Say Goodbye to 2011

Borderless Economics

Another book added to my cart on Amazon: Borderless Economics (written by Robert Guest, The Economist’s Business Editor).

Among other things, the book tackles brain drain and global poverty, how migration fosters innovation and cultural syncretism and how it is infecting China with ideas that will eventually turn it democratic.

You may find the author talking about the book here (a 15 minute Interview).

By the way, there is another book on migration that might interest you (available for free download.): The State of Environmental Migration (SEM) 2010. It's a co-publishing by IDDRI and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), edited by François Gemenne, Pauline Brücker and Joshua Glasser. I thank Ojima for the tip!

soundtrack: Crave You ft. Giselle

The Secret Life of Chaos (BBC)

BBC came up with this documentary on Chaos theory. Very interesting if you are into fractals, complexity theory or if you want to understand the simple mathematics behind Nature and Society.

(more short previews here, here)

(via Thiago Augustus from projetoblog)

Carved Book Landscapes

Amazing Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee

soundtrack: hang jam

2012 Call for papers (so far)

• XVIII Conference of the Brazilian Association of Population Studies (ABEP)
• Deadline for abstract submission: 16 April 2012
  
  
• Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society
• Deadline for abstract submission: 9 March 2012
  
  
• 5th Conference of the Latin American Population Association (ALAP)
• Deadline for abstract submission: 15 March 201
  
  
• 32nd International Geographical Congress (IGC) (HT Ricardo Ojima)
• Deadline for abstract submission:  08 January 2012
  
  
• The IUSSP Seminar on Pathways to Health: How intermediary life conditions mediate or modify early life effects (HT Ricardo Ojima)
• Deadline for abstract submission: 16 January 2012

***Hopefully I'm going to meet you at ABEP and/or ALAP. 

Austrian Urban Economics

I just now got time the chance to read the post series "Cities and the Market Process 1, 2 and 3" that Leo have suggested two months ago.

Critics of free market urban development may argue that this system will produce less-than-perfect cities, so city planners should step in to make improvements. The Austrian response is that of course the free market cannot produce utopian cities, but no other system could do better. Believing that a regulated city would be superior to the market outcome is succumbing to the Nirvana fallacy. Markets aren’t perfect, but they’re the best we’ve got.

I'm not fully convinced at all, although the post series have made some good points. Market Urbanism has just got on my blogroll! 

soundtrack: Ali Farka Toure

The Best City Time Lapse of 2011

The Best City Time Lapse Videos of 2011 according to Eric Jaffe. A second opinion here.

I particularly like the time lapse video of Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) by Rob Whitworth. (and LA Light by Colin Rich)

Traffic in Frenetic HCMC, Vietnam from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.

Assorted links

1. Here you can listen to the full Beatles discography (at the same time!) "Massive mash up"
   
   
2. Some really absurd interesting photos of Las Vegas Landscape
   
   
3. Bike share program in Rio de Janeiro  Let me assure you it's pretty simple to use it.
   
   
4. Evolution of the London Underground Map 1889-2002 (HT Leo)
   
   
5. Opportunities at Brown University - BIARI program (HT Ricardo Ojima)
   
   
6. The Best Data Visualization Projects of 2011

soundtrack: Baden

Brazilian Census 2010: Favela population

(image credit: Alberto Pomares)

"Brazil had 6,329 subnormal agglomerates in 2010 (aka Favelas), invaded properties, grotas (type of cave), slums in glens, poor communities, shanty towns, slums in backwaters, mocambos (type of shack) and stilt houses, among others – in 323 of the 5,565 municipalities. They concentrated 6.0% of the Brazilian population (11,425,644 inhabitants), distributed in 3,224,529 occupied private households (5.6% of the total). Twenty metropolitan areas concentrated 88.6% of these subnormal households, and almost half of them (49.8%) were located in the Southeast Region."

soundtrack: Favela

The Economist house-price indicators and the Chinese housing bubble

The Economist Magazine updated its house-price indicators.They say that the bursting of the global housing bubble is only halfway through. 

