Assorted Links

1. The Future of Science 2021
   
   
2. Measuring racism with Google search (the paper shows that Barak Obama lost 3-5 percentage points of the popular vote in 2008 because he is black)
   
   
3. Call for papers: Convergence special issue on mobile media in Brazil
   
   
4. Announcement of Congestion Pricing in Bogota
   
   
5. The Greater Tokyo Area, as compared to the UK
   
   
6. The one-second film festival held by Montblanc
   
   
7. An interactive map showing oil production by country from 1960 to 2010 (via The Map Room)

soundtrack: Céu



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Urban Demographics is now on Twitter !

@UrbDemographics

Spread the words: we are now on Twitter ! @UrbDemographics

I'm still learning how to use it. You will have to be patient with me during this test period.

Baby Deficit and Economic Crises

In his paper 'The Baby Deficit' Science 2006, Michael Balter points out why public policies are unlikely to reverse fertility declines. His abstract couldn't be more brief:

"As fertility rates decline across the developed world, governments are offering big incentives for childbearing. Experts don't expect them to have much effect."

And talking about fertility reversion, economic recession will not help much in that. Read this NYT piece Fewer Births in a Bad Economy. How low can fertility get in Europe?

(image credit: NYT)

Untangling the City

A new CASA Working Paper by Michael Batty. I will probably take a few hours to really understand the paper. But I'll try it !

[image credit: ?    I love this image. It reminds me of a movie scene from 'Inception']

According to M. Batty, the paper describes "the transition from thinking of ‘cities as machines’ to ‘cities as organisms’". I wonder what could be clinically diagnosed as an urban cancer...


soundtrack: Beck

NeW! 'Prata da Casa' session: regional and urban economics handbook

I'm starting a new post session called "Prata da Casa" to recommend some good research and publications by my colleagues here at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA).

"Prata da Casa" is a Portuguese expression that in this case refers to some good 'homegrown research'. So I'm inaugurating this session with a recent regional and urban economics handbook with emphasis on Brazil:

Regional and Urban Economics: Theories and methods with emphasis on Brazil (organized by Bruno Cruz, Bernardo Furtado, Leonardo Monasterio and Waldery Rodrigues Júnior) - Portuguese Version Only

off-topic: Modernist Modernist Monuments

I bumped into these bizarre and still beautiful Modernist Monuments. I would say that we have something similar here in Brasília in a much smaller scale with the Crystals Square (by Burle Marx).

This reminded me of a book with fascinating photos from Frederic Chaubin depicting socialist architectural eccentricities: 

Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed 

soundtrack for the weekend: Legião Urbana

Travel Time Maps

We have already seen some Isochronic maps here at Urban Demographics. This post shows a few more Travel Time Maps for other cities around the world.

• A very good analysis on travel time variation across Melbourne and Victoria (Australia)
  
  
•  a few  UK Cities

• Mapnificent for more than 20 cities (tutorial video here)
  
  
• New York - Travel Times on Commuter Rail via (visual complexity)
  
  
• Isochronic London Underground (interactive)
  
  
• and the most attractive: Netherlands Isochronic Map (by Vincent Meertens via wired)
  

TIMEMAPS from graphsic on Vimeo.

Road Casualties Mapped

Road accident casualties mapped for the USA and for Britain (by The Guardian via David Levinson)

Recommended Podcasts

We are opening a new session on the right column of this blog with ‘recommended Podcasts’. 

I usually listen to them on my daily walking commute to my work place or I do it as I wash the dishes  it helps keeping me away from marital problem 

I will start the session recommending two podcasts:

• Shift: Stories Behind the Stats from CBC Radio (rss or itunes) - this one it focuses on the front lines of demographic change.
  
  
• Transport Studies Unit Podcasts by Oxford University (rss or itunes)*

* by the way, you might enjoy this seminar by Professor Robert Cervero (UC Berkeley): Mobility, place-making, and economic competitiveness 

(seminar review, screencast and presentation slides)

off-topic: Lovely Owl

I just couldn't help it. It is too damn cute to ignore it.