the Khalifa, and for this purpose he adopted the Chicago gridiron system for the street-plan. This system had introduced into urban planning a series of diagonal roads, whose object was to shorten the distance from one part of the town to another. The effect of this was that Khartoum was laid out in a series of Union Jack patterns, which people erroneously believed had been designed by Kitchener for patriotic reasons. Kitchener, of course, although extremely patriotic, was a pragmatist before all else and merely wanted ‘quick and easy communications’ in the newly built city.3 Wingate, physically a small man, was a much less impressive figure than Kitchener, lacking the Sudan Machine’s striking looks and mysterious personality.


pages: 519 words: 160,846

One Day in December: Celia Sánchez and the Cuban Revolution by Nancy Stout

back-to-the-land, disinformation, land reform, Mason jar, union organizing, urban planning

Sunday was market day, and the whole town was teeming with people, and, almost immediately, she noticed her brother, Manuel Enrique, as he drove by looking for her. She was completely surprised to see him, but relieved that he looked past and seemed not to see her. She headed for a nearby bar. Celia walked slowly and naturally to La Rosa. The building is still there, now an urban planning office with a plaque on the wall to commemorate December 2, 1956, the day heroine Celia Sánchez stepped inside to talk with the bartender. La Rosa stood on a corner, and its customers could enter from either street. Both doors were double panels of solid wood, swinging open from ground to ceiling.


pages: 618 words: 159,672

Fodor's Rome: With the Best City Walks and Scenic Day Trips by Fodor's Travel Publications Inc.

call centre, Donald Trump, flag carrier, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute couture, haute cuisine, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, low cost airline, Mason jar, mega-rich, messenger bag, Murano, Venice glass, retail therapy, starchitect, urban planning, young professional

PIAZZA DEL POPOLO Very round, very explicitly defined, and very photogenic, the Piazza del Popolo—the People’s Square—is one of Rome’s biggest. With twin churches (and two adjacent ritzy caffè) at one end and the Porta del Popolo—Rome’s northern city gate—at the other, this square was laid out in its present form by papal architect Giuseppe Valadier (1762–1839). Part of an earlier urban plan, the three streets to the south radiate straight as spokes to other parts of the city, forming the famed “tridente” that nicknames this neighborhood. The center is marked with an obelisk taken from Egypt, one so old it makes the Pantheon look like the Sears Tower: it was carved for Ramses II in the 13th century BC.


pages: 589 words: 162,849

An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent by Owen Matthews

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, British Empire, colonial rule, company town, disinformation, fake news, false flag, garden city movement, Internet Archive, Kickstarter, military-industrial complex, post-work, South China Sea, urban planning

The real importance of the Mantetsu, however, was as a vehicle of Japanese colonisation of Manchuria. The company had its own army (infamously, it had been the railway troops of the Kwangtung Army who had organised the provocation that had led to the invasion of Manchuria) as well as its own research bureaus, urban planning departments, police and secret service, and company towns. As Japanese colonists piled into Manchuria with official encouragement – numbering over 800,000 by 1940 – the Mantetsu built up-to-date modern settlements for them all along the length of the railway, with modern sewer systems, public parks, and creative modern architecture far in advance of what could be found in Japan itself.


pages: 569 words: 165,510

There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century by Fiona Hill

2021 United States Capitol attack, active measures, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, algorithmic bias, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business climate, call centre, collective bargaining, company town, coronavirus, COVID-19, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, David Brooks, deindustrialization, desegregation, digital divide, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial independence, first-past-the-post, food desert, gender pay gap, gentrification, George Floyd, glass ceiling, global pandemic, Great Leap Forward, housing crisis, illegal immigration, imposter syndrome, income inequality, indoor plumbing, industrial cluster, industrial research laboratory, informal economy, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, lockdown, low skilled workers, Lyft, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, meme stock, Mikhail Gorbachev, new economy, oil shock, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Own Your Own Home, Paris climate accords, pension reform, QAnon, ransomware, restrictive zoning, ride hailing / ride sharing, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, statistical model, Steve Bannon, The Chicago School, TikTok, transatlantic slave trade, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, University of East Anglia, urban decay, urban planning, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, Winter of Discontent, women in the workforce, working poor, Yom Kippur War, young professional

In the UK, few new council houses were built after the Housing Act, pushing those with particularly low incomes, who could not afford to buy under any circumstances, into soaring rental markets and homelessness. These well-intentioned but often counterproductive efforts were part of a long utopian tradition that inadvertently created unique dystopias in both countries. After World War II, both the USSR and the United Kingdom became pioneers in urban planning. In County Durham we had several towns that were established from scratch under the New Towns Act of 1946, including Peterlee and Newton Aycliffe. They were set up under the auspices of special development corporations to provide new housing for the residents of declining pit villages. Peterlee was named after an actual person—a Durham Miners’ Association leader, Peter Lee, whom my Great-Grandad Thompson Hill knew.


Termites of the State: Why Complexity Leads to Inequality by Vito Tanzi

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, Andrew Keen, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, barriers to entry, basic income, behavioural economics, bitcoin, Black Swan, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, crony capitalism, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, experimental economics, financial engineering, financial repression, full employment, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, Gunnar Myrdal, high net worth, hiring and firing, illegal immigration, income inequality, indoor plumbing, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jean Tirole, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, libertarian paternalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, means of production, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open economy, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, pushing on a string, quantitative easing, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, synthetic biology, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, urban planning, very high income, Vilfredo Pareto, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce

A further question, in federations, is the relative role of the central government vis-à-vis that of the subnational, regional governments, and that of municipalities in unitary governments. Some economists, political scientists, and historians who have studied past societies have concluded that, in some important instances, for example, in commercial activities, in the pursuit of justice, in urban planning, and in some other areas, various rules developed spontaneously from the interactions among individuals, without the active intervention of a government (see, inter alia, Beito et al., 2002). These experts have argued that the spontaneous rules had contributed to relatively smooth and efficient economic and social relations and exchanges.


pages: 602 words: 177,874

Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman

3D printing, additive manufacturing, affirmative action, Airbnb, AltaVista, Amazon Web Services, Anthropocene, Apple Newton, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, blockchain, Bob Noyce, business cycle, business process, call centre, carbon tax, centre right, Chris Wanstrath, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive load, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, data science, David Brooks, deep learning, demand response, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, digital divide, disinformation, Donald Trump, dual-use technology, end-to-end encryption, Erik Brynjolfsson, fail fast, failed state, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, Flash crash, fulfillment center, game design, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, indoor plumbing, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of the steam engine, inventory management, Irwin Jacobs: Qualcomm, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, land tenure, linear programming, Live Aid, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, Maui Hawaii, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, ocean acidification, PalmPilot, pattern recognition, planetary scale, power law, pull request, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, Solyndra, South China Sea, Steve Jobs, subscription business, supercomputer in your pocket, synthetic biology, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, tech worker, TED Talk, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas L Friedman, Tony Fadell, transaction costs, Transnistria, uber lyft, undersea cable, urban decay, urban planning, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Y2K, Yogi Berra, zero-sum game

A December 2015 study by the McKinsey Global Institute on American industry found a “considerable gap between the most digitized sectors and the rest of the economy over time and [found] that despite a massive rush of adoption, most sectors have barely closed that gap over the past decade … Because the less digitized sectors are some of the largest in terms of GDP contribution and employment, we [found] that the US economy as a whole is only reaching 18 percent of its digital potential … The United States will need to adapt its institutions and training pathways to help workers acquire relevant skills and navigate this period of transition and churn.” The supernova is a new power source, and it will take some time for society to reconfigure itself to absorb its full potential. As that happens, I believe that Brynjolfsson will be proved right and we will start to see the benefits—a broad range of new discoveries around health, learning, urban planning, transportation, innovation, and commerce—that will drive growth. That debate is for economists, though, and beyond the scope of this book, but I will be eager to see how it plays out. What is absolutely clear right now is that while the supernova may not have made our economies measurably more productive yet, it is clearly making all forms of technology, and therefore individuals, companies, ideas, machines, and groups, more powerful—more able to shape the world around them in unprecedented ways with less effort than ever before.


Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy by Philippe van Parijs, Yannick Vanderborght

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, carbon tax, centre right, collective bargaining, cryptocurrency, David Graeber, declining real wages, degrowth, diversified portfolio, Edward Snowden, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, full employment, future of work, George Akerlof, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, income per capita, informal economy, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Kickstarter, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, minimum wage unemployment, Money creation, open borders, Paul Samuelson, pension reform, Post-Keynesian economics, precariat, price mechanism, profit motive, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, Rutger Bregman, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, selection bias, sharing economy, sovereign wealth fund, systematic bias, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Tobin tax, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, working poor

By contrast, basic income, conceived as the fair distribution of an inheritance, requires only that �people sharing a territory should all regard themselves and each other as �free and equal members of one po�liti�cal community. Achieving this in a diverse population should be less difficult than preserving the sort of solidarity that traditional welfare 243 BASIC INCOME states presuppose. But it �will still require daily efforts and smart initiatives in all domains, from electoral systems to urban planning to the school curriculum, and a framing of the identity of the po�liti�cal community that recognizes and values its internal diversity. All of this is crucial to the po�liti�cal viability of an unconditional basic income, but also to many other aspects of the quality of our common life, including the flourishing of an ethos of mutual ser�vice.


pages: 799 words: 187,221

Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Ada Lovelace, Albert Einstein, Bonfire of the Vanities, Commentariolus, crowdsourcing, double entry bookkeeping, double helix, en.wikipedia.org, game design, iterative process, lone genius, New Journalism, public intellectual, reality distortion field, Steve Jobs, the scientific method, urban planning, wikimedia commons

ROMORANTIN Rather than commissioning a big piece of public art, the king offered Leonardo an ideal assignment for the culmination of his career: designing a new town and palace complex for the royal court at the village of Romorantin, on the Sauldre River in the center of France, some fifty miles from Amboise. It would, if it came to pass, allow the expression of many of Leonardo’s passions: architecture, urban planning, waterworks, engineering, even pageantry and spectacle. In late 1517 he accompanied the king to Romorantin, where they stayed until January 1518. Drawing on the ideas and fantasies he had developed for an ideal city while living in Milan thirty years earlier, Leonardo began sketching in his notebook his radical and utopian aspirations for inventing a town from scratch.


