The DnD Sanctuary

This thread is about cities and civilised life; the centralised conglomeration of constructions and the people who live in or under them, as well as the people passing by; their planners, shapers, and runners; their light, their shade and activities; their impact on the world around them and on each other; citizen getting along or across with citizen; their tools, trade, and technology; their growth and decay; and whatever else it takes to finish this sentence.

Be urbane.

Let's start with a map over where the cities are, and where they are going.

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.humanosphere.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F04%2FUrbangrowthLATimes-620x432.png&hash=cf171ba4182a4306b21091fd67ba8061" rel="cached" data-hash="cf171ba4182a4306b21091fd67ba8061" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.humanosphere.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/UrbangrowthLATimes-620x432.png)

Here is a stab at Comparing Urban Footprints Around the World (http://matthartzell.blogspot.se/2013/09/infogeographic-comparing-urban.html) (physical shape and size, and their population)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-xC_GH9MDG7U%2FUjmUwei6VkI%2FAAAAAAAAKjQ%2FpLotkK8TgCY%2Fs1600%2FUrban%2BFootprints.png&hash=2893f1c3571e9ded818eedfdf25e5519" rel="cached" data-hash="2893f1c3571e9ded818eedfdf25e5519" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xC_GH9MDG7U/UjmUwei6VkI/AAAAAAAAKjQ/pLotkK8TgCY/s1600/Urban+Footprints.png)

Let's start with a map over where the cities are, and where they are going.

The growth rate in Africa isn't surprising, but I didn't know Japan had a negative growth rate.

Here is a stab at Comparing Urban Footprints Around the World (http://matthartzell.blogspot.se/2013/09/infogeographic-comparing-urban.html) (physical shape and size, and their population)

I was confused by Amsterdam, but then I realized it was including different cities like Haarlem and IJmuiden. And even though it's a distinguishing feature, the IJ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(Amsterdam)) does not seem to have been excluded, which was responsible for my difficulty finding my bearings.

I'm sorry but I don't understand the second map. Cities as São Paulo, Beijing, Shangai or Mexico City have more population than the American cities at the top of the picture but are represented smaller. What's the criteria for the scale of the cities? just the real physical dimension?

What's the criteria for the scale of the cities? just the real physical dimension?

Exactly. The second image is a nice illustration:

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-Quul6ofX4nU%2FUjmWpcuptRI%2FAAAAAAAAKjk%2FPyVspDBTAg0%2Fs640%2FVisualizing%2BAtlanta%2527s%2BSprawl.png&hash=74330c21415a1323d1c90adf5eff9857" rel="cached" data-hash="74330c21415a1323d1c90adf5eff9857" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Quul6ofX4nU/UjmWpcuptRI/AAAAAAAAKjk/PyVspDBTAg0/s640/Visualizing+Atlanta%27s+Sprawl.png)

That's incredible, I was not aware of this.

Needless to say that the cost per inhabitant at a city as Atlanta is an absurd in terms of streets, illumination, etc.

The growth rate in Africa isn't surprising, but I didn't know Japan had a negative growth rate.

There are two forces joining in most places in Africa, rapid population growth and very rapid urbanisation. Most Africans lived in the countryside, they won't in the future. Almost the opposite is happening in Japan. There the population is actually shrinking and the urbanisation rate is 91%, and the remaining 9% is likely to be remaining.

I was confused by Amsterdam, but then I realized it was including different cities like Haarlem and IJmuiden. And even though it's a distinguishing feature, the IJ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(Amsterdam)) does not seem to have been excluded, which was responsible for my difficulty finding my bearings.

While it would be interesting to compare the spread of cities this way, it is ultimately arbitrary. Except island states there is no place where the city ends and non-city starts. The best you can hope for is like for like, that the criteria are the same all over.

I meant that Amsterdam didn't look like Amsterdam because there wasn't a big lake in the middle of it. Including Haarlem and IJmuiden is fair enough, although if you do that you probably ought to include a whole lot more (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randstad).

Cities are wrong.
There's no more justification for cities and even less the gigantic, insect colony like, kind of metropolis that exists today.
The problems such cities creates are insoluble.

The problems such cities creates...

"The problems such cities create".
For nouns and for verbs sigmatisation is opposite by the grammatical number. The verb gets sigmatised only in the present simple ONLY acting on a third person singular NP.

You are off topic Josh. You are always off topic Josh.

