UP Links 15 May 2013

+ Kari Kohn

The Invisible City

But what is it exactly that we are glimpsing? What makes a great city a city is not its buildings and streets—its physical infrastructure—or even the patterns of people in public spaces. A great city, one that cannot be fully seen, is composed of the relations among those people. Those relations—among neighbors, passers-by, shoppers, shopkeepers, cars, and pedestrians—make it possible for people to rely on one another to some degree and for everything to hang together. When it works right, people feel safe and free to move from place to place, to break old ties and form new ones, and to create new ideas and leave old ones behind.

Eric Jaffe at Atlantic Cities on Culture and Crossing the Street

More broadly, the way culture governs pedestrian behavior is becoming a fascinating lens into city life. Previous work has suggested that American and Europeans give directions differently and that certain city residents tend to walk faster than others. Oddly, Tokyo residents have been clocked as some of the world’s swiftest city walkers; maybe some of that speed is an attempt to make up for all the time spent waiting for the light to change before crossing the street.

Edward Hugh on Declining Populations

In fact populations dying out is nothing new in human history if we move beyond the most recent world delineated by nation states. In hunter gatherer times populations occupied increased or reduced proportions of the earth’s surface as climate dictated. In more modern times, islands have been populated or become depopulated according to economic dynamics (think the Scottish coastline). More recently, it is clear the old East Germany would have become a country in need of “resolution” had it not sneaked in under the umbrella of the Federal Republic. Why people should find the idea of country failure so contentious I am not sure, perhaps we have just become accustomed not to have “hard” thoughts.

Wonkblog on Falling Fertility Rates

Lewis has a fascinating, chart-heavy essay over at the Breakthrough Institute pointing out that birthrates are dropping rapidly almost everywhere around the world — with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa, mostly.…So what happened? Lewis examines a number of hypotheses, from rising incomes to growing female literacy. Those are all moderately correlated with the decline in birthrates and could help explain the shift. But, curiously enough, nothing seems to match up with the trends as neatly as the growth in TV ownership and media exposure

Wonkblog on Ending Poverty

China has mostly run its leg of the relay – with economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions from poverty and, almost on its own, put the world on trend to reach Kim’s goal. …Relatively few Chinese remain in this circumstance of dire poverty, while the numbers of extreme poor in India and sub-Saharan Africa remain enormous.
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