Mar 18,2013

UP Links 18 March 2013

+ Kari Kohn

Daniel Brook on Urbanization in the Developing World

We need to understand them [Shanghai, Bombay, St. Petersburg and Dubai] because they’re the places that matter today. I describe them as “dress rehearsals for the 21st century.” People used to be fascinated with them because they were so unusual. Now, we need to be fascinated with them because the project for which they stand — urbanization/modernization of less developed regions — is the project of our time.

Dani Rodrik on “National Governments, Global Citizens”

But the trouble is not just that these global institutions remain weak. It is also that they are inter-governmental bodies – a collection of member states rather than agents of global citizens. Because their accountability to national electorates is indirect and uncertain, they do not generate the political allegiance – and hence legitimacy – that truly representative institutions require.

City Journal on William Bratton’s Work in Los Angeles

At the same time, Bratton continued Bernard Parks’s efforts to soften the hard edges of certain LAPD practices: making suspects kneel on the street with their hands behind their heads, for example, and “proning out,” making them stand spread-eagled against a wall to be searched. “We were still every bit as assertive,” says Bratton, “but we were cutting back on some of the practices, such as the proning, such as the kneeling, while at the same time working on officer behavior.” Captains were now required to respond in person to homicides. Dead bodies were treated with greater respect.

Atlantic Cities on the Challenges of Bus Rapid Transit

Since then, BRT has been enthusiastically deployed in 147 cities spread over six continents. But as developing countries in Africa and Asia have pumped millions of dollars into new buses, reengineered streets, and stylish loading stations, the results have been disappointing in cities like Cape Town, New Delhi, and Bangkok. Local officials in these cities are finding considerable resistance from drivers and private transit operators, lower than projected ridership, and ballooning costs that threaten the long-term viability of their BRT programs.

Peter Sutherland on “Migration as Development”

Yet migration is the original strategyfor people seeking to escape poverty, mitigate risk, and build a better life. It has been with us since the dawn of mankind, and its economic impact today is massive. Migrant remittances exceed the value of all overseas development aid combined, to say nothing of the taxes that migrants pay, the investments they make, and the trade they stimulate.…Beyond the data, there is no greater symbol of the world’s growing interdependence than the movement of people. If we can make meaningful economic progress in the coming generations, one of the pivotal reasons will be that people are allowed to move more freely. Advanced countries, with their adverse demographic trends, need migrants, as do developing countries – not only for migrants’ economic contributions, but also for the social and cultural diversity that they bring.This is not to deny that migration has downsides. But migration is here to stay, and it is growing. There can be no return to a monoethnic past, so successful societies will need to adapt to diversity.