If I was a moderator I would ban you but at a creatively way. I would open a thread, the only thread where you would be allowed to post, just for having you repeating the alphabet one hundred times.

I've not decided yet if you would have to do it while wearing donkey ears or not...

You are off topic Josh. You are always off topic Josh.

I'm not offtopic Josh.
And I'm not Offtopic Josh either.

You are off topic Josh. You are always off topic Josh.

If I was a moderator I would ban you....

If everybody here banned somebody they disagreed with, there would be no posters left.

:o WILL THE LAST POSTER PLEASE TURN OFF THE LIGHT AND CLOSE THE DOOR. :cry:

Urbanization - in the sense I use it, as "urbanism" meaning the architecture's specialty about creating and developing cities - has been producing systematically, under the pressure of wrong economic and populational models, as well as suicidal policies of territory occupation, nightmares instead of places where human beings can live according what is natural to human beings to live.

Such cities are like social, economical and energetic cancers that kills nations.

Since the world moves on several different velocities, it happens that while some are already seeing the obvious of what I mentioned above, others still desperately wants to create more of such nightmares.

The 25 Most Gorgeous Cities To Visit Before You Die (http://news.distractify.com/culture/trip-advisor-top-cities/?v=1)

I realized I only got 7 cities left to live.

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.distractify.netdna-cdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F%2F2014%2F04%2F2324-934x.jpg&hash=a600aef016daca4d7a140abfe55c5c12" rel="cached" data-hash="a600aef016daca4d7a140abfe55c5c12" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.distractify.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads//2014/04/2324-934x.jpg)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.distractify.netdna-cdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F%2F2014%2F04%2F4313-934x.jpg&hash=0d162916c1a994420a7b0a296908ea3c" rel="cached" data-hash="0d162916c1a994420a7b0a296908ea3c" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.distractify.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads//2014/04/4313-934x.jpg)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.distractify.netdna-cdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F%2F2014%2F04%2F5312-934x.jpg&hash=98a865b06143cea389c36d7ae993f1a9" rel="cached" data-hash="98a865b06143cea389c36d7ae993f1a9" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.distractify.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads//2014/04/5312-934x.jpg)

The 25 Most Gorgeous Cities To Visit Before You Die (http://news.distractify.com/culture/trip-advisor-top-cities/?v=1)

I realized I only got 7 cities left to live.

I hope these numbered lists would die already. ;)

25 numbered lists to read before you die?

(the last photograph)

Here you're obviously gonna die!
:lol:

I have a near disabling fear of heights...that one gave me an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.

Denmark's urban planning.
Wanting to live as paramecium...
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.squarespace.com%2Fstatic%2F52b3aae6e4b00492bb71aa3d%2Ft%2F533c7b9fe4b0b65c534f1cdd%2F1395244172597%2FBr%C3%B8nby%2520Haveby.jpg%3Fformat%3D1000w&hash=209beed0ff6524b24832b7ae77ac7983" rel="cached" data-hash="209beed0ff6524b24832b7ae77ac7983" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://static.squarespace.com/static/52b3aae6e4b00492bb71aa3d/t/533c7b9fe4b0b65c534f1cdd/1395244172597/Brønby%20Haveby.jpg?format=1000w)

From www.overv.eu

paramecium

Paramecium (pron. parruh-MEE-cee-uhm) is a genus of unicellular Ciliate protozoa, commonly studied as a representative of the Ciliate group.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramecium

Wanting to live as paramecium...

My uncle lives a little bit like that, albeit in a suburb of Rotterdam. I think they built it in the '70s.

I looked them up, they are not quite the suburban hell wheels you would think, but communal gardens. In other words they would be more like pseudo-agrarian hell wheels or simply cottages.

Brøndby haveby (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%B8ndby_haveby) started in 1964,  turning 50 this year.

Some allotments are fairly modest, others a little more fancy.

