India's Urban Future

(Source: The Economist)

Related Links:

• Urbanization and economic growth
• Urban Growth Trajectories

Replay: UN Demographic Manuals On-line

Here is the link for the classical manuals and guides of demographic methods and techniques issued by the United Nations a long time ago. It presents a series of 23 manuals organized by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat.

Paper for the weekend

Here is a paper I would like to have time to read. The abstract is great.


Ball, J. A. (1973). The zoo hypothesis. Icarus. Volume 19, Issue 3, Pages 347–349.

Abstract:

Extraterrestrial intelligent life may be almost ubiquitous. The apparent failure of such life to interact with us may be understood in terms of the hypothesis that they have set us aside as part of a wilderness area or zoo.

The is just one of the 11 Weirdest Solutions to the Fermi Paradox (ht @phgfsouza). There can't be a better solution than #4 !


Soundtrack:

Forecasting Migration

Andres Marroquin points to this chart showing long-term trends of net migration by continent. [By the way, the original report has many interesting charts that give a clear summary of global demographic trends]

When we hear the words “long-term migration” in the same sentence, it is impossible not to remember one prominent Achilles' heel in demographic studies: the inability to forecast long-term migration. Here is Willekens' opinion on this topic.

Why is it not possible to do long-term [migration] forecasts?

The data from statistical offices are not suitable for long-term migration forecasts. The reason is that these data document the outcome of migration flows – not the reasons behind them. Predictions on the basis of past behaviour are reliable when the system is stable, i.e. when conditions do not change and people respond to these conditions in the same way as people in the past. But conditions change, for instance when regulatory measures are taken to prevent migration flows, or events occur, like political changes in the country or natural disasters. (Frans Willekens)

Related Links:

• A new journal of Migration Studies, from Oxford University Press.
• Estimating global migration flow tables using place of birth data
• Changing Patterns and Determinants of Interprovincial Migration in China 1985–2000
• The Mystery of Declining Mobility in the USA

Chart of the Day

Where is the most expensive place to own a car?

Related Links:

• Parking Rates Worldwide
• Crowdsourcing road congestion data
• Gif of the Day: Traffic Reduction

The Future Cities Agenda, by M. Batty

Michael Batty's agenda for future cities (pdf).

The key issues on the agenda involve: automating cities which is an inevitable consequence of networking and the decentralisation of all aspects of computation across the globe; the dominance of migration as a force for local change; globalisation where everyone who uses the net is in some way part of a world city of sorts (with the implication that every city, no matter what size, has elements of ‘world city’ within it); the consequences of aging which will change the way we physically move around the city combined with the automation of transit and the private automobile; the rise of health care as a basic urban function; the demise of physical retailing and the ‘high street’, as much through online activity as through physical decentralisation; and, of course, the general automation of all sectors of the economy. Many problems confound this agenda and it is worth noting these as they are likely to dominate the extent to which we are able to build resilient and sustainable cities that are smart enough to enable them to function better than any of those we have created in the past.

Quote of the Day

"The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions."

(Claude Lévi-Strauss)

....and that's one of the hardest parts of doing science.

Demographic evolution of cities, 1950-2025

A nice chart showing the U.N. estimate for the demographic evolution of cities between 1950 and 2025. (via RC21 Network). 

Here are some other charts based on a similiar idea:

• Urban Hierarchy of 590 cities (1950-2050)
• Relative Rank of American States for Nine Decades (1790-1870)
• Urban hierarchy of the United States over time (1790-2000)
• The Richest Cities in the US in 1978 and Now

Assorted (off-topic) Links

1. Real Life Spambot 
   
   
2. Completion rates for MOOCs are really low. Still it shouldn't be ignored by top universities
   
   
3. Sax battle in NYC subway (via Chris Blattman)
   
   
4. Six Rules For Writing Clearly, by George Orwell
   
   
5. 10 most commonly searched terms on porn sites by country 
   
   
6. The ultimate recognition of merits in a scientific career (via Pedro Souza)

Chart of the Day

This is from the Annual Update on World Urbanization: 2013, by Wendell Cox.