How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr

Albert Einstein, book scanning, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, call centre, citizen journalism, City Beautiful movement, clean water, colonial rule, company town, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Donald Trump, drone strike, European colonialism, fake news, friendly fire, gravity well, Haber-Bosch Process, Howard Zinn, immigration reform, land reform, Mercator projection, military-industrial complex, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, pneumatic tube, QWERTY keyboard, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Feynman, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, the built environment, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, transcontinental railway, urban planning, W. E. B. Du Bois, wikimedia commons

But subsequent experience had taught him the folly of that statement, if he ever believed it. Plans didn’t “do themselves.” They needed careful stewardship. It was a lesson Burnham learned to take seriously. At roughly the same time as he was drawing up his plans for Manila, he started on another large urban plan, for Chicago. Chicago and Manila—they were his most ambitious projects. Today they’re the two cities that most clearly bear his mark. Cities are fiendishly complex, and planning them takes care. In Chicago, where Burnham had lived and worked for decades, he was painstaking. He fired off queries to experts throughout the city.


pages: 604 words: 177,329

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

airport security, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, British Empire, Fall of the Berlin Wall, invisible hand, Khyber Pass, lone genius, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, no-fly zone, PalmPilot, rolodex, Silicon Valley, uranium enrichment, urban planning, Y2K, Yom Kippur War

The city liked to think of itself as more British than German—aloof but polite, patrician but multicultural. It had become a popular destination for foreign students and political refugees, with about 200,000 Muslims among them. Mohammed Atta arrived in the fall of 1992 and enrolled as a graduate student of urban planning at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. Foreign students in Germany could stay as long as they wanted, paid no tuition, and could travel anywhere in the European Union. The scars of history were easy to detect, not only in the reconstructed portion of the Old City, but also in the laws of the country and the character of the German people.


pages: 649 words: 185,618

The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland—Then, Now, Tomorrow by Gil Troy

affirmative action, Albert Einstein, demand response, different worldview, European colonialism, financial independence, ghettoisation, guns versus butter model, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Mount Scopus, Nelson Mandela, one-state solution, open immigration, Silicon Valley, union organizing, urban planning, work culture , Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

Everything possible should be done to ensure equal governmental, municipal, and social services in all parts of the city. Continuing efforts should be made to increase cultural, social, and economic contacts among the various elements of Jerusalem’s population. And, in fact, civic affairs, law enforcement, infrastructure services, urban planning, marketing and supply, and to a great extent specialized medical services are centrally provided to all Jerusalemites. . . . Within an undivided city, everything is possible, all kinds of adjustments can be made, all kinds of accommodations can be considered, all kinds of autonomy can be enjoyed, all kinds of positive relationships can be developed. . . .


The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History by Greg Woolf

agricultural Revolution, Anthropocene, capital controls, classic study, Columbian Exchange, demographic transition, Dunbar number, Easter island, endogenous growth, Eratosthenes, European colonialism, global village, invention of agriculture, invention of writing, joint-stock company, mass immigration, megacity, New Urbanism, out of africa, Scramble for Africa, social intelligence, social web, the strength of weak ties, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, zoonotic diseases

As in Etruria, the early Iron Age settlements of the Greek world were low-density and discontinuous. At Athens, Corinth, Eretria, and Lefkandi each cluster of houses with its graves and farmland stood alone, connected by paths and a few roads to each other and sometimes to a central sanctuary as well. There is no sign of urban planning, no zoning, almost no public areas, and certainly no street blocks with drainage and pavements of the kind that Minoan towns had. Physically they did not resemble Villanovan settlements either. The east-facing coasts of mainland Greece were arid and the soils poor. Houses clustered near springs and summer watercourses and sheltered where they could beneath an acropolis.


pages: 704 words: 182,312

This Is Service Design Doing: Applying Service Design Thinking in the Real World: A Practitioners' Handbook by Marc Stickdorn, Markus Edgar Hormess, Adam Lawrence, Jakob Schneider

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, business cycle, business process, call centre, Clayton Christensen, commoditize, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, crowdsourcing, data science, different worldview, Eyjafjallajökull, fail fast, glass ceiling, Internet of things, iterative process, Kanban, Lean Startup, M-Pesa, minimum viable product, mobile money, off-the-grid, pattern recognition, RFID, scientific management, side project, Silicon Valley, software as a service, stealth mode startup, sustainable-tourism, systems thinking, tacit knowledge, the built environment, the scientific method, urban planning, work culture

“This work informed the design documentation IDEO delivered, including visualizations of every aspect from architecture and furnishings to information systems and protocols of use.” 30 Stage 3: Creation When talking about new or creative methods in architecture, user engagement within the pre-design phase is often mentioned (as described earlier). But what about integrating the stakeholders into the design phase and handing over the pen? Considerable efforts have been made to integrate stakeholders into the process of urban planning, reaching back to the 1940s, when the British government used reconstruction after World War II as an opportunity to engage the public. Planners created new techniques to communicate with laypeople such as mobilizing publicity, measuring public opinion, organizing exhibitions, and experimenting with new visual strategies. 31 For co-creation, various tools are conceivable (e.g., idea generation, design scenarios, or storyboards).


Sweden Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, G4S, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, low cost airline, mass immigration, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, urban planning, walkable city, white picket fence, WikiLeaks

More recently, the planned suburb Hammarby Sjöstad, just south of Stockholm's centre, has taken shape as a sustainably built, eco-conscious neighbourhood. Its approach to mindful integration of infrastructure, transportation, public spaces and energy conservation has been widely influential in urban planning. Contemporary design and architecture generally follow global trends, but the characteristically Swedish interests of nature and craft are evident when cruising through blogs such as the snappy Ems Designblogg (http://em.residencemagazine.se). Glassmaking The southern province of Småland has been Sweden’s glassmaking headquarters for well over one hundred years.


The Rough Guide to Sweden (Travel Guide eBook) by Rough Guides

carbon footprint, centre right, congestion charging, glass ceiling, high-speed rail, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, large denomination, Peace of Westphalia, place-making, sensible shoes, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, urban planning, WikiLeaks

The park is also known for its profusion of different varieties of magnolia trees which are at their most spectacular around mid-May. Wadköping Museum May–Aug daily 11am–5pm; Sept–April Tues–Sun 11am–4pm • Free • Café Daily 10am–5pm • orebro.se/wadkoping At the far end of the park stands an open-air museum, Wadköping. An entire village of centuries-old wooden cottages and shops was brought to the site in the 1950s when urban planning was threatening the historic dwellings with demolition. A local man, Bertil Waldén, campaigned to save the better ones, and relocated them here at Wadköping on the banks of the river. The extremely pretty little “high street” is flanked with low eighteenth-century buildings on one side, and on the other with taller houses dating from after the town fire of 1854.


Lonely Planet Kenya by Lonely Planet

affirmative action, Airbnb, Beryl Markham, British Empire, carbon footprint, classic study, clean water, colonial rule, David Attenborough, DIY culture, Kibera, land reform, M-Pesa, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, out of africa, place-making, spice trade, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

Your nostrils are assaulted with blue smoke from meat grilling over open fires, donkey dung and the organic scent of the cured wooden shutters on houses built of stone and coral. Many visitors call this town – the oldest living town in East Africa, a Unesco World Heritage Site and arguably the most complete Swahili town in existence – one of the highlights of their trip to Kenya. LAMU'S LAYOUT Lamu Town realises Swahili urban-planning conventions like few other places in the world. Within the seemingly random conglomeration of streets is a patchwork of neighbourhoods and districts divided by family hierarchy, social standing and profession. There are 28 mitaa (districts) in Lamu, with names that range from the functional, such as Madukani (Place of Shopping), to the esoteric, such as Makadara (Eternal Destiny), to the funny, such as Kivundoni (Smelly Place).


Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) by Fionn Davenport

air freight, Berlin Wall, Bob Geldof, British Empire, carbon credits, carbon footprint, Celtic Tiger, centre right, classic study, country house hotel, credit crunch, Easter island, glass ceiling, global village, haute cuisine, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Jacquard loom, Kickstarter, McMansion, new economy, period drama, reserve currency, risk/return, sustainable-tourism, three-masted sailing ship, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, young professional

www.sei.ie Ireland’s national energy centre was set up in 2007 to promote and assist the development of sustainable energy. www.foe.ie The world’s largest network of environmental groups has its own Irish branch. www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.net A network of independent environmentalists that has logged close to 10,000 environment-related stories. www.thevillage.ie Ireland’s first ecofriendly and sustainable urban plan is an extension of the village of Cloughjordan, County Tipperary. * * * * * * TOP 10 GREEN SLEEPS Anna’s House B&B Strangford Lough, County Down;. Ardtarmon House Drumcliff, County Sligo;. Errigal Hostel Dunlewey, County Donegal;. Jampa Ling Buddhist Centre Bawnboy, County Cavan;.