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.panoramio.com%2Fphotos%2Flarge%2F10310269.jpg&hash=1475e721a1976dbc805184bd2167d0fc" rel="cached" data-hash="1475e721a1976dbc805184bd2167d0fc" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/10310269.jpg)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.guloggratis.dk%2F87%2F73896887_906_1024_0_0_0_0_2.png&hash=75d220ca679e56ddc558fc747063e85f" rel="cached" data-hash="75d220ca679e56ddc558fc747063e85f" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://images.guloggratis.dk/87/73896887_906_1024_0_0_0_0_2.png)

The Paramecium comparison is fair enough, but I got associations closer to Volvox.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.craftfinder.org.uk%2Fckfinder%2Fuserfiles%2Fimages%2FMirandaSharpe%2FMicroscope.jpg&hash=2674a37284c7290838278d5d6153bff6" rel="cached" data-hash="2674a37284c7290838278d5d6153bff6" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.craftfinder.org.uk/ckfinder/userfiles/images/MirandaSharpe/Microscope.jpg)

Which is as good an excuse as any to turn to sports.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl98-HwR15s[/video]

I looked them up, they are not quite the suburban hell wheels you would think, but communal gardens. In other words they would be more like pseudo-agrarian hell wheels or simply cottages.

In other words, a place to take girl friends there. :)
Smart vikings.

Prague is, according to a Huffing post, "Europe's Prettiest City (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/proof-that-prague-is-europes-prettiest-city_n_5282587.html)" (though I don't think the pictures "proved" that case, and they asked if we wouldn't want to drink beer in one of the few restaurants in Prague I wouldn't want to drink beer in). It might be, there are competitors, but what makes a city pretty?

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.huffpost.com%2Fgen%2F1782431%2Fthumbs%2Fo-PRAHA-900.jpg%3F1&hash=a106045494db7f50b79e14841aa2378a" rel="cached" data-hash="a106045494db7f50b79e14841aa2378a" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1782431/thumbs/o-PRAHA-900.jpg?1)

The mood of the beholder.

A kindly picture that and looks like something out of a fairy tale book. An attractive place I have overlooked so far.

A kindly picture that and looks like something out of a fairy tale book. An attractive place I have overlooked so far.

That's the middle of the old city. Much of it looks kinda like that. Looks like the picture was taken across the Vltava, the castle should be ~90 degrees to the left. Very nice gothic cathedral they've got there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Vitus_Cathedral), with suitably grotesque grotesques all over it.

I might add that Prague looks absolutely amazing with a light layer of snow (much better than the one in the Huffing — I like that — Post shows). A few pictures illustrating the concept can be found here (http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/travel/Destinations/Europe/article1342648.ece). Also, -15°C felt significantly warmer than -3 to -5ish °C at home, due to the lack of wind.

You  were lucky. There has been some really cold winters, but mostly it hovers around freezing. It's not the lack of wind that makes cold more endurable, but the lack of humidity. A cold spell, with frozen rivers and open water, freeze-dries the air. Dry cold air is much more pleasant than wet cold air, even when the former is colder.

It's not the lack of wind that makes cold more endurable, but the lack of humidity.

So when there was moderate wind at the same temperature the day before, it was just more humid? ;)

What you're saying is that at the same wind speed, less humidity feels warmer. I have no opinion about that. I'm saying is that I grew up within 5 minutes of the sea, and even a city like Utrecht barely has any wind at all.

I might add that Prague looks absolutely amazing with a light layer of snow (much better than the one in the Huffing — I like that — Post shows). A few pictures illustrating the concept can be found here (http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/travel/Destinations/Europe/article1342648.ece). Also, -15°C felt significantly warmer than -3 to -5ish °C at home, due to the lack of wind.

I'm sure the hot, spiced ( and possibly spiked ) wine they sell at pretty much every corner had nothing to do with it :right:

Wind or humidity? Around here in the Winter, when they want to tell you the "real feel" temperatures they always figure the actual temps and the wind speed. I've never heard of them figuring in the humidity.

In the Summer, the misery index always figures the actual temps and the humidity-- wind speed is never mentioned. The more humid the air, the hotter you feel in the Summer.

The only thing I see much of about humidity in Winter concerns indoor air. You have to heat air, the air you're heating is already pretty dry (cold air holds less moisture than warm air) so it's not hard to get desert conditions inside your home. Running a humidifier helps you to feel a bit warmer by putting needed moisture into the air.

I'm sure the hot, spiced ( and possibly spiked ) wine they sell at pretty much every corner had nothing to do with it

I'm not a big fan. There was also lots of cheap (but decent) beer though. :P

Wind or humidity? Around here in the Winter, when they want to tell you the "real feel" temperatures they always figure the actual temps and the wind speed. I've never heard of them figuring in the humidity.

