Say Goodbye to 2011

Borderless Economics

Another book added to my cart on Amazon: Borderless Economics (written by Robert Guest, The Economist’s Business Editor).

Among other things, the book tackles brain drain and global poverty, how migration fosters innovation and cultural syncretism and how it is infecting China with ideas that will eventually turn it democratic.

You may find the author talking about the book here (a 15 minute Interview).

By the way, there is another book on migration that might interest you (available for free download.): The State of Environmental Migration (SEM) 2010. It's a co-publishing by IDDRI and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), edited by François Gemenne, Pauline Brücker and Joshua Glasser. I thank Ojima for the tip!

soundtrack: Crave You ft. Giselle

The Secret Life of Chaos (BBC)

BBC came up with this documentary on Chaos theory. Very interesting if you are into fractals, complexity theory or if you want to understand the simple mathematics behind Nature and Society.

(more short previews here, here)

(via Thiago Augustus from projetoblog)

Carved Book Landscapes

Amazing Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee

soundtrack: hang jam

2012 Call for papers (so far)

• XVIII Conference of the Brazilian Association of Population Studies (ABEP)
• Deadline for abstract submission: 16 April 2012
  
  
• Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society
• Deadline for abstract submission: 9 March 2012
  
  
• 5th Conference of the Latin American Population Association (ALAP)
• Deadline for abstract submission: 15 March 201
  
  
• 32nd International Geographical Congress (IGC) (HT Ricardo Ojima)
• Deadline for abstract submission:  08 January 2012
  
  
• The IUSSP Seminar on Pathways to Health: How intermediary life conditions mediate or modify early life effects (HT Ricardo Ojima)
• Deadline for abstract submission: 16 January 2012

***Hopefully I'm going to meet you at ABEP and/or ALAP. 

Austrian Urban Economics

I just now got time the chance to read the post series "Cities and the Market Process 1, 2 and 3" that Leo have suggested two months ago.

Critics of free market urban development may argue that this system will produce less-than-perfect cities, so city planners should step in to make improvements. The Austrian response is that of course the free market cannot produce utopian cities, but no other system could do better. Believing that a regulated city would be superior to the market outcome is succumbing to the Nirvana fallacy. Markets aren’t perfect, but they’re the best we’ve got.

I'm not fully convinced at all, although the post series have made some good points. Market Urbanism has just got on my blogroll! 

soundtrack: Ali Farka Toure

The Best City Time Lapse of 2011

The Best City Time Lapse Videos of 2011 according to Eric Jaffe. A second opinion here.

I particularly like the time lapse video of Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) by Rob Whitworth. (and LA Light by Colin Rich)

Traffic in Frenetic HCMC, Vietnam from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.

Assorted links

1. Here you can listen to the full Beatles discography (at the same time!) "Massive mash up"
   
   
2. Some really absurd interesting photos of Las Vegas Landscape
   
   
3. Bike share program in Rio de Janeiro  Let me assure you it's pretty simple to use it.
   
   
4. Evolution of the London Underground Map 1889-2002 (HT Leo)
   
   
5. Opportunities at Brown University - BIARI program (HT Ricardo Ojima)
   
   
6. The Best Data Visualization Projects of 2011

soundtrack: Baden

Brazilian Census 2010: Favela population

(image credit: Alberto Pomares)

"Brazil had 6,329 subnormal agglomerates in 2010 (aka Favelas), invaded properties, grotas (type of cave), slums in glens, poor communities, shanty towns, slums in backwaters, mocambos (type of shack) and stilt houses, among others – in 323 of the 5,565 municipalities. They concentrated 6.0% of the Brazilian population (11,425,644 inhabitants), distributed in 3,224,529 occupied private households (5.6% of the total). Twenty metropolitan areas concentrated 88.6% of these subnormal households, and almost half of them (49.8%) were located in the Southeast Region."

soundtrack: Favela

The Economist house-price indicators and the Chinese housing bubble

The Economist Magazine updated its house-price indicators.They say that the bursting of the global housing bubble is only halfway through. 

Krugman and Wendell Cox have a few words suggesting why we shouldn't be so optimistic about the Chinese real estate market.

soundtrack: Caetano