Phoenix Vegetarian Restaurant & Accommodation Mt Caherconree, County Kerry;. Rocky View Farmhouse Fanore, County Clare;. Rua Castlebar, County Mayo;. Shiplake Mountain Hostel Dunmanway, County Cork;. * * * Sustainable Tourism Ireland (www.sustourism.ie) is a handy starting point with a list of enterprises, from B&Bs to urban planning projects, that put eco-responsibility and sustainability at the fore. Fly Less There are numerous boat companies serving Ireland from Britain and France, and return fares often don’t cost that much more than one-way fares – not to mention the plethora of special offers designed to challenge the cheap flight hegemony.


Ellul, Jacques-The Technological Society-Vintage Books (1964) by Unknown

Bretton Woods, conceptual framework, do-ocracy, double entry bookkeeping, flying shuttle, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, Mars Society, means of production, Norbert Wiener, price mechanism, profit motive, rising living standards, road to serfdom, spinning jenny, technological determinism, Thorstein Veblen, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto

With this develop­ ment came the hitherto unknown phenomenon of the big city. At the beginning, the big city engendered no particular technique; people were merely unhappy in i t But it soon appeared that mega­ lopolis represented a new and special kind of environment, calling for special treatment. The technique of city planning made its ap­ pearance. At first, urban planning was only a clumsy kind of adap­ tation which was little concerned, for example, with slums (despite the efforts of the utopian planners of the middle of the century). Somewhat later, as big city life became for the most part intolera­ ble, techniques of amusement were developed. It became indis­ THE CHARACTEHOLOCY OF TECHNIQUE pensable to make urban suffering acceptable by furnishing amuse­ ments, a necessity which was to assure the rise, for example, of monstrous motion-picture industry.


pages: 924 words: 198,159

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill

"World Economic Forum" Davos, air freight, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, business climate, business intelligence, centralized clearinghouse, collective bargaining, Columbine, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, independent contractor, Kickstarter, military-industrial complex, multilevel marketing, Naomi Klein, no-fly zone, operational security, private military company, Project for a New American Century, Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan, school choice, school vouchers, Seymour Hersh, stem cell, Timothy McVeigh, urban planning, vertical integration, zero-sum game

Since laypersons rather than pastors may run these groups, they may not have a high profile even in the church community outside the Family Forum network.”46 The MFF also established the Michigan Prayer Network, which consisted of “prayer warriors” assigned to nearly every legislator in the state.47 While the groups were prohibited from expressly lobbying, the effect of asking legislators to “pray” for issues like school choice and against gay rights made it, as one Michigan legislator put it, “just another lobbying gimmick.”48 While opening his wallet to the Christian right, Edgar Prince also became a patron to the entire community of Holland, investing millions of dollars into Hope College, founded by Albert Van Raalte, and its equally devout rival Calvin College, Edgar’s wife’s alma mater.49 He and Elsa almost single-handedly reengineered and brought a boom to Holland’s downtown, saving it from the fate hundreds of other small towns had suffered throughout the Midwest as they gradually slipped into economic oblivion due to poor urban planning coupled with outsourcing, downsizing, layoffs, and the overall decline of U.S. manufacturing. The Princes helped establish the Evergreen Commons, a popular senior center downtown, and lobbied hard for the preservation and restoration of historic landmarks in town.50 They fought for a well-planned city that would exist and thrive for generations while maintaining what they saw as a necessary connection to its Dutch roots.


pages: 416 words: 204,183

The Rough Guide to Florence & the Best of Tuscany by Tim Jepson, Jonathan Buckley, Rough Guides

air freight, Bonfire of the Vanities, car-free, classic study, housing crisis, land reform, Nelson Mandela, plutocrats, sustainable-tourism, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning

On the west side of the piazza, the arch known as the Arcone was topped with a huge sculpture entitled Italy Enthroned; this has now gone, as has the equestrian statue of the king that used to occupy centre stage – it was removed to Piazzale delle Cascine, where Poggi had wanted it. Loggia in Piazza dei Ciompi Mercato Centrale Piazza della Repubblica Piazzale Michelangelo Porta San Niccolò, Piazza Poggi Statue of David, Piazzale Michelangelo Perhaps Poggi’s most dramatic piece of urban planning was the hill below the church of San Miniato, which was an area of olive groves and cypress woodland before he started work on it. At the foot of the hill, around the medieval Porta San Niccolò, he designed a small piazza (renamed Piazza Poggi after his death), from where a sequence of ramps and steps cuts across the winding Viale Poggi before reaching the spacious Piazzale Michelangelo.


pages: 537 words: 200,923

City: Urbanism and Its End by Douglas W. Rae

agricultural Revolution, barriers to entry, business climate, City Beautiful movement, classic study, complexity theory, creative destruction, desegregation, edge city, Ford Model T, gentrification, ghettoisation, Glass-Steagall Act, Gunnar Myrdal, income per capita, informal economy, information asymmetry, interchangeable parts, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Lewis Mumford, manufacturing employment, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, open immigration, Peter Calthorpe, plutocrats, public intellectual, Saturday Night Live, streetcar suburb, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the market place, urban planning, urban renewal, vertical integration, War on Poverty, white flight, Works Progress Administration

TOP-DOWN TECHNOCRATIC SUPERIORITY As already observed, Lee went for top managerial and planning talent, and allowed that talent to recruit in kind: Logue, Taylor, Appleby, Grabino, Hazen, and Shannon were ranking officers early. Younger people such as Katherine Feidelson, Joel Cogen, Harry Wexler, Philetus Holt, Byrn Stoddard, and a score of other smart professionals would follow. Rotival’s urban planning office became a second column of Logue’s army, and Commissar Logue ran a very tight operation. As one keen observer of the period observes, the top people in Redevelopment “regarded themselves as something of an elite group, much in the same style as paratroopers or law professors.”9 In another formulation, there was a tendency to think of New Haven as “the West Point of Urban Renewal.”10 The group as a whole focused on achieving something like an urban revolution, and the small doings of regular politics were impediments to be overcome, or to be ignored if possible.


pages: 601 words: 193,225

740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building by Michael Gross

Alan Greenspan, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Bear Stearns, Bonfire of the Vanities, California gold rush, Carl Icahn, company town, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate raider, cuban missile crisis, Donald Trump, Glass-Steagall Act, Irwin Jacobs, it's over 9,000, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, junk bonds, McMansion, Michael Milken, mortgage debt, Norman Mailer, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, plutocrats, Ronald Reagan, sensible shoes, short selling, strikebreaker, The Predators' Ball, traveling salesman, Upton Sinclair, urban planning

He was playing king of the world, and she was offended by a lot of it.” Burden not only hated the cruise, but she’d shaken off her fatherfigure fantasies about Ross—and realized she’d made an awful mistake in marrying him. This wasn’t the life she wanted—chatelaine of a media mogul, presiding over a grand apartment and staff. Having studied and worked in urban planning, she realized she wanted a career, not a protector. She was starting out and Steve was winding down. “Amanda really didn’t care for him,” thinks a society woman who was close to them all. “Steve was very kind. He was without subterfuge. But he was very crude and uncultured.” “It was very sad,” says Hillie Mahoney, a friend.


England by David Else

active transport: walking or cycling, Albert Einstein, back-to-the-land, Berlin Wall, Bletchley Park, Boris Johnson, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, colonial rule, Columbine, company town, congestion charging, country house hotel, Crossrail, David Attenborough, David Brooks, Edward Jenner, Etonian, food miles, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Kickstarter, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, new economy, New Urbanism, out of africa, period drama, place-making, retail therapy, sceptred isle, Skype, Sloane Ranger, South of Market, San Francisco, Stephen Hawking, the market place, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, unbiased observer, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Winter of Discontent

LEICESTER pop 279,923 Filled with the sense of excitement that comes from a mix of cultures and ethnicities, Leicester (les-ter) may not be beautiful but it has a lot going on. Around since the Roman times, it had an unwelcome refurbishment at the hands of the Luftwaffe, while industrial decline hollowed it out and poor urban planning capped off the aesthetic crimes against the city. But Leicester, home to a large, dynamic Asian community, has reinvented itself as a socially and environmentally progressive melting pot, and many of the city’s most interesting events are staged around festivals such as Diwali and Eid-ul-Fitr.

PEOPLE’S HISTORY MUSEUM Social history and the labour movement are the themes at this museum (0161-838 9190; www.phm.org.uk; Left Bank, Spinningfields). It’s housed in an old Edwardian pumping station, which is currently undergoing a major refit. You’ll have to wait until the end of 2009 to see displays like the desk at which Thomas Paine (1737–1809) wrote Rights of Man (1791). Salford Quays It seems that no 21st-century urban plan is complete without a docklands development; in Manchester’s case, the docks are the Salford Quays, west of the city centre along the Ship Canal. Three major attractions draw in the punters, and a shopping centre makes sure they have outlets at which to spend their money. It’s a cinch to get here from the city centre via Metrolink (£2); for the Imperial War Museum North and the Lowry, look for the Harbour City stop; get off at Old Trafford for the eponymous stadium.