It might make sense that more humidity (even though at low temperatures that means practically nothing) at least could feel colder. After all, the layer of warm air around your body that has to be heated before you feel warm(ish) would take longer to heat due to the water contents. But wind often successfully tries to get rid of that warmed up air regardless of the humidity.

On the other hand, the effect of sea mist blowing in in large quantities (which happens frequently in winter) feels more like a warm blanket even if the humidity is 100% and you're getting as wet as if it were raining. I suspect that has more to do with the relative lack of wind (otherwise the mist'd be blown away pretty quickly) than with the humidity, though.

This (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8731046/Bonn-prostitutes-to-use-parking-meters.html), this is an Urban Affair.

The ticket machines come as the latest step in Bonn's drive to increase tax revenue from prostitution as it wrestles with financial problems. Earlier this year the city introduced a "sex tax", and it expects the levy to raise annual revenue of £265,000 for the city's coffers.

Sex tax??? Sex park meters??? and people accepts such Nazi impositions...
Germans... that's what they want to do to the entire world. It's Krake's fault.

I'll shoot the first sex tax collector that appears in front of me.

Sex tax??? Sex park meters??? and people accepts such Nazi impositions...
Germans... that's what they want to do to the entire world. It's Krake's fault.

The means of taxation sounds a bit odd, but why should the prostitution business have a tax exempt status?

why should the prostitution business have a tax exempt status?

By the very simple reason that what happens between a man and a woman at their privacy is not a government matter.

Between a customer and a service provider in this case, the genders involved are kind of immaterial, except possibly to the parties in question, the financial transaction is not.

Between a customer and a service provider in this case,

There's no customer nor service provider, you are reducing them to that (as it is also the current trend at the servant media). You, me or anyone else have nothing to do with two people making sex and their private arrangements for it, even less the financial or economical authorities.

Financial transaction? where? are you there to proof it? If any, it will be probably a small gift, basically a gesture of courtesy...
If there were any relationship client/customer, then, at the light of any customer's law and protection system, people could complain if not satisfied and have their money back, which per itself demonstrates the absurd of considering prostitution an object of taxes as any other economical activity.

This is one more matter of fundamental rights being violated by the State.

A few European cities are doing it the right way, low car's velocity to 20km/h inside the city. I's better for everyone, much safer for walking people, children and cyclists and has no costs. A sane convivial amongst all the different types of street users is the right way for civilized cities.
Besides, much more automobilists will use bicycles - less pollution, less oil dependence.

That is generally a good idea, and also one way to limit through traffic as opposed to to (and from) traffic. Where people live and act, cars have to move at people speed. It's a good principle.

Quote from: Jоsh on 2014-05-17, 08:46:00

Total car speed limiting to such a low as 20 won't be good for the air conditions.

On the contrary (http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9676&page=369#p20003296ttt00035).

Quote

Research in Germany has shown that the greater the speed of vehicles in built-up areas, the higher is the incidence of acceleration, deceleration, and braking, all of which increase air pollution. German research indicates that traffic calming reduces idle times by 15 percent, gear changing by 12 percent, brake use by 14 percent, and gasoline use by 12 percent (Newman and Kenworthy 1992, 39–40).

NB 20 miles per hour = 30 km per hour.

Yes, lower speed means less pollution and better fuel economy, but obviously also longer travel time and poorer vehicle utilisation (measured in the value increase of the people or products moved per time unit).

One good approach is the growth of [img=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-emission_zone]http://low-emission zones[/img], where (too) polluting vehicles are banned.

Higher population densities (i.e. dense cities) means that more goods can be transported in fewer vehicles over shorter distances, an environmental and economic benefit. However this has been counteracted by the growth of internet shopping. Traditionally goods have been store-bought, leading to a network of stores and warehouses. Home delivery leads to an increase in individual home transport of smaller units and an increase in total transport, putting a strain on even high-density areas.

It is performed quite simply and smoothly in Beijing. Goods arrive the city into large debarking areas, sometimes with attached warehouses and wholesale markets, from there and internally goods are transported by vans into and between logistics centres scattered around cities. The last mile (or half mile) is done by transport bicycles or scooters. They are much more efficient than vans, but is based on the easy availability of cheap migrant labour.

A city inhabited by ascetics and rich minimalists (having few but insanely expensive things) would have less need of a transport network, but any reasonably affluent city, or even poor ones for that matter, move a lot of stuff around. The city will have to accommodate for that somehow.

