Message of the Day

via

Leaving London tomorrow

I am leaving London tomorrow. I have really enjoyed this experience of "living' in this great city for one month! I'll try to post a few photos and make more comments about this in the near future.

In the meantime, I'm making a short trip to Greece before going back to Brazil. I'll see what I can do for their economy.

Image: London Subterranea by Stephen Walter via PD Smith

I would like to thank Daniel da Mata and his lovely wife Fabiana for their hospitality in Cambridge.

Soundtrack: Home

Labor Force supply (stocks vs. flows)

A short and interesting article by Bryan Caplan on The Myth of the Education Plateau (via MR)

Figure source: Digest of Education Statistics 2010

Assorted Links

1. Population Association of America (PAA) on the elimination of the American Community Survey
   
2. Prof. Michael Sandel will be in London for a public lecture at St. Paul's Cathedral on next Wednesday (I have just received my ticket!)
   
3. Intellectuals go to the beach: Albert S. (funny pictures)
   
4. Dramatic Differences in Childbearing by Age in U.S., Japan, and South Korea
   
5. Mind the Map: Inspiring art, design and cartography (exhibition at the London Transport Museum)
   
6. Dramatic Changes on London Streets in the Congestion Pricing Era
   
7. A good post on population density at Bostonography

Population density in the Greater Boston area 2010.

3 weeks in London

I have been now for almost three weeks in London. Here is what I have learned so far.

• Everybody is always in a hurry, especially in the metro stations (poor elderly people).
• The underground system (aka "Tube") is really impressive although it could be better...

• Every time you ride an escalator here in London, people who are just standing/riding stay to the right side to ensure a clear lane for others. Its' the same in Tokyo and other civilized overcrowded cities. 

• There's no such thing as a “queue” though.

• It's all pretty much well organized and signalized (I have taken the wrong train only once.. ok, twice).
• Here is an excellent travel time map of the Tube 

• The street markets are great, and the main streets are overcrowded.
• I already have my tickets to this presentation!
• One could spend hours and hours listing good and bad things about this amazing metropolis. I prefer to go to sleep. Tomorrow I'll make a visit to Cambridge.

By the way, here is the New Simplified Map of London.

Converging Subway Networks

A new paper comparing several subway networks around the world in large cities using various graph theoretic network measures (ht Leo).

So far I have only had time to read some comments on Wired but there is pdf copy availabe here.

Image: Roth et al./JRSI

Window of Opportunity: demographic changes and socioeconomic consequences in Brazil

Window of Opportunity: demographic changes and socioeconomic consequences in Brazil  (I have copied this post from Ricardo Ojima)

View more PowerPoint from UNDP Policy Centre

Urban Picture

‘Street Life in London’, 1877, by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith.

More at the LSE Digital Library! (via PD S.)

Covent Garden Labourers

Viva la Revolución (Industrial !)

Hans Rosling (aka the “Mick Jagger” of TED) in another great presentation. It's worth 9 minutes of your life.

Life expectancy vs Urban Population rate

Another very interesting graphic from the recent Credit Suisse report.

[Image Credit: Credit Suisse report]

soundtrack

Philosophy lesson of the day

via

Urban Hierarchy of 590 cities (1950-2050)

"The visualization depicts the world's 590 most populous cities, sorted column by column according to their population size between 1950 and 2010, with projections for 2015, 2020, 2025, and 2050" (via PD Smith)

I look at this chart and I think of demographic transition.... and huge Chinese internal migration

Related Links:

• the reordering of Urban Hierarchy in the US
• 5th stage of the Demographic Transition (?)

Assorted Links

1. History of urbanism in the 20th century in 10 videos
2. When was the real baby boom (via Alan Smith)
3. happy birthday, Karl Marx
4. The Twitter Languages of London
5. Game Theory - Split Or Stealy via MR
6. Very rich report by iihs on Urban India 2011 (via Urbanomics)
7. São Paulo in 1943 (via Leo and Drunkeynesian)

Scaling The Universe

A great interactive infographic by NASA showing the the Scale of the Universe.

It reminds me this 1977 short film called 'Powers of Ten'. It is also really good. But of course, this video is still the greatest!

The evolution of road networks

A quantitative analysis of how unplanned street networks evolve over time (via Per Square Mile and M. Batty).

"Network analyses performed on the digitized map revealed that although Groane had never been subjected to large-scale planning efforts, the street network evolved to be more uniform in size and density, and its predominant shape shifted from triangular to rectangular. Rectangular street networks may arise organically, the authors say, simply because they offer more efficient pathways and allow for more organized subdivision of land. [...] Groane's most interconnected roads in 2007 had already existed in 1833"

You may access the paper here or here.

You may also try to replicate the study for different cities. 

• Paris 1550 (HT Leo)
• Manhattan, NYC (1807) and here
• London, 1746 and 1869
• São Paulo 1958 
• Minneapolis 1895, 1899, 1910 (via David Levinson)
• Don't forget the David Rumsey Map Collection Database