Just in case you haven't met him yet

Hans Rosling presenting the last 200 years of world development history (truly ablaze).

(Thanks to flowingdata)

Global Dependency Explorer

This is a very noteworthy project that everyone interested in Urban Networks and Urban Systems should take a look at.

It's an interactive application that tracks the commercial ties between most countries across the globe (check it here). It also allows you to compare a variety of socio, demographic and economic indicators on the national level.

It was developed at the University of Amsterdam and it uses data from the CIA World Factbook.

(via Visual Complexity)

Demographic trends shaping US metropolitan areas

This is a video report by the Brookings Institution on the demographic trends that have affected US metropolitan areas in the 2000s. The study focuses on the metro scale and stresses five demographic trends that are currently undergoing in the US:

1. Growing fast
2. Diversifying rapidly
3. Aging Tsunami
4. Selectively educating
5. Divided by income

The video is realy good and the Full Report looks even better. "The State of Metropolitan America: on the front lines of demographic transformation" Download it here.

ps. You can also explore data for the US 100 metro areas and 50 states (State of Metropolitan America Indicator Map).

ps2. I wonder when we are going to see a report like this on Brazil Demographics...

NeW! 'Stupid Measures' session: the Trick-or-Treat Index

(picture by Melissa M'Lou)

Ok. I'm now officialy creating a new session here at Urban Demographics Blog. It's called Stupid Measures*. The idea is to highlight measures and indexes constructed in a stupid way or that are simply worthless.

This is the case of the Trick-or-Treat Index developed by the controversial Richard Florida. This is the index well explained by Lauren Kelley:

"The index is based on five criteria: the percentage of children ages 5 to 14, for obvious reasons; median household income, because more money = more candy; the share of people who walk to work, because it’s easier to trick-or-treat in neighborhoods that are walkable; population density, which tells you where there are the most people around to fork over candy corn; and the prevalence of artists, designers and other cultural creatives, since those types tend to get more into the Halloween spirit"

Interesting, right? But still (stupid) worthless.... More about the the Trick-or-Treat Index here. This map below shows the Trick-or-Treat Index calculated for every major U.S. metro area.

*The Stupid Measures session was unofficially inaugurated with the iPod Index on 18th August, 2010.

(hat tip to Tyler Cowen)

Defining generational cohorts

(via datapointed)

How to define generational cohorts? The guys from US Today came up with this "generational quiz". It takes just 5 quick questions and it's pretty good (although I'm not sure if its going to help you with your next paper).

"The year you were born partly determines what generation you belong to, but so do your cultural experiences." It identifies 6 different generations: G.I, Silent, Boomer, 'X' (a.k.a. Savvy), Milenial and 'Z'.

ps. I would belong to the Milenial Generation because of my birth year... but it looks like I'm a 'X' according to the quiz result....

Assorted links

1. Half the world’s population lives in 6 countries (via Visualizing Economics).
   
   
2. Google maps suggestions for low carbon travels in Europe.
   
   
3. Average age of US Congress over time (via FlowingData).
   
   
4. How immigrants create jobs (a pretty interesting article by Tyler Cowen Via Marginal Revolution), and another article on this here (by Catherine Rampell-NYT).
   
   
5. A selection of 75 videos about cities and urban policies (via Ciudades a Escala Humana). I, myself, would include this taxi traffic visualization presented by BBC (series Britain From Above)

off-topic: 3D Light Projection on Building

(a good tip I got from Frederico de Holanda)

Social Geography of Votes in Brazil

Now at the intraurban-scale: these maps show the Brazilian Election results* by electoral zones for São Paulo e Rio de Janeiro.

Nelson Rojas and Luiz Cesar Ribeiro (from Observatório das Metrópoles) discuss the social polarization over space that emerges from these election results (here, in portuguese). The main conclusions drawn by the authors is that:

1. The maps of 2010 election results are very similar with the electoral map of 2006 - the last confrontation between the PSDB (right wing) and the PT (left wing); and
   
   
2. In both cities PSDB clearly had more votes in the more affluent urban areas meanwhile PT had an overwhelming victory in the depressed urban areas.

[it looks to me that the "Social Geographies of Votes" at regional and intraurban scales are similar to some extent. As a rule PSDB has the preference of richer araes, PT has the preference of deprived ones]

* ps. update regarding the last post: this is the best map of Brazilian Election results by municipality. It's possible to filter results by GDP, homicide rate, % of population receiving Bolsa Família benefits, etc. (tip from a friend of mine: Mauro Oddo, the best storyteller).

(maps by Estadão via Observatório das Metrópoles)

Brazilian Election results

On January 1st Dilma Rousseff will become Brazil’s next president (our first female president!). As The Economist Magazine said: "[...] it was the poor and those in the less-developed northern regions who swung it her way. Richer and better-educated folk preferred Mr Serra, but Brazil has fewer of them." And they are not wrong.

This interactive map shows the Brazilian election results in each municipality (by Folha de São Paulo).

ps. Her victory speech analyzed by BBC here.

Upcoming event: XIV National Meeting of ANPUR

Upcoming event: XIV National Meeting of ANPUR. It's going to be held in Rio de Janeiro/Brazil (23 may to 27 may - 2011).

Deadline for abstracts/proposals: 30 december 2011

ANPUR is the Brazilian National Association of Graduate Schools and Research on Urban and Regional Planning. The motto of this year's Conference is: Who plans the territory? actors, arenas and strategies. [direct translation].