Alternatively we have Venice, Italy (Venezia), where everything is transported by handcart or by boat.

However this has been counteracted by the growth of internet shopping. Traditionally goods have been store-bought, leading to a network of stores and warehouses. Home delivery leads to an increase in individual home transport of smaller units and an increase in total transport, putting a strain on even high-density areas.

Electric vehicles are the solution alongside with physical distributed logistic models, not concentrated.

Most Dutch and Belgian online shops allow for pick-up at a store (https://www.kiala.com/concept) or post office. I tend to prefer that over delivery at some hour when you're quite probably not at home.

That being said, I'm not entirely sure what jax means by a strain. It's not like the roads are clogged by delivery vehicles. Also, bicycle (or scooter) couriers tend to have better travel times regardless of the speed limit, for the simple reason of congestion.

I prefer to have somebody else to take delivery of my stuff as well. An exception is that my  :beer: delivery, a Beijing perk, goes straight home. I don't do grocery deliveries, but if these, like internet shopping in general, happen within the hour and not like today next day or next week, home delivery would get the edge.

Calling goods transport a strain may be an exaggeration, but a slight one, and some places it is no exaggeration at all, like here in China. Internet shopping is clogging the arteries, though in this case it is a part of the general transition from nothing to buy → local stores → shopping malls → internet shopping within a couple decades.

The problem is particularly large upstream. You can't pack and ship internet shop packages as efficient as you can stack homogeneous products. Internet packages are essentially packages of packages, and you wouldn't want to use lossy compression techniques to make them smaller either.

However, goods transport is very significant in the cities as well, particularly the city cores. Counted in vehicles the vast majority consists of private vehicles. However, most of these are used for the five times daily commute. A private car spends almost all of its working life unused, parked somewhere. Not so the van or the heavy truck. Not only do they travel much more, they have a much higher payload. The commuter payload is the driver and maybe a cup of :coffee:, while delivery vans and trucks are typically filled up. This makes them heavier, with disproportionate damage to the roads and pollution to the environment.

A Norwegian study showed that while private cars comprise 70% of the traffic in major urban areas, they only cause 30% of the NO2 pollution (I couldn't see any data for other pollutants), 60% are caused by vans and (especially) heavy transports, 10% by buses. The city cores tend to have much less private car traffic than the city in general.

A most important Urban Affair is for how too long doggie owners will keep letting their animals to poo all over the place.

Spot on with that onee about damn dogs, In some places here i have seen the City Council with cards on lampposts asking people to notify them of such. Recently, I chased a dashed dog owner who was going to let his mutt keech (good Scots word) at the start of my driveway. Bleeding arrogant nerve! When you get two or more dog owners passing they often end up in a group having a forum like some secret society.

I slipped on a dog turd and while I was cleaning my shoe someone else slipped on the same turd .
I smiled sympathetically at him and said "I did that a couple of minutes ago" and he punched me.

I slipped on a dog turd and while I was cleaning my shoe someone else slipped on the same turd .
I smiled sympathetically at him and said "I did that a couple of minutes ago" and he punched me.

What a barbarism.
It must have been in the land of kangaroos.

Just imagine kangaroos pooping all over the place and then jumping and jumping and jumping.
Thankfully, It seems that Australians uses to kill them with automobiles. Kind of national sport.
Second to drinking beer of course.

That's ridiculous tt92 just because you beat him to it. Damnable envy.

From the above urbane musings from westernmost Europe to grand, but ultimately failed, urban plans in Incheon, westernmost South Korea:

Build it and they will come? Korea's whopping US$275 billion tourism city plan (http://travel.cnn.com/korea-8city-tourism-hub-incheon-789461)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.cdn.travel.cnn.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Farticle_large%2Fpublic%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2Feightcity-main.jpg%3Fitok%3DW45y0QzQ&hash=b70f6d70bf70d2132c5254396dd2ba20" rel="cached" data-hash="b70f6d70bf70d2132c5254396dd2ba20" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i.cdn.travel.cnn.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_large/public/2012/11/05/eightcity-main.jpg?itok=W45y0QzQ)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.cdn.travel.cnn.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Finline_image_624x416%2Fpublic%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F8city2.jpg%3Fitok%3DZ7uWVHbQ&hash=656f61b54147c1a7fd83cfbe242b3886" rel="cached" data-hash="656f61b54147c1a7fd83cfbe242b3886" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i.cdn.travel.cnn.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_image_624x416/public/2012/11/05/8city2.jpg?itok=Z7uWVHbQ)

If you like me like to read city plans, here's one for Stockholm (http://www.stockholm.se/PageFiles/237245/Eng_Framkomlighetss%239AC5171.pdf).

