Assorted links

1. Where the World's Unsold Cars Go To Die. Amazing pictures.
   
   
   
2. The 10 Algorithms That Dominate Our World
   
   
3. Statistically speaking, Brazil is the favorite to win the World Cup 2014. Seriously.
   
   
4. What job will you get with that degree? 
   
   
5. How the partial ban on cars in Paris reduced air pollution. Tianjin is doing the same.
   
   
6. A special issue dedicated to inequality in Science Maganize (ht Raquel Guimarães)
   
   
7. How much square-footage $1million can buy in world's most expensive cities
   
   
8. Bicycle sharing systems - Global Trends in Size
   
   
9. Cycling around the world 

Serious Logistic Problems

For those interested in urban logistics, I imagine you already take this kind of problem seriously. I haven't found, however, any paper estimating the impact of loose wild turkeys on delivery delays in urban areas. This study would be a strong candidate for the Ig Nobel Prize.

Chart of the Day

[Image Credit: The Economist Dailychart]

Urban Picture

Hong Kong Cocoon

[photographer : Peter Steinhaur - via Johnny Strategy ]

Countdown to Brazil's World Cup

The World Cup is receiving wide coverage from the international press. Fortunately, football is not the center of the discussions.

      With less than a month to go, organisers are scrambling to get everything ready. [...] Just five of 35 planned urban-mobility schemes are complete.

        Brazil’s government insisted on staging games in 12 cities, rather than the required eight, in order to spread the benefits across the country. [...] The whitest of these elephants, in Brasília, may end up consuming 2 billion reais ($900m), nearly triple the initial estimate. After the Cup it is unlikely ever to draw capacity crowds again, as the city lacks a good league side.

        Support for hosting the World Cup has fallen sharply, from 79% after it was awarded to Brazil in 2007 to 48% now, according to Datafolha, a pollster

Here is Simon Jenkins's article for The Guardian and a critical take on it by Chris Gaffney.

[image credit: Antonello]

Related Link: 

Note to Olympic Sailors: Don’t Fall in Rio’s Water

Assorted Links

1. Large cities are less green (via Araz Taeihagh). Disputable, but very interesting.
   
   
2. Apparently, the entire human population could fit inside the Grand Canyon (via Alberto Jakob)
   
   
3. Great video: 'Where time comes from'
   
   
4. The Strange, Post-Soviet Architecture of Astana, Kazakhstan
   
   
5. Looking at evictions in San Francisco since 1997. It would be great to have a similiar map showing the WorldCup evictions in Rio
   
   
6. The scaling of human interactions with city size (via Annalee Newitz)
   
   
7. The Easter Rocket War of Vrontados
   
   
8. Fruits and Vegetables Under an MRI Scanner (via Rob Simons)
   
   
9. Amazing project using Drones, Community Mapping and 3D printers to remap Lima (via Flora Roumpani) 

Daytime vs. Nighttime Population in Manhattan

Neat visualization by J.Cherdarchuk at Dark Horse Analytics (via Esteban Moro and James McInerney).

[Image Credit: Dark Horse Analytics ]

Related Links:

• Daytime Population in the United States
• Population Density Maps

Research Vacancies, LSE and Oxford - Urbanization in Developing Economies

Henry Overman points out to some Research Vacancies on Urbanization in Developing Economies in a joint programme between Serc/LSE and Oxford University.

A major joint research programme on urbanisation in developing economies, with particular reference to Africa, has been launched at LSE's Spatial Economics Research Centre and Oxford's Department of Economics, with support from the World Bank. Profs.Vernon Henderson (LSE) Paul Collier and Tony Venables (Oxford) are recruiting a Research Manager, Research Economists and Assistants and GIS Data Specialists to work on the programme. The programme offers outstanding opportunities to contribute to cutting edge research in the field, based in two of Europe's leading social science research and training institutions.

Type I and Type II Errors Simplified

[via Drunkeynesian ]

Spatial data analysis in R: where to start

1. A good introduction to visualising spatial data in R, by R Lovelace and J Cheshire
   
   
2. How to Map Geographic Paths in R
   
   
3. Spatial microsimulation with R
   
   
4. How to Make Smoothed Density Maps in R
   
   
5. Circular Migration Plots – Do it yourself
   
   
6. All about Spatial data analysis in R, by R Bivand via Adam Dennett ‏
   
   
7. Data visualisation programming: a recap
   
   
8. Carlos Cinelli also reminds us about the The R User Conference 2014. There will be a tutorial with Virgilio Gómez-Rubio, one of the authors of Applied Spatial Data Analysis with R
   
   
9. Introduction to Spatial Data and ggplot2

[image credit: J Cheshire]

Assorted links

1. Contribute to a survey on the connection between the built environment and personal health: It took me 3 minutes to answer this short questionnaire. The survey is organized by our loyal reader Benjamin Littenberg.
   
   
2. Why do birth rates peak at different times in different places?
   
   
3. Longer commutes in Britain (via Peter Gordon)
   
   
4. An ageing economy will be a slower and more unequal one
   
   
5. Great piece by Simon Jenkins on the coming Mega Events in Rio
   
   
6. Space Syntax of street connections in the Greater South East of England
   
   
7. Gary S. Becker has passed away.  Many interesting links about his work at MR
   
   
8. The Pollution Burden in California by census tracts (via Stephen Miller)

[image credit: LA Times]

Science Experiment of the Day

[image credit: ?]

Urban Density Patterns in 9 Global Cities

Here is a nice 'chart' comparing population density patterns across nine global cites. The chart is part of a broader analysis by the LSE Cities programme and their not so new  project Urban Age.

[Click on the image to enlarge it]

[image credit: LSE Cities]

Related Links:

• Making 3D Maps in Excel
• 3D Density Map
• Growth and change in metropolitan form
• Global forecasts of urban expansion
• Atlas of Urban Expansion