Opportunities

• Call for papers - BUFTOD 2012 - Building the urban future and Transit Oriented Development (organized by the Laboratoire Ville Mobilité Transport - LVMT)
  
  
• Course - Winter School in Demographic Transition and Developmentat the University of Padova (Italy) - Thanks Joice Vieira for the tip
  
  
• Seminar - Population estimates and projections: methodologies, innovations and estimation of target population applied to public policies (organized by ALAP) -Thanks Tirza Aidar for the tip
  
  
• Are you looking short term courses or seminars? The Lincoln Institute has just published its annual program for the new academic year 2011-2012.

My future me

How the dramatically aging demographics in the USA will change over the next 40 years ? And how do you fit into this ? Click here for your answers! "Visualizing Our Future Selves" .

[via Info Sthetics]

off-topic: Suicide Paradox

"There are twice as many suicides in the US each year than murders."

I heard this startling stantement at the Freakonomics Radio. So I decided to write this post for two reasons. First, to recommend this podcast: The Suicide Paradox. It's really informative and  depressive  funny .

Freakonomics Radio: The Suicide Paradox.

Second, I woud like to recommend a book that I believe to be a masterpiece in Sociology. "Suicide: a study in Sociology" by Émile Durkheim (1858-1917). If you want to understand what Sociology is about and don't have anything else better to do , than you should read this book.

My favorite quote from this book is this one on suicide rate:

It "[...] express the suicidal tendency with which each society is collectively afflicted.... Every society is predisposed to produce a certain number of voluntary deaths." It sounds even better in Portuguese. "Cada sociedade está predisposta a fornecer um contingente determinado de mortes voluntárias"

in time: Greece sees suicide rates on the rise. Durkheim Would Have Predicted That One (by The Global Sociology Blog).

[Image Credit]

soundtrack for this post: Titãs.

Assorted Links

1. Meet The Economic Complexity Observatory - a multidisciplinary effort between the Macro Connections group at the MIT Media Lab and the Center for International Development at Harvard University.
   
   
2. Are you looking for short term courses or seminars? The Lincoln Institute has just published its annual program for the new academic year 2011-2012.
   
   
3. Excellent piece by Ryan Avent in the NYTimes:One Path to Better Jobs: More Density in Cities (via MR)
   
   
4. All the papers published since 1997 at the Journal of Public Transportation are now available on line (I'm not sure but almost all articles are written in Portuguese). This journal is promoted by the ANTP - National Public Transportation Association (an NGO in Brazil).
   
   
5. The 'flight to the suburbs' debate in the US: Stephen Von Worley did a very good job to map the change in population density from 2000 to 2010 (census tract level) - Growth Rings 1 and 2.

[Image Credit: Data Pointed]

Midwest population change, 2000-2010. Chicago upper left, Detroit upper right.
[Image Credit: Data Pointed]

off-topic: The Author List

Sometimes we find ourselves in delicate situations...

Credit: Jorge Cham/PhD Comics

[Click on the image to enlarge it]

off-topic: What does it feel like to fly over planet Earth?

(via Dan Colman from Open Culture)

You migh also like the post "Cities at Night" with some photographs of cities at night taken by astronauts from the International Space Station.

Demographic trends in Brazil

Fabio Giambiagi presents (here) what are the main demographic trends in Brazil over the next few decades. Good news: here is no need to panic.... at least not now. (this post was gently stolen from Leonardo Monasterio)

By the way, I would like to share this excellent chart.

Total Fertility Rate in Brazil, Sweden and England, 1900-2000.

[Click on the chart to enlarge the image]

apud Wong and Carvalho (2006) The rapid process of aging in Brazil: serious challenges for public policies. (portuguese version only).

soundtrack for this post: Caetano.

Population Density Maps

Population density is a basic measure in almost every field - from economy to ecology, biology, urban planning, sociology and, of course, demography! Specialists in Visual Communication are changing the traditional ways to visualize population density.

National Geographic came up recently with this awkward map that combines population densities and average annual gross national income per capita. (via Nathan Yau)

I must confess I prefer these density maps designed by Joe Lertola.

Assorted links on Spatial Segregation

• Great paper on Global and Local Spatial Indices of Urban Segregation (by Feitosa et al. from INPE). 

• Schelling's Segregation Model. An Overview of 40 Years of Follow up Studies by Chris Snijders (via jmichaelbatty)

• Minority Tipping Point in the Metropolitan US?

• The 10 most segregated urban areas in the US (via City Block)
  #1 -  Milwaukee (more here)

[Image Credit: Eric Fisher inspired by Bill Rankin]

• The last post with Assorted links on Spatial Segregation

Demography of Education

For all those Portuguese readers out there, there is this great publication on Demography of Education written by great Brazilian demographers (Introdução à Demografia da Educação).