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stockholm.se%2FPageFiles%2F237245%2Fbuss_cyklist_K6A9511blurr.jpg&hash=1cee8ba6dd5d5a3dcb2de7aa21e25258" rel="cached" data-hash="1cee8ba6dd5d5a3dcb2de7aa21e25258" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.stockholm.se/PageFiles/237245/buss_cyklist_K6A9511blurr.jpg)

BBC clip from Astana, Kazakhstan’s 21st-century capital (http://www.bbc.com/travel/video/worlds-wonders/20130605-astana-kazakhstans-21st-century-capital).

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fichef.bbci.co.uk%2Fwwtravel%2F624_351%2Fimages%2Flive%2Fp0%2F1b%2F0w%2Fp01b0wwd.jpg&hash=d5a640e481cfb5039b5b08440b658757" rel="cached" data-hash="d5a640e481cfb5039b5b08440b658757" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwtravel/624_351/images/live/p0/1b/0w/p01b0wwd.jpg) (http://www.bbc.com/travel/video/worlds-wonders/20130605-astana-kazakhstans-21st-century-capital)

Now I've moved district from Chaoyang to Tongzhou in Beijing province, so this is a good excuse to play this talk, Learning from... Tongzhou (http://www.cca.qc.ca/en/education-events/2369-learning-from-tongzhou), comparing Tongzhou with the Dutch planned town of Almere (which has a somewhat comparable role to Amsterdam).

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnaqsPZXSSg[/video]

In summary, less central planning tends to be better except for some infrastructure stuff?

Pretty much. I basically agree, mind you, but she didn't put much substance behind it except, "I like that" or "I don't like that", which was somewhat disappointing. However it did show some differences between  Northern Chinese and European cities, though it was an interesting role reversal to pick a European case for the planned city. All Chinese cities are planned, even when receiving huge organic growth. The land law exacerbates this. It is more complicated  than this, but two main models are smallholder property and leased land. The former tend to be rural and the latter urban (an important distinction in China).

Smallholder land has less legal protection than leased land. In principle you could build your own house there, but in practice it is the village that does it, and they tend to go for a readymade model, usually one or a couple templates, it gives more money to the village. Leased land is leased for (now usually) 50 years for commercial or commercial-residential lots and 70 years for residential, and are auctioned off by the city to the bidding developers. Each developer build the houses in their style, same for all houses in the lot, except for a few developers, bless'em, that design variety, planned variety. It's all very Sim City. I am living, on leased land, on the other side of the street of a city block which fairly recently was a village, with a lively village market, surrounded by store fronts and 8-10 lane streets.

The interesting thing is what happens next, which is kind of the gist of her talk. In Europe planned cities remain planned, for a while anyway, less so in Chinese cities depending on how "European" they are, so to speak. Hong Kong has a strong 'stick with the plan' culture, Singapore more so, Shanghai considerably less but way more than most Chinese cities, including Beijing, which still, being the capital, is under more supervision than other Chinese cities, especially inland cities, where people do, and can get away, with most anything.

This thread is about cities and civilised life;

There's no civilized life in cities.
Polis aren't what it used to be, small villages by the countryside are the best option for those who cares about civilization.

In Europe planned cities remain planned, for a while anyway,...

What makes a city planned? Doesn't for example a medieval city wall pretty strictly delimit the area where one can put one's house? In modern cities we have the infrastructure (water and sewage pipes, electricity cables, etc.) without which I don't even consider the place a city, and the infrastructure inevitably requires central planning and administration. So, what is an unplanned city? Is it a slum? A refugee camp?

Planned city (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_community#China). You build a city after a plan, in previously unused or disused land (sometimes after kicking out those that used it before), so that the initial number of citizen is 0. Most cities grow organically, a village or town that grows in number and size, swallowing up other villages or towns as it grows.

Most people have a dim view of planned cities, including me and I suspect you. They lack the variety and flexibility that more organically grown cities have. Of course urbanisation is always the result of human planning, including slums and refugee camps, but an overarching master plan may be lacking.

Of course cities first start living when people move in and make them theirs, and that's usually where the plans end.

