CAMUSS Symposium

For those interested in cellular automata models, you may watch a live broadcast of the CAMUSS* Symposium (November 8–10) here.

*Camuss - International Symposium on Cellular Automata Modeling for Urban and Spatial Systems

Chart of the Day

As a general rule, urbanization goes hand in hand with economic growth. But general rules are made to be broken. This chart was taken from the latest World Development Report (2013 p.53).

[Image Credit: The Economist]

Global forecasts of urban expansion

A cutting edge study by Karen C. Seto (Yale) and others on urban growth projections around the world and some of its environmental impacts (via  Urbanization Project). Read a briefing of the study here or here.

Abstract:

"[...] despite projections that world urban populations will increase to nearly 5 billion by 2030, little is known about future locations, magnitudes, and rates of urban expansion. Here we develop spatially explicit probabilistic forecasts of global urban land-cover change and explore the direct impacts on biodiversity hotspots and tropical carbon biomass. If current trends in population density continue and all areas with high probabilities of urban expansion undergo change, then by 2030, urban land cover will increase by 1.2 million km2, nearly tripling the global urban land area circa 2000."

[Image Credit: Yale]

Related Links:

• Las Vegas Urbanization (1976-2010) - more here
• Seto Urbanization and Global Change Group
• Atlas of Urban Expansion

Immigration policy in the UK

The British government is hardening immigration laws, specially for students and skilled immigrants. Why is it a bad idea?

• The government’s policy on students and skilled migrants threatens to do long-term damage to my PhD plans! the economy
  
  
• Shutting out foreign brains is a good way to piss me off foster mediocrity

ALAP 2012

I'm flying to Montevideo tomorrow to attend the Latin American Population Conference - ALAP 2012. I'm looking forward to meeting a few good old friends and to presenting my paper*.

*Projections of skilled labor supply in Brazil: scenarios for the supply of Engineers until 2020. [in Portuguese only]

Assorted Links

1. Brazil’s housing market
   
2. IMO report: Rutas y dinámicas migratorias entre los países de América Latina y el Caribe (ALC), y entre ALC y la Unión Europea
   
3. Why Has Regional Convergence in the U.S. Stopped? (paper here)
   
4. Incarceration elevates early infant mortality risk (via MR)
   
5. Eurostat Regional Yearbook 2012 - Interactive atlas here
   
6. Infant Mortality in Brazil, 1980-2000: A spatial panel data analysis
   
7. A five-minute talk by Michael Batty on cellular automata modelling

 CA Movie from Michael Batty on Vimeo.

off-topic: Lord of the Rings Demographics

For my thousands  of geek readers, a comprehensive demographic analysis of the various populations in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series (via Tim De Chant).

Quote of the day

"You tell me the size of any city in the United States and I can tell you with 80 to 90 percent accuracy almost everything about it. The scaling laws tell you that despite all of the efforts of planners, geographers, economists, architects, and politicians, and all of the local history, geography, and culture, somehow cities end up having to obey these scaling laws. We need to be aware of those forces when we design and redesign cities." (Geoffrey West)

Soundtrack for the weekend: Jazz for Cows

Visualizing bicycle trips in London

via The Economist

Oxford short-course on Sustainable Transport

Spread the words!

From March 2013, the University of Oxford is launching a short-course programme in sustainable transport - Global Challenges in Transport Programme (more info here).

The programme offers 6 intensive, 4-day residential courses covering a range of topics:

• New Technologies and Changing Behaviours;
• Governance, Policy and Local Delivery;
• Global Networks and Logistics;
• Infrastructure, Development and Finance;
• Health, Wellbeing and Urban Mobility; and
• Energy and Climate Change.

Needless to say it sounds a great opportunity.

Immigration and regional inequality in Brazil

A new paper by Irineu and Leo Monasterio. Congrats!

Immigration and the origins of regional inequality: Government-sponsored European migration to southern Brazil before World War I.

Abstract

This paper studies the long-term consequences of the government-sponsored programs of European immigration to Southern Brazil before the Great War. We find that the municipalities closer to the original sites of nineteenth century government sponsored settlements (colônias) have higher per capita income, less poverty and dependence on Bolsa Família cash transfers, better health and education outcomes; and for the areas close to German colonies, also less inequality of income and educational outcomes than otherwise. Since that is a reduced form relationship, we then attempt to identify the relative importance of more egalitarian landholdings and higher initial human capital in determining those outcomes. Our findings are suggestive that more egalitarian land distribution played a more important role than higher initial human capital in achieving the good outcomes associated with closeness to a colônia.

Short talks on Longevity and Prospective age

A short talk on Longevity by Sarah Harper (Oxford).

This reminds me to mention the concept of "prospective age" by Sanderson and Scherbov (2005, 2010). Some countries are actually rejuvenating! Here is a five-minute talk by Scherbov on the topic.

Related Link:

• Aging and the Macroeconomy: Long-Term Implications of an Older Population (via Eddie)

Assorted Links

1. Is It Better to Buy or Rent? (via Patrik)
   
   
2. Neil Smith (the father of the Gentrification theory)  has passed away.
   
   
3. New survey paper on what economists know about “brain drain”/“brain gain”). via MR
   
   
4. The New Science of Viral Ads by Thales S. Teixeira (Harvard)
   
   
5. Germans are five times more likely than Americans to travel by mass transport (the paper is here)
   
   
6. Book: The Demography of Health and Healthcare
   
   
7. The demographic transition may be the result of a mismatch between ancient psychology and the modern world (via @blqueiroz)
   
   
8. Call for Abstracts: 9th International Space Syntax Symposium
   
   
9. Car use is peaking in the rich world

[image credit: The Economist]

Urban Picture

Shibuya (Tokyo) in 1952 (via PD Smith)

...and today

Charter Cities (and Paul Romer) in 15 min.

Alex Tabarrok summarizes in 15 min. the contribution of Paul Romer to Development Economics and his idea about the Charter Cities.



related link: Honduran charter cities in troubled muddy waters (here and here)

Digital records of life-space

In Germany, Malte Spitz asked his cell phone carrier what it knew about him. After some unanswered requests and a lawsuit , he received 35,830 lines of code -- a detailed account of six months of his life. You can watch the video below and 'browse' through it here.

The little concern I'd have about our digital traces being used for totalitarian purposes gets somewhat overshadowed by the overwhelming number of studies it opens.

Modelling Cities from 1977

A Old Movie About Modelling Cities from 1977 from Michael Batty on Vimeo.

I thank Joao Meirelles for the pointer.

A Old Movie About Modelling Cities from 1977 from Michael Batty on Vimeo.

Assorted Links

1. Car use is peaking in the rich world and exploding in China
   
   
2. Confirmation Bias and the iPhone 5
   
   
3. The fractals at the heart of African designs
   
   
4. Interactive timeline of migration in and out of the UK 1964-2010 (via Alan Smith)
   
   
5. The gap between the nominal and official number of urban residents is large enough to fit the entire population of Brazil  (via Tyler Cowen)
   
   
6. Honduran charter cities in troubled muddy waters (here and here)
   
   
7. Dubai: City on the Move

DUBAI - city on the move from geoff tompkinson on Vimeo.

Counting the World: documentary by UNFPA

Counting the World is a not so new documentary produced by UNFPA. The film documents the many stages of the census process in five different countries: Chad, Bolivia, Indonesia, Belarus and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.  (via John Weeks)

4-minute trailer (or 21-minute version)