The Vienna Institute of Demography has also published the a Special Issue on "Education and demography": Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2010. Memorable contributions:

• Convergence or divergence of educational disparities in mortality and morbidity? The evolution of life expectancy and health expectancy by educational attainment in Austria in 1981-2006 (Johannes Klotz)

• The demography of education in Brazil: inequality of educational opportunities based on Grade Progression Probability (1986-2008) (Eduardo Rios-Neto and Raquel Guimarães)

off-topic: Jazz for cows

I just couldn't help to post it here. Try to remember this during your next boring meeting.

[via Não Salvo]

Other videos of concerts for humans here. Have a nice week!

Quote of the day

“The city everyone wants to live in would be clean and safe, possess efficient public services, support a dynamic economy, provide cultural stimulation, and help heal society’s divisions of race and ethnicity and class. These are not the cities we live in…Something has gone wrong, radically wrong, in our conception of what a city itself should be.”

(Google attributes this quote to ao Richard Sennett*).

*I couldn't confirm the source. The quote is great anyway.

Assorted links

• Effects of Demographic and Retirement-Age Policies on Future Pension Deficits (the China case)

• A simple interface to explore (to get) US Census 2010 (via FlowingData)

• Excellent analysis of Chinese and Japanese demographic trends.

• Small area income/poverty estimates mapping (US). More info here.

• Sharon Zukin discussed her latest book at LSE public lectures and events. She explores the social construction of ‘autenticity” in urban spaces addressing gentrification of cities and rent control. Available as: mp3 or Video

Call for Abstracts:

• Third Workshop on Time Use Observatory (TUO 3)

• 2nd Workshop on Urban Dynamics, URBANICS

Seven drivers to population growth in US

[Image Credit: The Texas Tribune obs. shame on me.... I couldn't find a map of population growth rate by county]

Seven drivers to population growth in US counties*:

1. Higher incomes
2. January temperature
3. Proximity to ports
4. Higher density level (not too high)
5. Education level
6. Low manufacturing employment
7. Limits to housing supply

*source: This is a brief overview of major trends in population growth at the county level written by Glaeser). And here he is talking about Gibrat’s law  "which posits that there is no correlation between initial population and percentage growth in population".

All these trends make me remember Prof. Daniel J. Hogan. He used to stress the growing importance of migration as the main driver of population growth in low fertility contexts. But this shall be subject to a future post.

Quote of the day

"A meeting's length will be directly proportional to the boredom the speaker produces" (the good old Murphy)

Differences in life expectancy by education and occupation ! Updated!

If you are interested, as I am, in skilled labor force projections, then you know the role that educational differentials play in life expectancy.

These papers might be of interest to some:

• Occupational inequalities in health expectancies (Demographic Research).
  
• The Education Effect on Population Health: A Reassessment (Population and Development Review)
  
• Interview with Robert A. Hummer on The Increasing Importance of Education for Longevity in the US (via demography.matters)

• Updated! -  Differences in life expectancy by education and occupation in Italy, 1980–94 (Population Studies)
  
• Updated! - Income Inequality, Illiteracy Rate, and Life Expectancy  in Brazil

Awards and Medals Competition - Urbanization and Development

The Global Development Network (GDN) has launched the Global Development Awards and Medals Competition 2011

This year, their focus is on Urbanization and Development. Entries should be specific to the following themes:

• The Interactive Economy and Urban Development
• Urban Externalities (Contagious Disease, Congestion and Crime) and Urban Poverty
• The Enabling Environment – Housing, Transportation and Infrastructure

Go on and  get the US$ 30,000 prize  show your contribution to urban studies ! (thanks Leo for the tip again)

off-topic: Looking into the future

• The world as a Global Village according to Marshall McLuhan
  
  
• The city of the future in 1964 according to Arthur C. Clarke (author of  2001: A Space Odyssey). That was pretty close!

Others didn't get the future that right....  not until now 

• Explaining the futuristic city in Blade Runner (really interesting!)
  
• Fritz Lang’s Metropolis: Uncut & Restored
  
  
• 1930s Fashion Designers Imagine Year 2000. ("... an eletric belt will adapt the body to climatic changes")

Assorted Links - Transport

• Paper: Population age structure and Environmental Impact: transport carbon emissions and residential electricity consumption
  
  
• (new) World Society for Transport and Land Use Research (via The Transportationist)
  
  
• Generational shift in America’s driving habits ?
  
  
• After all, who wants to take longer commute trips? (Thanks Leo Monasterio for the tip)
  
  
• A very good blog on transport data for Australian cities.
  
  
• Wikibooks: Fundamentals of Transportation and Transportation Economics (via Prof. David Levinson)
  
  
• Thoughts on Measuring the Broader Impacts of Transportation