off-topic: Anthropologists

by Gary Larson via Beware of Images

London in figures and Fertility Crisis

The Economist's daily chart addressing London's demographic trends.*


* By the way, they have also published this article talking about the relation between recession and fertility in  Europe. Yes, economic uncertainty can be quite bad for fertility.

Quote of the day

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life" (I. Kant).

obs. Now go get yourself organized !

Soundtrack for the weekend:

Urban Network Analysis toolbox

A neat video introducing the Urban Network Analysis toolbox created by the City Form Research Group. at MIT.

The toolbox is distributed as free and open-source plugin-in for ArcGIS. Here you will find a demo presentantion and a link for downloading it ! (via RC21)

Urban Network Analysis from City Form Lab on Vimeo.

Waiting for the Subway

[Image Credit: New Yorker]

UpComing Events

On your marks. Set. And ....

• PAA 2013 - call for papers open until September 21, 2012
  
  
• IUSSP 2013 - call for papers open until October 15, 2012
  
  
• ALAP 2012 - Conference program now available
  
  
• ABEP 2012 - Selected papers to be announced by August 24, 2012
  
  
• WCTR 2013 - Full papers must be submitted by October 31, 2012
  
  
• Migration in a Changing World. To be broadcasted on November 5-9th 2012
  
  
• Sorry for not including other events.

Assorted Links

1. National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest 2012
2. Luis Bettencourt on the Science of Cities
3. Suburban Sprawl and its Causal Effect on Basketball Skills
4. Declining Migration within the US (HT Leo) more here
5. Aerial Photos of U.S. Correctional Facilities
6. Beyond 7 Billion
7. The Price of faith
8. Which nations consume the most water?
9. A World Map of Heavy Metal Density

Metal Bands per 100,00 people

How food shapes our cities

Carolyn Steel is the author of Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives (a book which goes to my never-ending wishlist.).

Peer effect

The importance of peer effect.


via Uhull SA

• Related Link: Fuzzy Logic explained

Residential Location and Retirement Age

The new issue of Urban Studies is out and this paper caught my attention. It might interest some of you as well!

The Effect of Residential Location on Retirement Age: Theory and Some Evidence on Male Behaviour in the US by Jorge González Chapela

Abstract: Retirement age choice is introduced into a conventional model of residential location to show that the retirement age of workers who do not move after retirement can be influenced by the urban variation of leisure and housing prices. A retirement demand equation that incorporates commuting characteristics is estimated on a sample of US urban male owners interviewed by the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. It is found that commuters retire around two years earlier than comparable home-based workers, although the evidence provides no support for this gap to be the result of differences in leisure or housing prices across both groups.

Extra links:

• disussion paper on commuting costs and labor force retirement.
• paper The Determinants of Male´s Retirement in Urban Brazil (+book)

2011 Census results in England and Wales

Nice article by The Guardian covering the new Census results in England and Wales.

And here is an animation with 100-years-changes in population pyramids, 1911-2011.

Angola's Chinese empty city

Chinese-built ghost town strikes again! now in Angola.

[image credit]

Related Posts:

• China's empty city (and here)
• It's Alive !!!

Message of the Day

(via Tudo ao Mesmo Tempo Agora)

Soundtrack: Little Joy

Orbital Tour of Cities at Night

We have already seen some striking pictures of cities at Night seen from Space. Here is the explanation on how Nasa can make these beautiful images despite of orbital motion.

By the way, they now have a databse of over 4,000 images of cities at night (via The Regional Studies Blog).

Assorted Links

1. New Issue of Environment and Planning B - Visualisation tools for understanding big data
   
   
2. Rise in housing prices around the world from 2001 to 2011  Where is the bubble?
   
   
3. The recent debate on City v. Suburban Growth in the US here and here (maybe some people are being a little bit hasty about this)
   
   
4. New numbers on elder care in the US
   
   
5. Space Syntax Summer School announced
   
   
6. Book - Urban Growth Analysis and Remote Sensing
   
   
7. London’s Daytime Population

The Oldest Flow Map, created in 1837

According to this paper published in The Geographical Journal, this map is credited to be the Oldest Flow Map, created in 1837 by Henry D. Harness of the British Army. It shows traffic flows between Dublin and the rest of Ireland.  (via Michael Batty). Quite different from contemporary techniques....

[Image Credit:  Henry Drury Harness via Arthur H. Robinson] 

Urban Picture

The Shard was inaugurated yesterday! It is the tallest building in Ocidental Europe and you can see it from almost anywhere in London. Here is a 360º view from the top of the Shard.

[photo credit: me ]

Buenos Aires Urban Expansion

A gif depicting Buenos Aires urban expansion in three different time periods: until 1947; from 1947 to 1972 and 1972 onwards (thanks Leonardo Garateguy for the tip).

It's important to stress the avant-garde urbanization of Buenos Aires in contrast to other Latin American cities. Much could be said about this, but it would be out of our purpose with this blog. Besides, Guillhermo Tella probably has much more interesting things to say about it.

[image credit: Guillhermo Tella. A summary of his book here]

2nd Anniversary of Urban Demographics Blog

A few days ago (on June 29) we have completed the second anniversary of the Urban Demographics Blog! During this second year we have reached a total amount of:

• 220 posts
• 23,058 visits
• 18,809 visitors
• 239 subscribers
• 520 likes on Facebook
• 115 followers on twitter 

These were the most popular posts during this second year (based on the nº of page views):

• Parking Rates Worldwide
• Population Density Maps 
• World Population Distribution Map
• Urban Primacy
• Urban Africa

and some posts I like:

• What is on a Demographer’s Mind?
• Urban Mobility solutions 
• Regional Disparities in Brazil 
• Viva la Revolución (Industrial !)
• Urban Growth Trajectories 
• Fuzzy Logic explained 
• Urban Hierarchy of 590 cities (1950-2050)

Where readers come from (147 Countries)

1. United States (36.1%)
2. Brazil (11.8%)
3. Canada (11.5%)
4. United Kingdom (6.2%)
5. Germany (2.9%)
6. Australia (2.3%)
7. France (2.2%)
8. India (2.1%)
9. Russia (1.4)
10. Netherlands (1.3%)

From which cities do readers come? (3,517 Cities)

1. Brasilia (1.169) thank you mom
2. New York (674)
3. Toronto (619)
4. London (495)
5. Sao Paulo (321)
6. Los Angeles (314)
7. Calgary (284)
8. Washington (273)
9. Not set (aka 'WTF') (261)
10. Vancouver (250)

Assorted Links on International Migration

1. Data Sets on International Migration
   
   
2. Immigration and the origins of regional inequality: Government-sponsored European migration to southern Brazil before World War I
   
   
3. Estimating net migration by ecosystem and by decade: 1970–2010  (by CIESIN)
   
   
4. Estimates of international migrant stock by age and sex for 196 countries or areas with 100,000 inhabitants or more as of mid-2010
   
   
5. Introducing the Global Religion and Migration Database
   
   
6. Interactive world migration map by @madewulf using the GMOD

[Image Credit]