Krugman and Wendell Cox have a few words suggesting why we shouldn't be so optimistic about the Chinese real estate market.

soundtrack: Caetano

Dencity

We have already seen some interesting population density maps around here. Fathom Information Design came up with this project Dencity that uses circles of various size and hue*. (via Nathan Yau)

*We have already posted another project by the Fathom Information Design called All Streets. This might interest space syntax specialists.

soundtrack: Moby

Christmas gift

My Christmas gift for the UD readers!

Happy Holidays !

(via tudo ao mesmo tempo agora)

soundtrack: merchand

Old Traffic Congestion Problem

Does this picture look familiar? London, 1965.

(Source: Heinz Zinram at London Transport Museum via infosthetics)

Exceptional Space - book recommendation

I would like to reccomend a book for those Space Syntax enthusiasts: Exceptional Space by Prof. Frederico Holanda (this is the English edition of his doctoral thesis, supervised by Professor Bill Hillier). I have read the portuguese version and it is a terrifc book for urban planners, geographers or sociologists with focus on the spatial dimension of human relations.

Record inequality between rich and poor

new OECD report "Divided We Stand". The full report with truckloads of data, tables and graphs here.

(via The Global Sociology)

Fertility Transition in Brazil

Mapping the Timing, Pace, and Scale of the Fertility Transition in Brazil - a recent paper by Potter, Cavenaghi and others published at PDR.

It's a very interesting paper even if you are not into fertility studies. And you can have some fun with their data and maps !

Figure7 - Bayesian estimates of the duration of fertility transition (t90–t10)

Source: Potter et al , 2010.

soundtrack: you wish

Cities and Climate Change (Article Collection)

Routledge has just published on its website the 'Cities and Climate Change Article Collection'.

They have put together more than 60 articles, both FREE and recommended further reading, across a range of subjects, including

• transport and the environment

• adaptable cities

• sustainable urban housing, green building design

• pollution and the city

• regional environmental planning

soundtrack: Find my baby

Message of the Day

(via tudo ao mesmo tempo agora  ! I really like this blog!)

I can't take this song out of my head:

Assorted Links

1. The curious relationship between place names and population density (For all my anthropologist friends out there)
   
   
2. Workshop Intergenerational Approaches to Social and Economic Policy (HT Ricardo Ojima)
   
   
3. PAA Webinar on December 13 – Balancing Employment with Child and Elder Care: The Implications of Changing Workplaces and Families
   
   
4. The Top 10 Relationship Words That Aren't Translatable Into English (you may watch a good example for the Portuguese word 'Cafuné' with our Lovely Owl here)
   
   
5. (Less than) six degrees of separation ? and the age of your facebook friends.
   
   
6. Digital map with the locations of Favelas and Cortiços in São Paulo municipality (via mbarrosfilho)

Prata da Casa: Climate change in Brazil

new book! Jorge Hargrave and other colleagues at Ipea launched the book Climate Change in Brazil: economic, social and regulatory aspects at the 'Durban Climate Change Conference 2011'.

Portuguese version also available !

Urban Picture: Weird Traffic System

Just a fast post today: 

Brasília's Weird Traffic System

(via 9gag)

soundtrack: Ray

Housing Finance Policy and Segregation

Paavo Monkkonen has just published a paper that examines the impact of the expansion of housing finance on socioeconomic segregation in Mexican cities.

This would be a very nice hypothesis to be tested for the Brazilian case. Brazil had a huge housing finance policy from the 60's to the 80's with the National Housing Bank (BNH). Since 2009 the Federal Government has been carrying out a very big social housing program called Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life). I think this is a good idea to consider if you are a PhD candidate in Brazil.

soundtrack: Os Mulheres Negras - Summertime

off-topic: Venice backstage

Here is a bit of Venice's history and how it works. Strongly recommended if you're planning a trip to Venice (via the great Open Culture).


Venice Backstage. How does Venice work? from Insula spa on Vimeo.

Enjoy your weekend!

soundtrack: Laranja

Brazilian Census 2010: a few more results

IBGE released a few more results of the 2010 Brazilian Census.

• 2010 Life Tables
• Interactive charts with summary figures (HT Erivelton Guedes)

soundtrack: Embraceable You