The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East by Andrew Scott Cooper

addicted to oil, Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Boycotts of Israel, energy security, falling living standards, friendly fire, full employment, Future Shock, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, interchangeable parts, Kickstarter, land reform, MITM: man-in-the-middle, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, RAND corporation, rising living standards, Robert Bork, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, strikebreaker, unbiased observer, uranium enrichment, urban planning, Yom Kippur War

The ambassador’s efforts to reduce the American imprint in Iran never gained traction. “I did away with the Peace Corps,” he insisted, even though the Peace Corps was one of the very few American governmental agencies to have earned the respect of the Iranian population. Its small staff of ten Americans managed 142 volunteers working on a variety of language training, urban planning, and community development projects. The closure of the Peace Corps was a purely symbolic act at a time when fifty retired military personnel arrived in Iran each month to take up employment as defense contractors. The city of Isfahan, where Grumman and Bell Helicopter employees were stationed, was ground zero for the backlash against Americans in Iran.


pages: 864 words: 222,565

Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller by Alec Nevala-Lee

Adam Neumann (WeWork), Airbnb, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, American energy revolution, Apple II, basic income, Biosphere 2, blockchain, British Empire, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, Charles Lindbergh, cloud computing, Columbine, complexity theory, Computer Lib, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, declining real wages, digital nomad, double helix, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, East Village, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Elon Musk, Evgeny Morozov, Frank Gehry, gentrification, gig economy, global village, Golden Gate Park, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, hydraulic fracturing, index card, information retrieval, James Dyson, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, Kitchen Debate, Lao Tzu, lateral thinking, Lean Startup, Lewis Mumford, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, megastructure, Menlo Park, minimum viable product, Mother of all demos, Neil Armstrong, New Journalism, Norbert Wiener, Norman Mailer, Own Your Own Home, Paul Graham, public intellectual, Ralph Waldo Emerson, reality distortion field, remote working, Ronald Reagan, side project, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Ted Nelson, the built environment, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the medium is the message, Thomas Malthus, universal basic income, urban planning, urban renewal, We are as Gods, WeWork, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks

Haar verified the figures with the navy, which was interested in the concept for base housing, while Baltimore studied it for the Chesapeake Bay. Fuller blamed its eventual abandonment on Richard Nixon’s election in 1968, but questions over hurricane safety were never resolved, and it survived only as a model at the Lyndon Johnson presidential library. As Fuller’s name came to stand for futuristic urban planning, such opportunities became more frequent. The Canadian sculptor Gerald Gladstone convinced a local media baron and sports franchise owner named John Bassett to consult Fuller on the revitalization of Toronto. A report by Sadao and Geometrics characterized the city on Lake Ontario as a “second order metropolitan area” that could distinguish itself with a waterfront university, an enclosed galleria, a crystal pyramid, and three floating residential islands.


pages: 653 words: 218,559

Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1953-1975 by Hannah Arendt

American ideology, book value, bread and circuses, British Empire, colonial rule, conceptual framework, continuation of politics by other means, dark matter, desegregation, means of production, military-industrial complex, post-truth, power law, profit motive, publish or perish, Rosa Parks, urban planning, Yom Kippur War

This explains what may initially be surprising to us, namely that someone could display the greatest receptivity for art and the most ardent admiration of artworks—which, as we know from plentiful anecdotal evidence, was matched by an altogether remarkable self-assuredness on the part of the artists—and yet be constantly considering whether or not artists as persons should be excluded from the political community. The same suspicion is evident in the tendency to regard what were essentially political activities—if, like legislative work or urban planning, these had even the least bit to do with producing—only as pre-political conditions of the political, and thus to exclude them from the polis itself, which is to say, from the realm of essential political activities for which citizenship was required. This suspicion of production is justified for two factual reasons, both of which may be directly derived from the nature of this activity.


Israel & the Palestinian Territories Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, airport security, Albert Einstein, back-to-the-land, bike sharing, biodiversity loss, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, coronavirus, flag carrier, G4S, game design, gentrification, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, information security, Khartoum Gordon, Louis Pasteur, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, Skype, South China Sea, special economic zone, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, trade route, urban planning, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

Tel Be’er ShevaARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE (%08-646 7286; www.parks.org.il; adult/student/child 15/13/7NIS; h8am-4pm Apr-Sep, 8am-3pm Oct-Mar) One of a group of three tels (prehistoric hilltop ruins) included on the Unesco World Heritage List in 2005, these ruins include two-thirds of a fortified city dating from the early Israelite period (10th century BCE) and are an important example of biblical-period urban planning. The site is 5km northeast of Be’er Sheva on the Shocket Junction road, near the Bedouin settlement of Tel Sheva. Like the other Unesco-listed tels (Megiddo and Hazor), the ruins show traces of underground water-collecting systems that were created to serve dense urban communities; the best-preserved elements are the cisterns and a 70m well, the deepest in Israel.


pages: 778 words: 239,744

Gnomon by Nick Harkaway

"Margaret Hamilton" Apollo, Albert Einstein, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, behavioural economics, Burning Man, choice architecture, clean water, cognitive dissonance, false flag, fault tolerance, fear of failure, Future Shock, gravity well, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, impulse control, Isaac Newton, Khartoum Gordon, lifelogging, neurotypical, off-the-grid, pattern recognition, place-making, post-industrial society, Potemkin village, precautionary principle, Richard Feynman, Scramble for Africa, self-driving car, side project, Silicon Valley, skeuomorphism, skunkworks, the market place, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, urban planning, urban sprawl

So then, what happens if you begin with the hair samples as the identity, and remove the name and its associated history as a factor in your searches? Then the data are interpreted differently, and the life pivots to settle on a different part of the graph: hard intellectual labour in a cyclical pattern consonant with long-term project work managing a creative-analytical endeavour such as large-scale architecture or urban planning. And if you follow the DNA to the places where it is stored and the list of patients and customers, and you then cross-reference those lists – you don’t find anyone called Diana Hunter. The name is a fantasy, a mask for someone else. Magic is the invocation of names. It is supposed to be impossible to make someone disappear from the System.


pages: 840 words: 224,391

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal

airport security, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, centre right, cognitive dissonance, corporate raider, crony capitalism, European colonialism, facts on the ground, gentrification, ghettoisation, housing crisis, intentional community, knowledge economy, megacity, moral panic, Mount Scopus, nuclear ambiguity, open borders, plutocrats, surplus humans, unit 8200, upwardly mobile, urban planning, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

His prediction that the international community would conclude that “Israel would not deserve to exist, and it will not be worthwhile to preserve it” was still a long way off, but that did not mean the government was not terribly worried about how the new camp might stain its image. In a bid to ward off outside condemnation without upsetting the present order, the National Planning and Building Council appointed Tomer Gotheft, an MIT graduate in urban planning serving as a senior adviser to the Interior Ministry, and Shlomit Dotan-Gissen, another planning specialist, to prepare an outline presenting the facility not as an internment camp, but euphemistically as a “closed accommodation center.” In a leaked government document, the planners wrote, “The difference between the two terms is not as great as it may seem.


Lonely Planet Eastern Europe by Lonely Planet, Mark Baker, Tamara Sheward, Anita Isalska, Hugh McNaughtan, Lorna Parkes, Greg Bloom, Marc Di Duca, Peter Dragicevich, Tom Masters, Leonid Ragozin, Tim Richards, Simon Richmond

Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, crowdsourcing, Day of the Dead, Defenestration of Prague, Fall of the Berlin Wall, flag carrier, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, low cost airline, mass immigration, pre–internet, Steve Jobs, the High Line, Transnistria, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl

Vinzavod (Винзавод MAP GOOGLE MAP ; www.winzavod.ru; 4-y Syromyatnichesky per 1; mChkalovskaya) A former wine factory has morphed into this postindustrial complex of prestigious galleries, shops, a cinema and trendy cafe. Nearby, another converted industrial space, the Artplay ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %495-620 0882; www.artplay.ru; ul Nizhny Syromyatnichesky per 10; hnoon-8pm Tue-Sun; mChkalovskaya),is home to firms specialising in urban planning and architectural design, as well as furniture showrooms and antique stores. Proekt_Fabrika A still-functioning paper factory is the location for this nonprofit set of gallery and performance spaces enlivened by arty graffiti and creative-industry offices. Red October (Завод Красный Октябрь MAP GOOGLE MAP ; Bersenevskaya nab; mKropotkinskaya) The red-brick buildings of this former chocolate factory now host the Lumiere Brothers Photography Centre ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; www.lumiere.ru; Bolotnaya nab 3, bldg 1; R200-430; hnoon-9pm Tue-Fri, to 10pm Sat & Sun) plus other galleries, cool bars and restaurants.


Rough Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area by Nick Edwards, Mark Ellwood

1960s counterculture, airport security, back-to-the-land, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Blue Bottle Coffee, British Empire, Burning Man, California gold rush, carbon footprint, City Beautiful movement, Day of the Dead, El Camino Real, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, gentrification, glass ceiling, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, haute cuisine, Joan Didion, Kickstarter, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Menlo Park, messenger bag, Nelson Mandela, period drama, pez dispenser, Port of Oakland, rent control, retail therapy, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, San Francisco homelessness, Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, strikebreaker, transcontinental railway, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, white picket fence, Works Progress Administration, young professional

The fourteen-story 2005 incarnation of the International Hotel stands on the site Hidden parks and rooftop gardens | The Financial District of its squat predecessor, which played a pivotal role in this formerly Filipinodominated stretch of Kearny. The original I-Hotel housed low-income Manong (elderly Filipino males) and Chinese for over fifty years until the Down town San F ranc i s c o The result of an urban planning policy that requires newly constructed buildings to provide one square foot of open space for every 50ft of commercial space, several semi-obscure public open spaces dot Downtown San Francisco. These humbly sized retreats – far smaller in scale than block-sized parks in the area such as Yerba Buena Gardens, Rincon Park, and Sidney Walton Park – are open to the public during regular business hours (typically Mon–Fri 9am–5pm), although since each is privately owned, accessibility may be subject to the whims of management.


