Say Goodbye to 2012

Hello 2013!

Assorted Links

1. Car and train travel trends in Britan (via David Metz)
   
   
2. My tip for the next christmas gift
   
   
3. Mapping public transport accessibility in Sydney
   
   
4. John Lennon's Opinion about Over Population
   
   
5. The 31 Fastest-Growing Cities On The Planet
   
   
6. Visualization data for world development using Stata
   
   
7. Migration and Climate Change (Book)
   
   
8. India "brain drain" graphic of the day
   
   
9. Global flow of tertiary-level students via WB Viz

Urban Picture

Guess where! (via Cristiano Penna)

[click on the picture to enlarge it]

[Image Credit: Sergey Semenov, the pano awards]

Soundtrack: MJA

Assorted links on Spatial Segregation

1. Social segregation and academic achievement in state-run elementary schools in the municipality of Campinas
   
   
2. The debate on ‘the end of the segregated century’
   
   
3. The Inequality Puzzle in U.S. Cities
   
   
4. Path dependence in spatial segregation
   
   
5. Countering urban segregation in Brazilian cities: policy-oriented explorations using agent-based simulation
   
   
6. Philadelphia Redlining Maps
   
   
7. Related Posts
   
   
8. The economic segregation in America’s 10 largest cities [interactive]

Global migration trends discovered in e-mail data

e-mail data as a creative data source for international migration studies (via @MPIDRpress)

Every device which sends e-mail can be located at least at the country level by an internationally standardized code, the so-called IP address. Zagheni and Weber analyzed the countries derived from IP addresses for a set of messages sent by 43 million anonymous Yahoo! account holders between September 2009 and June 2011. In addition to the date and geographical origin of each message they compiled the self-reported birthday and gender of the sender. When a person started sending e-mail from a new location permanently, it was assumed that he or she had changed residence. This way they were able to calculate rates of migration from and to almost every country in the world.

Related Link:

• UK immigration: five essential charts

Time Lapse of Crowd Control in Tokyo

Time Lapse of Crowd Control in Tokyo Japan for Comic Market (HT João Meirelles)



Related Links:

• Model behaviour
• Crowd Modelling

Podcast List updated

I have just updated the Podcasts list on the right column of this blog. Take a look.

• Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS/Oxford)
  
  
• Demographic Trends and Problems of the Modern World, by Prof David Coleman (Oxford)
  
  
• Environmental and Urban Economics Lectures, by Prof Matthew E. Kahn (UCLA)
  
  
• International Migration Institute (Oxford)
  
  
• LSE Public Lectures and Events
  
  
• More or Less: Behind the Stats (Tim Harford)
  
  
• Science Magazine Podcast
  
  
• Shift: Stories Behind the Stats (CBC radio)
  
  
• The Global Lab (UCL)
  
  
• Transport Studies Unit (Oxford)

Chart of the Day

The first Line Graph in history (by William Playfair, 1786). I saw this at Leo's Blog.

By the way, Merry Xmas Everyone!

Off-topic: Missed Doomsday Predictions

 Let's see how it will work out for Sir. Isaac Newton in 2060... 

[Chart by The Economist]

Heads up

1. University Lectureship in Demography at Oxford
   
   
2. New prize on causality in statstistics education (via A Gelman)
   
   
3. Postdoc Fellowship for "Crime and the City" at Brown University
   
   
4. Current Job Fellowship vacancies at Oxford Brookes University
   
   
5. ESRC Studentships at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
   
   
6. The Job Market for New Sociologists (via Lisa Wade)

[image credit Neal]

It's the end of the world ... and I feel fine

I don't know about you guys. But between the Mayan calendar and the Google Calendar, I'll keep my Google Calendar!

I saw this at Bizarro Blog, by Piraro.

Soundtrack:

The invention of GPS

He starts talking about the GPS invention at 12:10.

Global Challenges in Transport - short-course

I've posted about this opportunity before. Thanks Adam Dennett for the reminder.

[click on the image to enlarge it]

Urban Picture

circa 1938 by London Street Traders (via)

Stupid Measures: Bizzare Economic Indicators

Every now and then, economists come up with a new  doubtful  brilliant indicator. The Big Mac Index and the Skyscraper Boom Indicator are among the most famous and actually serious indicators.

However, there is plenty of room for everyone! and here is a list of the 36 most bizzare economic indicators.

My favorites:

• Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover Indicator
• Men's Underwear Index
• Aspirin and Tylenol Usage
• Latvian Hooker Index
• Alligator Population Index

Related Link: Stupid Measures tag

Urban sprawl in Latin America

Inostroza, L., Baur, R. & Csaplovics, E. Urban sprawl and fragmentation in Latin America: A dynamic quantification and characterization of spatial patterns. Journal of Environmental Management 115, 87–97 (2013).