Cities (mega cities) are destroying man's soul.
Destroy the cities and liberate yourself. Humans aren't insects for living in mega colonies of millions.

You are so right there on cities.

Here back in the 1950's it was thought that my city was overcrowded and indeed it was. A massive housing plan went into operation which moved many elsewhere in Scotland as well as some inside the city boundary. Back then the population was around 1,089,000 but now is just over 500,000. Interestingly at the same time we were always the British city with more park space than many other cities in the country.

Science films that have hundreds of thousands living in massive skyscrapers can be passingly amusing but in places there is some of that going on. Every time green sites fall is sad and putting a blight on the future.

Yes, Glasgow is a bit like a Scottish Detroit.

Oh, yes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyll_(car)). ;)

How elementary a comment jax and you thought you were bright.

Here in Gt Britain unlike the US of A a city could not become a Detroit and fine you well know it. We do not have as a passing fact (should tell you this due to being so would-be funnily stupid) street after street, neighbourhood after each other lying deserted, the fire brigade constantly out putting out fires (Detroit has the US record) nor legions of homeless due to the City council building public housing at reasonable rents. Nor do we have over 200,000 people with no water for drinking, washing or sewage. Our city also seen the sense of more green space even though Glasgow has more park space than any other city here. So for all your daft attempt at satire alongside that last also idiotic follow up is a bit pointless.  Things like detroit in the modern advanced countries can only happen in the land of freedom. Starve them, throw them out ot leave them waterless like a Third World State. Glasgow has hosted the Garden City thing and was also picked to be the place for the outstanding British Commonwealth Games so I can smile of course.

Mind you there is a reason. The bulk of the Detroit population are back so in America that is you out of the window and a more important point than a poor attempt at sniping at a modern and friendly city. That point is made even more obvious by the numbers of whites who did white flight and even the decent couldn't do much and knew it. Neat how you both hadn't the grey cells to know that.

As honesty is important I have to admit to something. I did smile at those last two comments and I shouldn't have laughed at idiots trying to be satirical and failing miserably.  :jester: (suit that smiley mind you!)

How elementary a comment jax and you thought you were bright.

So I did. Oh well.

Cities are organisms that don't take well to slimming. Growth is a challenge, but decline is a much greater one. In the case of Glasgow it is primarily an administrative one, not a structural one, like it is with Detroit.

Speaking of "humane, resilient and joyful cities" like Detroit and Glasgow, Is Jan Gehl winning his battle to make our cities liveable? (http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/dec/08/jan-gehl-make-cities-liveable-urban-rethinker)

Ahead of a special Guardian Cities event, the renowned urban ‘rethinker’ says cities should be six or seven storeys high, Helsinki is on the verge of revolution, and that he’s sceptical of London’s cycle superhighway plans
What makes your city liveable?

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fstatic%2Fw-620%2Fh--%2Fq-95%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2014%2F12%2F8%2F1418054286545%2F1e0f5bbb-5cbd-43e0-8c7d-b248bc2f09b5-620x413.jpeg&hash=bb3d4c89f0e9d5889fc64005488b81ee" rel="cached" data-hash="bb3d4c89f0e9d5889fc64005488b81ee" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/12/8/1418054286545/1e0f5bbb-5cbd-43e0-8c7d-b248bc2f09b5-620x413.jpeg)

Jan Gehl had just graduated as an architect; it was 1960 and he had been schooled in how to “do modern cities, with high-rises and a lot of lawns and good open space – good windy spaces”. About to put those years of study into practice, he met his future wife, psychologist Ingrid Mundt, and everything changed. In the years that followed, he would develop the thinking that has made him a pioneer of so-called “liveable cities” around the world.

Meeting Ingrid, someone who had studied “people rather than bricks”, says Gehl over the phone from Copenhagen, catalysed a host of discussions between young architects and young psychologists questioning why architects were not really interested in people, how architecture can “influence people’s lives”, and “how cities are used by people”. Ultimately the idea was to think up ways to make cities “that people would be happier using”.

Typically, says the 78-year-old – not long off a plane from Japan but sounding sharp – “the main focus [of urban planning] has been to keep the cars happy”. But Gehl, bolstered by psychological thinking, spent the next 40 years developing principles based on how the shape of cities can impact on the human lives lived within them, rather than on traffic efficiency and parking spaces.