pages: 870 words: 259,362

Austerity Britain: 1945-51 by David Kynaston

Alistair Cooke, anti-communist, Arthur Marwick, British Empire, Chelsea Manning, collective bargaining, continuous integration, deindustrialization, deskilling, Etonian, full employment, garden city movement, hiring and firing, industrial cluster, invisible hand, job satisfaction, labour mobility, Lewis Mumford, light touch regulation, mass immigration, moral panic, Neil Kinnock, occupational segregation, price mechanism, public intellectual, rent control, reserve currency, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, shared worldview, stakhanovite, strikebreaker, the market place, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, very high income, wage slave, washing machines reduced drudgery, wealth creators, women in the workforce, young professional

In their pioneering account of the Labour Party and popular politics in the 1940s, Steven Fielding, Peter Thompson and Nick Tiratsoo chart the post-war development of such largely de haut en bas initiatives as neighbourhood units, socially mixed housing, municipal eating facilities, popular participation in urban planning and joint production committees in the workplace, with in each instance only chequered progress being made at best. In terms of voluntary organisations like Co-operative societies, friendly societies and community associations, all their evidence points towards an essentially ‘diviminded’, instrumental use of them (whether for benefits or facilities) on the part of members, as opposed to a more socialist or ideological motivation.7.


pages: 1,364 words: 272,257

Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag-Montefiore

anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, British Empire, California gold rush, Etonian, facts on the ground, haute couture, Khartoum Gordon, Mount Scopus, place-making, plutocrats, sexual politics, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, white flight, Yom Kippur War

Most quotes from Jemal are either from the diaries of his private secretary Falih Rifki quoted in Geoffrey Lewis, 'An Ottoman Officer in Palestine 1914-18', in Kushner, Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period 403-14, or from Djemal Pasha, Memoirs of a Turkish Statesman 1913-19. Franz von Papen, Memoirs 70. Terror, urban planning in Damascus: Burns, Damascus 263-5. Rudolf Hoess, Commandant of Auschwitz 38-41. Rudolf Hess: Vester 209 and 263. On high politics/military: Karsh 105-17; Suez attacks 141; repression of Zionists, NILI spy-ring 160-70. Kramer 143-7. Finkel 533-40. On war declaration and al-Aqsa allegiance, Count Ballobar and Jemal: Segev, Palestine 15-20.


pages: 492 words: 70,082

Immigration worldwide: policies, practices, and trends by Uma Anand Segal, Doreen Elliott, Nazneen S. Mayadas

affirmative action, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, borderless world, British Empire, Celtic Tiger, centre right, conceptual framework, credit crunch, demographic transition, deskilling, en.wikipedia.org, European colonialism, export processing zone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial independence, full employment, global village, guest worker program, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, it's over 9,000, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, labour mobility, language acquisition, longitudinal study, low skilled workers, mass immigration, minimum wage unemployment, moral panic, Nelson Mandela, New Urbanism, open borders, phenotype, scientific management, South China Sea, structural adjustment programs, Suez canal 1869, trade route, transaction costs, upwardly mobile, urban planning, women in the workforce

Despite quotas related to income, immigrants sometimes represent up to 80 percent of the population of these dwellings. Very big and dense constructions providing housing for up to 4,000 inhabitants (la cité des 4,000 milles à la Courneuve) were destroyed in spectacular interventions in the 1990s and 2000s to make space for a new form of urban planning. It was in such a ZUP residential area in the city of Evry that in 2002, the local manager of a wellknown French chain store stopped selling alcohol and started selling halal meat in response to 89 his clients’ demands. When the mayor of Evry, outraged about this extension of Muslim custom into the French public sphere wanted to close the store, the manager referred to other chain stores selling kosher food without causing such protest (a court ruled that the shop should remain open).


Egypt Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

call centre, carbon footprint, Eratosthenes, friendly fire, G4S, haute cuisine, Khartoum Gordon, late fees, low cost airline, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, sustainable-tourism, Thales and the olive presses, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl

The Turkish-style pencil-point dome is a Farouk-era reconstruction of an earlier one wrecked by Napoleon’s troops. The measuring device, a graduated column, sits below the level of the Nile at the bottom of a flight of precipitous steps, which the guard will cheerfully let you descend for a little baksheesh. Mohamed Elshahed, cairobserver.com Some of urban-planning expert Elshahed’s favourite places in Cairo: Green space Giza Zoo (Click here) has a deservedly bad reputation for animal conditions, but it’s a gem of 19th-century placemaking, with a wonderful lion’s house, a Gustav Eiffel bridge and a Japanese pavilion. Mosque Al-Hakim Mosque (Click here) is one of the oldest in Cairo, but its pure form and all-white wash gives it a modern feel.


Western USA by Lonely Planet

airport security, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apple II, Asilomar, back-to-the-land, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Biosphere 2, Burning Man, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, cotton gin, Donner party, East Village, edge city, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Frank Gehry, global village, Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury, haute couture, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, intermodal, Joan Didion, Kickstarter, Loma Prieta earthquake, machine readable, Mahatma Gandhi, Mars Rover, Maui Hawaii, off grid, off-the-grid, retail therapy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, South of Market, San Francisco, starchitect, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, supervolcano, trade route, transcontinental railway, Upton Sinclair, urban planning, Virgin Galactic, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration, young professional, Zipcar

OREGON Spatially larger than Washington but with only half the population, Oregon is the Pacific Northwest’s warm, mild-mannered elder cousin (it joined the union 30 years earlier than Washington). Physically, the state shares many characteristics with its northern neighbor, including a rain-lashed coast, a spectacular spinal mountain range and a drier, more conservative interior plateau. But, with better urban planning laws and less sprawl, Oregon retains a more laid-back and tranquil feel. OREGON FACTS »Nickname Beaver State »Population 3,831,074 »Area 95,997 sq miles »Capital city Salem (population 154,637) »Other cities Portland (population 583,776), Eugene (population 156,185), Bend (population 76,639) »Sales tax Oregon has no sales tax »Birthplace of former US president Herbert Hoover (1874–1964), writer and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey (1935–2001), actress and dancer Ginger Rogers (1911–95), The Simpsons creator Matt Groening (b 1954), filmmaker Gus Van Sant (b 1952) »Home of Oregon Shakespeare Festival, tree-sitting, Nike, McMenamins »Politics Democratic governor, Democrat majorities in Congress, Democrat in Presidential elections since 1984 »Famous for the Oregon Trail, forests, rain, beer, not being able to pump your own gas »State beverage milk (dairy’s big here) »Driving distances Portland to Eugene 110 miles, Pendleton to Astoria 295 miles Portland If you want to see what the future looks like, come to Portland, Oregon, a city that is 10 years ahead of its time and as definitive of its age as the Rome of Caesar or the Paris of Haussmann.


Egypt Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

call centre, carbon footprint, Eratosthenes, friendly fire, haute cuisine, Khartoum Gordon, late fees, low cost airline, off grid, place-making, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, sustainable-tourism, Thales and the olive presses, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl

Any higher, though, and the flooding could be disastrous, while lower levels presaged hunger. The measuring device, a graduated column, sits below the level of the Nile at the bottom of a flight of precipitous steps, which the guard will cheerfully let you descend for a little baksheesh. LOCAL KNOWLEDGE MOHAMED ELSHAHED, CAIROBSERVER.COM Some of urban-planning expert Elshahed’s favourite places in Cairo: Green space Giza Zoo has a deservedly bad reputation for animal conditions, but it’s a gem of 19th-century placemaking, with a wonderful lion’s house, a Gustav Eiffel bridge and a Japanese pavilion. Mosque Al-Hakim Mosque is one of the oldest in Cairo, but its pure form and all-white wash gives it a modern feel.


Europe: A History by Norman Davies

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, centre right, charter city, classic study, clean water, Columbian Exchange, conceptual framework, continuation of politics by other means, Corn Laws, cuban missile crisis, Defenestration of Prague, discovery of DNA, disinformation, double entry bookkeeping, Dr. Strangelove, Edmond Halley, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, equal pay for equal work, Eratosthenes, Etonian, European colonialism, experimental economics, financial independence, finite state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, gentleman farmer, global village, Gregor Mendel, Honoré de Balzac, Index librorum prohibitorum, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of movable type, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, John Harrison: Longitude, joint-stock company, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, land reform, liberation theology, long peace, Louis Blériot, Louis Daguerre, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, Murano, Venice glass, music of the spheres, New Urbanism, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, Peace of Westphalia, Plato's cave, popular capitalism, Potemkin village, purchasing power parity, Ralph Waldo Emerson, road to serfdom, sceptred isle, Scramble for Africa, spinning jenny, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, Thales of Miletus, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, Transnistria, urban planning, urban sprawl, W. E. B. Du Bois

The gladius or ‘thrusting sword’, first adopted from the Iberians during the Second Punic War, became, in the hands of the gladiators, the symbol of Rome’s pleasures as well as her invincibility. Roman architecture had a strong proclivity for the utilitarian. Its achievements belong more to the realm of engineering than to design. Although the Greek tradition of temple-building was continued, the most innovative features were concerned with roads and bridges, with urban planning and with secular, functional buildings. The Romans, unlike the Greeks, mastered the problem of the arch and the vault, using them as the basis for bridges and for roofs. The triumphal arch, therefore, which adorned almost all Roman cities combined both the technical mastery and the ethos of Roman building.

The European arts entered the era of Classicism, where, in reaction to the Baroque, rules, rigour, and restraint were the order of the day. Architecture saw a return to the Greek and Roman styles of the Renaissance, with a touch of gaudy or rococo ornamentation. The outstanding buildings were palaces and public offices. Urban planning, formal, geometric gardens, and landscape design gained prominence. The obsession was to reduce the chaos of the natural world to order and harmony. The show cities, after Paris, were Dresden, Vienna, and St Petersburg. Painting had passed its precocious peak. In France the classical landscapes and mythological scenes of Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), Claude Lorrain (1600–82), and Charles Le Brun (1619–90) were succeeded by the idyllic frivolities painted by J.


