Friday, August 31, 2012

Message of the Day


I wish it were as simple as that....

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Urban Centrality Index (self promotion)

Good news. My paper with Monasterio, Nadalin and Albuquerque on Urban Centrality has been accepted for publication in Geographical Analysis !


Quantifying urban centrality: a simple index proposal and international comparison.
Abstract: This study introduces a new measure of urban centrality. The proposed urban centrality index (UCI) constitutes an extension to the spatial separation index (Midelfart-Knarvik et al., 2000). Urban structure should be more accurately analyzed when considering a centrality scale (varying from extreme monocentricity to extreme polycentricity) rather than being considered as a binary variable (monocentric or polycentric). The proposed index controls for differences in size and shape of the geographic areas for which data are available, and can be calculated using different variables such as employment and population densities or trip generation rates. The properties of the index are illustrated with simulated artificial datasets and compared to other similar measures proposed in the previous literature. Then the index is applied to the urban structure of four different metropolitan areas: Pittsburgh and Los Angeles in the United States; São Paulo, Brazil; and, Paris, France. The index is compared to other traditional spatial agglomeration measures, such as global and local Moran’s I, and density gradient estimations.


Wednesday, August 29, 2012

One Hundred Years of Land Values

Gabriel Ahlfeldt (LSE) presents at the Lincoln Institute his project on digitizing data from the Olcott's land values blue book of Chicago. The Olcott's Blue Books (under public domain) bring a unique dataset of historical land values, land uses, building heights, and other information in Chicago and its suburbs, published annually between 1900 and 1990 (!)

You can  get green with envy and  watch the presentation here.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Densification vs. De-densification of Manhattan

This map (posted at Urbanization Project) compares census tract densities in Manhattan between 1910 and 2010 (via Aaron M. Renn from Urbanophile). And some people think Manhattan is too dense now.


Of course it was totally different times (i.e. smaller car fleet and less transportation infrastructure).

Monday, August 20, 2012

Labour productivity vs Demographics

A very interesting article on Labour productivity vs demographics comparing Japan, USA and  Euro area ( via Bernardo L Queiroz).  It is based on a study by Nathan Sheets and Robert Sockin (I wish I had access to it!)


[Click on the image to enlarge it]
(Image Credit: FT Alphaville)

Sunday, August 19, 2012

2012 World Population Data Sheet

Here is the Webinar Presentation on the Population Reference Bureau’s (PRB) 2012 World Population Data Sheet. This year, the report focuses on three main topics: (1) aging developed countries, (2) rapid population growth in less developed countries and (3) epidemiological transition - i.e. the increased global prevalence of non-communicable diseases.



 They have also prepared this interactive map that you can take a look  play with  by clicking here.

PRB World Population

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Urban Picture

Sao Paulo, by Fernando Stankuns

Soundtrack: Criolo

Monday, August 13, 2012

Replay: The rise and fall of Urban Sociology (?)


Google has scanned 15 million books originally published from 1800 on. And they have also developed the Google Books Ngram Viewer. It's a tool that charts the usage of any word over time in literature and other books (Google books database). One could irresponsibly use it as a proxy for the popularity of words in literature. And I did!














This chart above shows how often "Urban Sociology" has appeared in the literature (Google database - english literature only) since 1800. It looks to me that the Chicago School have had played an important role in the rising 'popularity' of Urban Sociology*. And it looks that Urban Sociology is not as 'popular' as it used to be....

*obviously, it would be necessary to scrutinize other keywords to conclude this (such as the major researchers in the first Chicago School)


And here are some queries of other keywords of interest:

And my favorites:

Traffic Jam:















Urban sprawl, compact city, smart city, smart growth, compact growth, New Urbanism.











Thanks Vinicius Netto for the tip!

China’s One-Child Policy

Gary Becker and Richard Posner discussing China’s One-Child Policy. 
This worths the read!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Global Labor Force

The McKinsey Global Institute has published a comprehensive report on global labor market and labor force supply. It includes a forecast of labor force supply and demand through 2030 and tackles several issues such as labor productivity,  population aging and educational attainment. (ht Fabiano Pompermayer)

No blue skies for Brazil.
[Click on the image to enlarge it]

Related Links:

Friday, August 3, 2012

The world's shifting centre of gravity

Few weeks ago, The Economist magazine published a short piece on the world's shifting centre of gravity*. The map is based on this study by the McKinsey Global Institute.

According to the study, "the centre is rapidly shifting east—at a speed of 140 kilometres a year and thus faster than ever before in human history". As you have already guessed, the main reason for this is rapid urbanisation in developing countries, in particular China.

*The global center of gravity is calculated weighting the approximate centre of landmass of the world by countries' GDPs.


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