Abstract: 

South America is one of the most urbanized continents in the world, where almost 84% of the total population lives in cities, more urbanized than North America (82%) and Europe (73%). Spatial dynamics, their structure, main features, land consumption rates, spatial arrangement, fragmentation degrees and comparability, remain mostly unknown for most Latin American cities. Using satellite imagery the main parameters of sprawl are quantified for 10 Latin American cities over a period of 20 years by monitoring growth patterns and identifying spatial metrics to characterize urban development and sprawling features measured with GIS tools. This quantification contributes to a better understanding of urban form in Latin America. A pervasive spatial expansion has been observed, where most of the studied cities are expanding at fast rates with falling densities trend. Although important differences in the rates of land consumption and densities exist, there is an underlying fragmentation trend towards increasing sprawl. These trends of spatial discontinuity may eventually be intensified by further economic development. Urban Sprawl/Latin America/GIS metrics/spatial development.

Myths on Anging and old age

A short talk by Prof. George Leeson on the challenges of aging societies and a few myths on population anging .

http://vimeo.com/54080716

JDC-ICCD Oxford Interviews: Dr. George Leeson from JDC in Europe on Vimeo.

Related Links:

• Geoforum Journal: Themed issue on Spatialities of Ageing (edited by Tim Schwanen, Irene Hardill and Susan Lucas)
• Aging America: The Cities That Are Graying The Fastest

Assorted Links

Too many links accumulated...

1. Census 2011: how many Jedi Knights are there in England & Wales?
   
   
2. U.S. Birth Rate Falls to a Record Low; Decline Is Greatest Among Immigrants
   
   
3. Thomas Schelling and the computer (via MR)
   
   
4. Women as Academic Authors, 1665-2010 (via Drunkeynesian)
   
   
5. Population Aging and the Generational Economy (book)
   
   
6. Long-term Migration in and out of the UK, 1964-2011
   
   
7. Good Papers in Real Estate and Housing Economics (via Matthew Kahn)
   
   Now take a breath.
   
8. Heatmaps
   
   
9. Olympian age distributions compared
   
   
10. Evil dictators - the body count
    
    
11. The World's Tallest Concept Building
    
    
12. Emerging-market cities

Message of the Day

via 'Tudo ao mesmo tempo agora'

Actually, the world isn't flat

Or.... 'the world is not as globalized as we think'. 

A nice TedTalk by Pankaj Ghemawat (@PankajGhemawat).

Urban Centrality: A Simple Index

Warning: self promotional material  Recently published!

Pereira, R. H. M., Nadalin, V., Monasterio, L. and Albuquerque, P. H. M. (2012), Urban Centrality: A Simple Index. Geographical Analysis. doi: 10.1111/gean.12002

Abstract:

This study introduces a new measure of urban centrality. The proposed urban centrality index (UCI) constitutes an extension to the spatial separation index. Urban structure should be more accurately analyzed when considering a centrality scale (varying from extreme monocentricity to extreme polycentricity) than when considering 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 data sets and are compared with other similar measures proposed in the existing literature. The index is then applied to the urban structure of four metropolitan areas: Pittsburgh and Los Angeles in the United States; São Paulo, Brazil; and Paris, France. The index is compared with other traditional spatial agglomeration measures, such as global and local Moran's I, and density gradient estimations.

The working paper version (Portuguese and English) is available here.

World's fastest growing metro economies

The world's fastest growing metropolitan economies

[Image Credit: The Economist]

Related Links:

• The Metropolitan Future of Brazil and the United States
• 2012's Fastest Growing (and Shrinking) Cities

Assorted Links on Migration

1. Brazil as Immigration Destination (via Brandon Fuller)
   
   
2. The Global Brain Trade
   
   
3. Two CASA Working Papers on modelling human migration (here and here)
   
   
4. Migration and the resilience and vulnerability of place
   
   
5. New journal Migration and Development
   
   
6. Which developing countries received the most remittances in 2012?
   
   
7. Immigration and the Housing Problem in Britain (lecture)
   
   
8. Winners and losers in the battle for immigrant talent (via Population Econ)
   
   
9. How well-educated are your immigrants?

Urban Picture

Brasília from Above (by Bento Viana)

Oscar Niemeyer passed away yesterday (obituary). He was considered as the greatest Brazilian architect of all time. He is 'author' of this beautiful building pictured above. Believe me, it is a cathedral! 

We also lost Dave Brubeck yesterday.

Related Link: Niemeyer & Kraftwerk

Tracking the spread of AIDS

Tracking the spread of AIDS (Interactive)