Frommer's Israel by Robert Ullian

airport security, British Empire, car-free, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, East Village, Easter island, gentrification, haute cuisine, Khartoum Gordon, mass immigration, Maui Hawaii, Mount Scopus, place-making, planned obsolescence, Silicon Valley, Skype, Suez crisis 1956, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, Yom Kippur War

Today renovation and restoration are necessary to save what architectural heritage Israel still possesses. The reconstruction of the old quarter of Jaffa and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City, along with the gentrifying of 19th-century Jerusalem neighborhoods such as Yemin Moshe, Ein Kerem, and the German Colony, have produced places with real charm and a sense of community. Other urban planning projects, such as the expanded routing of a major road system alongside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City (complete with pedestrian overpasses to the Jaffa Gate) and the piecemeal destruction of West Jerusalem’s 19th-century HaNevi’im Street neighborhood, may prove to repeat the kind of mistakes already made in many Western cities. 06_289693-ch02.qxp 10/28/08 9:32 AM Page 39 LANGUAGE 39 5 Language Israel has two official languages: Hebrew and Arabic.


pages: 932 words: 307,785

State of Emergency: The Way We Were by Dominic Sandbrook

anti-communist, Apollo 13, Arthur Marwick, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, Bretton Woods, British Empire, centre right, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, David Attenborough, Doomsday Book, edge city, estate planning, Etonian, falling living standards, fear of failure, Fellow of the Royal Society, feminist movement, financial thriller, first-past-the-post, fixed income, full employment, gentrification, German hyperinflation, global pandemic, Herbert Marcuse, mass immigration, meritocracy, moral panic, Neil Kinnock, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, North Sea oil, oil shock, Own Your Own Home, post-war consensus, sexual politics, traveling salesman, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Winter of Discontent, young professional

Barbara Adams and Jean Conway, The Social Effects of Living off the Ground (London, 1973), p. 8; Elizabeth Gittus, Flats, Families and the Under Fives (London, 1976); Sutherland Lyall, The State of British Architecture (London, 1980), pp. 33, 42–3, 45–50; Building Design, 5 January 1979; Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing in Britain, pp. 70, 94–9. 20. Peter Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1996), pp. 226–7; Cherry, Town Planning in Britain Since 1900, p. 185; Raban, Soft City, pp. 26–7; J. G. Ballard, High Rise (London, 1975). 21. Christopher Booker, The Seventies: Portrait of a Decade (London, 1980), p. 300; White, London in the Twentieth Century, p. 83; Alice Coleman, Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing (London, 1985), p. 180. 22.


pages: 879 words: 309,222

Nobody's Perfect: Writings From the New Yorker by Anthony Lane

a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Apollo 13, classic study, colonial rule, dark matter, Frank Gehry, General Magic , Great Leap Forward, haute cuisine, Index librorum prohibitorum, junk bonds, Mahatma Gandhi, Maui Hawaii, moral hazard, Neil Armstrong, Norman Mailer, profit motive, Ronald Reagan, sexual politics, Strategic Defense Initiative, The Great Good Place, trade route, University of East Anglia, Upton Sinclair, urban decay, urban planning

Only the very best best-sellers enjoy this special, two-tone gift: the ability both to entrance a generation and to be almost completely overlooked by the succeeding ones. A librarian of today, coming across Forever Amber in the fiction section, might assume that it was all about traffic lights and reshelve it under Urban Planning, next to Gridlock: The Facts. It is, in fact, all about Restoration England. How do we know this? Because our heroine, Amber St. Clare, was born in 1644; because she grows up to become the mistress of Charles II; because people keep saying things like “Odsfish!” and “flopdoodles” to her; and because at one point we find her “sitting in a chair reading Dryden’s new play.”


pages: 1,104 words: 302,176

The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World) by Robert J. Gordon

3D printing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, airline deregulation, airport security, Apple II, barriers to entry, big-box store, blue-collar work, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, Charles Lindbergh, classic study, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, cotton gin, creative destruction, deindustrialization, Detroit bankruptcy, discovery of penicillin, Donner party, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, feminist movement, financial innovation, food desert, Ford Model T, full employment, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, germ theory of disease, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, Golden age of television, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, housing crisis, Ida Tarbell, immigration reform, impulse control, income inequality, income per capita, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, inflight wifi, interchangeable parts, invention of agriculture, invention of air conditioning, invention of the sewing machine, invention of the telegraph, invention of the telephone, inventory management, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, jitney, job automation, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, labor-force participation, Les Trente Glorieuses, Lewis Mumford, Loma Prieta earthquake, Louis Daguerre, Louis Pasteur, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market fragmentation, Mason jar, mass immigration, mass incarceration, McMansion, Menlo Park, minimum wage unemployment, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, new economy, Norbert Wiener, obamacare, occupational segregation, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, payday loans, Peter Thiel, Phillips curve, pink-collar, pneumatic tube, Productivity paradox, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, refrigerator car, rent control, restrictive zoning, revenue passenger mile, Robert Solow, Robert X Cringely, Ronald Coase, school choice, Second Machine Age, secular stagnation, Skype, Southern State Parkway, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, streetcar suburb, The Market for Lemons, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, traveling salesman, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, undersea cable, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, warehouse robotics, washing machines reduced drudgery, Washington Consensus, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, working poor, working-age population, Works Progress Administration, yellow journalism, yield management

Each development is interpreted from the point of view of consumers: When did the transformations happen? What difference did they make to everyday life? How far had they extended by 1940? By maintaining the perspective of changes in the standard of living as viewed by the consumer, we omit most topics related to urban planning, urban politics, and the regulation of electric utilities. The spread of the city is treated in chapter 5, in which the development of the city is viewed as a corollary of a succession of transportation innovations that steadily increased the distance that was feasible to travel between the home and the workplace.


pages: 956 words: 288,981

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2011 by Steve Coll

airport security, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Boycotts of Israel, centre right, colonial rule, computer age, disinformation, energy security, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, illegal immigration, index card, Islamic Golden Age, Khyber Pass, Mikhail Gorbachev, Network effects, Oklahoma City bombing, operational security, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Timothy McVeigh, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, women in the workforce

Within a few weeks, several hundred miles to the south, four young middle-class Arab men who had sworn themselves to secrecy and jihad entered Afghanistan from Pakistan. The Taliban facilitated their travel and accommodation, first in Quetta and then in Kandahar.1 Mohammed Atta, thirty-one, was a wiry, severe, taciturn Egyptian of medium height, the only son of a frustrated Cairo lawyer who had pushed his children hard. He had just earned a degree in urban planning from the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, completing a 152-page thesis on development planning and historic preservation in ancient Aleppo, Syria. Ziad Jarrah was the only son of a Lebanese family that drove Mercedes cars, owned a Beirut apartment, and kept a vacation home in the country.


USA Travel Guide by Lonely, Planet

1960s counterculture, active transport: walking or cycling, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Asilomar, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, big-box store, bike sharing, Biosphere 2, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Burning Man, California gold rush, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, congestion pricing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, cotton gin, cuban missile crisis, Day of the Dead, desegregation, Donald Trump, Donner party, Dr. Strangelove, East Village, edge city, El Camino Real, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, feminist movement, Ford Model T, Frank Gehry, gentleman farmer, gentrification, glass ceiling, global village, Golden Gate Park, Guggenheim Bilbao, Haight Ashbury, haute couture, haute cuisine, Hernando de Soto, Howard Zinn, illegal immigration, immigration reform, information trail, interchangeable parts, intermodal, jitney, Ken Thompson, Kickstarter, license plate recognition, machine readable, Mars Rover, Mason jar, mass immigration, Maui Hawaii, McMansion, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, Neil Armstrong, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, off grid, off-the-grid, Quicken Loans, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, retail therapy, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, South of Market, San Francisco, starchitect, stealth mode startup, stem cell, supervolcano, the built environment, The Chicago School, the High Line, the payments system, three-martini lunch, trade route, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Virgin Galactic, walkable city, white flight, working poor, Works Progress Administration, young professional, Zipcar

New Orleans has always been a beacon for the misfits of America. Now add entrepreneurs, techies and actors to that list. The newly coined ‘Silicon Bayou’ and ‘Hollywood South’ – at least four flicks are being shot on location here at any given time lately – are also becoming a litmus test for new frontiers of urban planning. Brad Pitt’s Make It Right campaign (Click here) has turned much of the Lower Ninth Ward into a model sustainable neighborhood with a retro futuristic vibe so cool that it’s worth a visit just to gawk at the homes. Sights & Activities FRENCH QUARTER Elegant, Caribbean-colonial architecture, lush gardens and wrought-iron accents are the visual norm in the French Quarter.

OREGON Spatially larger than Washington but with only half the population, Oregon is the Pacific Northwest’s warm, mild-mannered elder cousin (it joined the union 30 years earlier than Washington). Physically, the state shares many characteristics with its northern neighbor, including a rain-lashed coast, a spectacular spinal mountain range and a drier, more conservative interior plateau. But, with better urban planning laws and less sprawl, Oregon retains a more laid-back and tranquil feel. OREGON FACTS » Nickname Beaver State » Population 3,831,074 » Area 95,997 sq miles » Capital city Salem (population 154,637) » Other cities Portland (population 583,776), Eugene (population 156,185), Bend (population 76,639) » Sales tax Oregon has no sales tax » Birthplace of former US president Herbert Hoover (1874–1964), writer and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey (1935–2001), actress and dancer Ginger Rogers (1911–95), The Simpsons creator Matt Groening (b 1954), filmmaker Gus Van Sant (b 1952) » Home of Oregon Shakespeare Festival, tree-sitting, Nike, McMenamins » Politics Democratic governor, Democrat majorities in Congress, Democrat in Presidential elections since 1984 » Famous for the Oregon Trail, forests, rain, beer, not being able to pump your own gas » State beverage milk (dairy’s big here) » Driving distances Portland to Eugene 110 miles, Pendleton to Astoria 295 miles Portland If you want to see what the future looks like, come to Portland, Oregon, a city that is 10 years ahead of its time and as definitive of its age as the Rome of Caesar or the Paris of Haussmann.


pages: 1,020 words: 339,564

The confusion by Neal Stephenson

correlation does not imply causation, dark matter, Fellow of the Royal Society, Filipino sailors, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, land bank, Neal Stephenson, out of africa, Snow Crash, Socratic dialogue, South China Sea, spice trade, three-masted sailing ship, urban planning, web of trust

At a young age, finding himself in a pretty Humour for the writing of Romances, and the discourse of Natural Philosophy and Technologick Arts, he took up the Pen, and hath not since laid it down. Credits Jacket design by Richard L. Aquan Jacket illustration: 1746 plan of Versailles/Historic Urban Plans, Inc. Also by Neal Stephenson Quicksilver Cryptonomicon The Diamond Age Snow Crash Zodiac The epigraph on page 292 is from The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence, edited and translated by H. T. Mason. Published by Manchester University Press, Manchester, England, 1967. The epigraph on page 646 is from Robert Merrihew Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist.


The Rough Guide to Ireland by Clements, Paul

Berlin Wall, bike sharing, British Empire, Celtic Tiger, Columbine, country house hotel, digital map, East Village, haute couture, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Kickstarter, Murano, Venice glass, plutocrats, Ronald Reagan, sustainable-tourism, the market place, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl

The first known written version of the saga was included in the twelfth-century Book of the Dun Cow, and Thomas Kinsella’s twentieth-century English translation encapsulates much of the vivacity of the Irish-language version. < Back to Louth, Monaghan and Cavan Monaghan town All the elements of post-Plantation urban planning are well to the fore in MONAGHAN TOWN, which derived its prosperity from the linen industry and was long the base of a British garrison. The hub of the town plan is the Diamond, in whose centre stands the Rossmore monument, a flamboyant nineteenth-century drinking fountain.


pages: 2,313 words: 330,238

Lonely Planet Turkey (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, James Bainbridge, Brett Atkinson, Steve Fallon, Jessica Lee, Virginia Maxwell, Hugh McNaughtan, John Noble

British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, country house hotel, Exxon Valdez, Kickstarter, megacity, Mustafa Suleyman, place-making, restrictive zoning, sensible shoes, sustainable-tourism, Thales and the olive presses, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, yield management, young professional

Beyond the ticket booth (ask for a copy of the free Priene Visitor Information and Tour map), walk along the paved pathway and turn right up the steep stone steps. Note that Priene's streets meet at right angles – a system invented by the Miletus architect Hippodamus (498–408 BC). Creator of the 'grid system' of urban planning, Hippodamus became influential, and his system was used not only in here and in Priene, but also in Rhodes, Piraeus (the port of Athens) and even ancient Greek Thurii, in southern Italy. As at Ephesus, Priene's marble streets also have gouged lines and notches to prevent slipping. On a high bluff backed by stark mountain and overlooking what was once the sea (see the information panels to comprehend the extent of the silting) stands the ruined Temple of Athena Polias, dating from the 4th century BC.


pages: 1,213 words: 376,284

Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, From the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First by Frank Trentmann

Abraham Maslow, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Anton Chekhov, Ayatollah Khomeini, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bread and circuses, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, classic study, clean water, collaborative consumption, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, Community Supported Agriculture, company town, critique of consumerism, cross-subsidies, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, equity premium, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial exclusion, fixed income, food miles, Ford Model T, full employment, gentrification, germ theory of disease, global village, Great Leap Forward, haute cuisine, Herbert Marcuse, high net worth, income inequality, index card, informal economy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, it's over 9,000, James Watt: steam engine, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kitchen Debate, knowledge economy, labour mobility, Les Trente Glorieuses, libertarian paternalism, Livingstone, I presume, longitudinal study, mass immigration, McMansion, mega-rich, Michael Shellenberger, moral panic, mortgage debt, Murano, Venice glass, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, Paradox of Choice, Pier Paolo Pasolini, planned obsolescence, pneumatic tube, post-industrial society, Post-Keynesian economics, post-materialism, postnationalism / post nation state, profit motive, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, rent control, retail therapy, Richard Thaler, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, scientific management, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, seminal paper, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, stakhanovite, Ted Nordhaus, the built environment, the market place, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban sprawl, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, working poor, young professional, zero-sum game

When possible, School Xhosa moved into their own private quarters, bought consumer goods and decorated their homes with Western-style furniture and ornaments. A consumer lifestyle was a way to preserve their distance from the Reds and at the same time impose their own gradations on what had been a virtually classless rural society. In the end, it was not consumer culture that weakened tribal culture but urban planning and forced removal, which scattered Red Xhosa across new satellite towns.32 AMERICANIZATION? The Americanization thesis can be thought of as a geographic extension of the idea that consumer culture flattens distinctions. The standardizing force attributed to America is not surprising. The age of affluence coincided with America’s triumph as the new great power after 1945.


pages: 1,157 words: 379,558

Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris by Richard Kluger

air freight, Albert Einstein, book value, California gold rush, cognitive dissonance, confounding variable, corporate raider, desegregation, disinformation, double entry bookkeeping, family office, feminist movement, full employment, ghettoisation, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, junk bonds, medical malpractice, Mikhail Gorbachev, plutocrats, power law, publication bias, Ralph Nader, Ralph Waldo Emerson, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, stock buybacks, The Chicago School, the scientific method, Torches of Freedom, trade route, transaction costs, traveling salesman, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, vertical integration, War on Poverty

The agent provocateur behind this effort, dubbed the Tobacco Products Liability Project (TPLP), was Richard A. Daynard, a slender, bearded Northeastern law professor of no luminous achievement but a powerful yearning, as he turned forty, to put his steel-trap mind to social use. A graduate of Columbia College and Harvard Law School with a doctorate in urban planning from MIT thrown in, Daynard had specialized in consumer protection law and come to the conclusion that the perils of smoking dwarfed all other consumer concerns—only the threat of nuclear holocaust struck him as a greater menace to humanity—yet none was being more nonchalantly grappled with by society.


pages: 1,178 words: 388,227

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

Danny Hillis, dark matter, en.wikipedia.org, Eratosthenes, Fellow of the Royal Society, Free Software Foundation, gentleman farmer, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, Neal Stephenson, out of africa, Peace of Westphalia, retrograde motion, short selling, short squeeze, Snow Crash, the scientific method, trade route, urban planning

Kim Conic sections illustration, a digital recomposition of eight figures from Claude Richard’s 1655 edition of Apollonius of Perga’s Conic Sections, by Alvy Ray Smith Case stamp art by Laura Hartman Maestro Jacket design by Richard L. Aquan Jacket illustration from Mary Evans Picture Library Map of 1667 London reproduced with changes courtesy of Historic Urban Plans, Inc. Refracting sphere illustration from the facsimile edition of Robert Hooke’s Philosophical Experiments and Observations, edited by W. Derham. Published by Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., London, 1967. Flea illustration from Robert Hooke’s 1665 Micrographia reprinted by permission of Octavo, www.octavo.com.


pages: 1,351 words: 404,177

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

Aaron Swartz, affirmative action, Alistair Cooke, Alvin Toffler, American ideology, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, cognitive dissonance, company town, cuban missile crisis, delayed gratification, desegregation, Dr. Strangelove, East Village, European colonialism, false flag, full employment, Future Shock, Golden Gate Park, guns versus butter model, Haight Ashbury, Herbert Marcuse, immigration reform, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, index card, indoor plumbing, Joan Didion, Kitchen Debate, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, Marshall McLuhan, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, Neil Armstrong, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, Own Your Own Home, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, price mechanism, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, sexual politics, Seymour Hersh, systematic bias, the medium is the message, traveling salesman, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, walking around money, War on Poverty, white picket fence, Whole Earth Catalog

They worked the same factories and stockyards—last hired, first fired, and always in the dirtiest jobs—and lived in yet more dilapidated tenements. With the 1920s economic boom, white workers had the wherewithal to get the hell out of the tenements. Black workers did not. Through no agency of their own, Chicago’s white ethnics were the beneficiaries of an urban-planning miracle. The National Association of Real Estate Boards—the same group that turned itself into a political machine to lobby against open occupancy in 1966—launched an “Own Your Own Home” crusade in the 1920s to coax families into putting down payments on single-family houses of their very own; simultaneously, idealistic reformers coming out of England’s Arts and Crafts movement devised a new form of cheap and felicitous housing unmatched in the history of the industrial working class: the urban “bungalow.”


Frommer's Mexico 2008 by David Baird, Juan Cristiano, Lynne Bairstow, Emily Hughey Quinn

airport security, AltaVista, Bartolomé de las Casas, centre right, colonial rule, Day of the Dead, East Village, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, low cost airline, Maui Hawaii, out of africa, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Skype, sustainable-tourism, the market place, urban planning

After 42km (26 miles), you’ll find yourself at Cayal and the well-marked turnoff for the ruins of the city of Edzná, 18km (11 miles) farther south. EDZNA This city is interesting for several reasons. The area was populated as early as 600 B.C., with urban formation by 300 B.C. From that point forward, Edzná grew impressively in a manner that suggests considerable urban-planning skills. An ambitious and elaborate canal system was dug, which must have taken decades to complete, but would have allowed for a great expansion in agricultural production and, hence, concentration of population. This made Edzná the preeminent city for a wide territory. Another boom in construction began around A.D. 500, during the middle of the Classic period.


Frommer's England 2011: With Wales by Darwin Porter, Danforth Prince

airport security, Ascot racecourse, British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Babbage, Columbine, congestion charging, country house hotel, double helix, Edmond Halley, gentrification, George Santayana, haute couture, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Murano, Venice glass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Skype, Sloane Ranger, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, sustainable-tourism, the market place, tontine, University of East Anglia, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, young professional

But an energetic building boom has occurred recently, and Brummies have nurtured the city’s modern rebirth by fashioning Birmingham into a convention city that hosts 80% of all trade exhibitions in the country. Birmingham has worked diligently in recent decades to overcome the blight of overindustrialization and poor urban planning. New areas of green space and the city’s cultivation of a first-rate symphony and ballet company, as well as art galleries and museums, have all made Birmingham more appealing. Though not an obvious tourist highlight, Birmingham serves as a gateway to England’s north. With more than one million inhabitants, Birmingham has a vibrant nightlife and restaurant scene.


Germany Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, bank run, Berlin Wall, bike sharing, Boeing 747, British Empire, call centre, capitalist realism, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, company town, double helix, Dr. Strangelove, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Gregor Mendel, haute couture, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, low cost airline, messenger bag, Mikhail Gorbachev, Neil Armstrong, New Urbanism, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Eisenman, post-work, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, sensible shoes, Skype, starchitect, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, white picket fence

After WWII, Germany fell into the cross hairs of the Cold War; a country divided ideologically and literally by a fortified border and the infamous Berlin Wall, whose construction began in 1961. Just how differently the two Germanys developed is still palpable in Berlin, expressed not only through Wall remnants but through vastly different urban planning and architectural styles. Since reunification, Berlin has again become a hotbed of creativity, with unbridled nightlife, an explosive art scene and booming fashion and design industries. Sure, problems persist – empty city coffers, high unemployment, the delayed Berlin Brandenburg Airport, to name a few – but Berlin’s allure to tourists and newcomers from around the world remains unabated.


Caribbean Islands by Lonely Planet

Bartolomé de las Casas, big-box store, British Empire, buttonwood tree, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, discovery of the americas, Donald Trump, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, income inequality, intermodal, jitney, Kickstarter, machine readable, microcredit, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, place-making, retail therapy, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, sustainable-tourism, urban planning, urban sprawl, white picket fence

Today, the island has shed all evidence of its former self, garnering instead an avid cult following among scuba divers and those who enjoy sun-kissed days full of blissful nothingness. Unlike its neighbors, Statia shows no signs of modernization – no grandiose landscaping, no condo development, and barely a hint of urban planning. Oranjestad, the island’s only town, is a charming collection of ramshackle structures, each one a quiet homage to a bygone era. Statia lets it all hang out. When to Go While neighboring islands swell with visitors during the months of December and January, Statia stays remarkably calm.


pages: 803 words: 415,953

Frommer's Mexico 2009 by David Baird, Lynne Bairstow, Joy Hepp, Juan Christiano

airport security, AltaVista, Bartolomé de las Casas, centre right, colonial rule, Day of the Dead, East Village, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, low cost airline, out of africa, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Skype, sustainable-tourism, the market place, urban planning, young professional

After 42km (26 miles), you’ll find yourself at Cayal and the well-marked turnoff for the ruins of the city of Edzná, 18km (11 miles) farther south. EDZNA This city is interesting for several reasons. The area was populated as early as 600 B.C., with urban formation by 300 B.C. From that point on, Edzná grew impressively in a way that evinces considerable urban-planning skills. An ambitious and elaborate canal system was dug, which must have taken decades to complete, but would have allowed for a great expansion in agricultural production and, hence, concentration of population. This made Edzná the preeminent city for a wide territory. Another boom in construction began around A.D. 500, amid the Classic period.


Germany by Andrea Schulte-Peevers

Albert Einstein, bank run, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, call centre, capitalist realism, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, company town, computer age, credit crunch, Donald Trump, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, gentrification, glass ceiling, Google Earth, haute couture, haute cuisine, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, low cost airline, messenger bag, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Eisenman, place-making, post-work, Prenzlauer Berg, retail therapy, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, Skype, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, white picket fence

* * * HIGHLIGHTS Sucker for Soccer Find out why football is a religion in the Ruhrgebiet when attending a Schalke 04 match in Gelsenkirchen or Borussia Dortmund game in Dortmund Heavenly Heights Feel your spirit soar when faced with the majestic loftiness of Cologne’s Dom (cathedral; Click here) Regal Reception Go behind the scenes of life at court on a tour of Schloss Augustusburg in Brühl Miraculous Metamorphosis See urban planning in the making at Cologne’s Rheinauhafen Mine Madness Experience a 21st-century spin on the industrial age at the Zeche Zollverein coal mine in Essen Avant-Garde Art Have your mind blown by cutting-edge exhibits in an old gas storage tower in Oberhausen POPULATION: 18 MILLION AREA: 34,080 SQ KM * * * Return to beginning of chapter Getting Around There are several deals available for getting around North Rhine–Westphalia by public transport.


Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 by Rick Perlstein

8-hour work day, Aaron Swartz, affirmative action, air traffic controllers' union, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, Alistair Cooke, Alvin Toffler, American Legislative Exchange Council, anti-communist, Apollo 13, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boeing 747, Brewster Kahle, business climate, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cuban missile crisis, currency peg, death of newspapers, defense in depth, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, disinformation, Donald Trump, Dr. Strangelove, energy security, equal pay for equal work, facts on the ground, feminist movement, financial deregulation, full employment, global village, Golden Gate Park, guns versus butter model, illegal immigration, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, index card, indoor plumbing, Internet Archive, invisible hand, Julian Assange, Kitchen Debate, kremlinology, land reform, low interest rates, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, multilevel marketing, mutually assured destruction, New Journalism, oil shock, open borders, Peoples Temple, Phillips curve, Potemkin village, price stability, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, rent control, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Solow, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Suez crisis 1956, three-martini lunch, traveling salesman, unemployed young men, union organizing, unpaid internship, Unsafe at Any Speed, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban decay, urban planning, urban renewal, wages for housework, walking around money, War on Poverty, white flight, WikiLeaks, Winter of Discontent, yellow journalism, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

Lesher took over the Chamber of Commerce in 1975, when its coffers, membership, and sense of mission were all at an all-time low. He compared corporate America’s indifference to the growth of government to the apathy of the German population that allowed Hitler’s rise. He began the work with a crusade against an unobjectionable little bill that would have given $50 million in urban planning grants to cities and states to help them manage suburban sprawl—free money that local governments could spend any way they wished, no strings attached. In Lesher’s hands, it was made to sound like a beast out of the Book of Revelation—a law, as Ronald Reagan put it in a radio argument almost certainly informed by Chamber propaganda, that would “replace our nation of small land owners with one in which all property is ultimately vested in the state.”


Spain by Lonely Planet Publications, Damien Simonis

Atahualpa, business process, call centre, centre right, Colonization of Mars, discovery of the americas, Francisco Pizarro, Frank Gehry, G4S, gentrification, glass ceiling, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, intermodal, Islamic Golden Age, land reform, large denomination, low cost airline, megaproject, place-making, Skype, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Winter of Discontent, young professional

They reach the largely completed development project known variously as Diagonal Mar and Fòrum (El Maresme-Fòrum). Aside from high-rise hotels and apartment blocks looking out to sea, highlights include the protected swimming area, a new marina, kids’ playgrounds, good spots for rollerblading and skating, and the weird, triangular Edifici Fòrum building. The building is home to a permanent display on urban plans for Barcelona, Barcelona Propera (admission free; 11am-8pm Tue-Sun), including a huge scale model of the city and occasional temporary exhibitions. Eventually the city zoo will be relocated to a waterfront position here too. L’Eixample Stretching north, east and west of Plaça de Catalunya, L’Eixample (the Extension) was Barcelona’s 19th-century answer to overcrowding in the medieval city.


Great Britain by David Else, Fionn Davenport

active transport: walking or cycling, Albert Einstein, Beeching cuts, Boris Johnson, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, colonial rule, Columbine, congestion charging, country house hotel, credit crunch, Crossrail, David Attenborough, Etonian, food miles, gentrification, glass ceiling, global village, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Kickstarter, land reform, Livingstone, I presume, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, mega-rich, negative equity, new economy, North Ronaldsay sheep, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, period drama, place-making, retail therapy, Skype, Sloane Ranger, South of Market, San Francisco, Stephen Hawking, the market place, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Winter of Discontent

Return to beginning of chapter LEICESTER pop 279,923 Filled with the sense of excitement that comes from a mix of cultures and ethnicities, Leicester (les-ter) may not be beautiful but it has a lot going on. Around since the Roman times, it had an unwelcome refurbishment at the hands of the Luftwaffe, while industrial decline hollowed it out and poor urban planning capped off the aesthetic crimes against the city. But Leicester, home to a large, dynamic Asian community, has reinvented itself as a socially and environmentally progressive melting pot, and many of the city’s most interesting events are staged around festivals such as Diwali and Eid-ul-Fitr.