Speaking of "humane, resilient and joyful cities" like Detroit and Glasgow, Is Jan Gehl winning his battle to make our cities liveable? (http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/dec/08/jan-gehl-make-cities-liveable-urban-rethinker)

I don't know how much impact this particular guy has, but I sure hope so.

Here in Gt Britain unlike the US of A a city could not become a Detroit and fine you well know it.

http://metro.co.uk/2007/10/14/middlesbrough-named-worst-place-to-live-301584/ (http://metro.co.uk/2007/10/14/middlesbrough-named-worst-place-to-live-301584/)

And from the Guardian....

"If things carry on as they are now," says Alex Niven, a leftwing writer from Northumberland, "in five years the situation will get somewhere like Detroit." Several other authorities in the north-east that I interviewed invoked the long-imploding American city, unprompted. He left the area 10 years ago, aged 18, and now lives in London. "Almost all my friends from school live in London now. When you go back to the north-east, the landscape's kind of crumbling. There is this sort of sadness. It feels like a people who've been weakened, who've just been cut loose."

You have well missed the point there jimbro. I wouldn't want to live in posh Edinburgh even though it looks 2nice." There is no comparison between that town being the least one to visit and places going bankrupt. Neithr is the town decrepit it is an atmosphere thing. That you cleared out the place you were brogue up is noted. You totally went distant and it does not contradict what i said that a Detroit could only happen in the USA unfortunately not here in GB.  That English town is not a dump like Detroit has become so sadly for a modern country and that such things happen is a head shaker.

Meeting Ingrid, someone who had studied “people rather than bricks”, says Gehl over the phone from Copenhagen, catalysed a host of discussions between young architects and young psychologists questioning why architects were not really interested in people, how architecture can “influence people’s lives”, and “how cities are used by people”. Ultimately the idea was to think up ways to make cities “that people would be happier using”.

Speaking of Copenhagen, a luminary article from New York Times: Copenhagen Lighting the Way to Greener, More Efficient Cities (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/business/energy-environment/copenhagen-lighting-the-way-to-greener-more-efficient-cities.html)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic01.nyt.com%2Fimages%2F2014%2F12%2F09%2Fbusiness%2FCopenhagenjp1%2FCopenhagenjp1-articleLarge.jpg&hash=4e334d786fa8d5841641b26d444541fe" rel="cached" data-hash="4e334d786fa8d5841641b26d444541fe" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/12/09/business/Copenhagenjp1/Copenhagenjp1-articleLarge.jpg)

The system, still in its early stages, has put Copenhagen on the leading edge of a global race to use public outdoor lighting as the backbone of a vast sensory network capable of coordinating a raft of functions and services: whether easing traffic congestion, better predicting where to salt before a snowstorm or, to the alarm of privacy advocates, picking up on suspicious behavior on a busy street corner.

Cities worldwide are expected to replace 50 million aging fixtures with LEDs over the next three years, with roughly half of those in Europe. Some are mainly interested in switching from outmoded technologies to one that uses less energy and can last for decades. But many others want to take full advantage of the LED’s electronics, which are more conducive to wireless communication than other types of lighting.

Los Angeles, for example, has almost completed the switch to outdoor LED lighting and is using sensors embedded in the pavement to detect traffic congestion and synchronize signals.

Why mayors should rule the world
http://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_barber_why_mayors_should_rule_the_world

It often seems like federal-level politicians care more about creating gridlock than solving the world's problems. So who's actually getting bold things done? City mayors. So, political theorist Benjamin Barber suggests: Let's give them more control over global policy. Barber shows how these "urban homeboys" are solving pressing problems on their own turf — and maybe in the world.

They might be already, Cities as Economic Units Rather than Countries (http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2013/01/25/mckinsey-cities-as-economic-units-rather-than-countries).

---

Urbanized (http://www.hustwit.com/about-urbanized/), a documentary


[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJ1HkePhws[/video]

Stockholm, the satellite capital to my new hometown Södertälje, is "the only non-Asian city in the top 5 for personal safety (https://twitter.com/TheEIU/status/569785029049479170)" [of the cities included], according to Safe Cities Index (http://safecities.economist.com/).

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-SK3dsIMAA4DoK.png)

Um, what? Amsterdam is the unsafest municipality in the Netherlands in terms of theft, burglary, violence and wanton destruction per capita (source (http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1401/home/integration/nmc/frameset/nieuws/misdaadmeter.dhtml)).

Anyway, here's how the report (http://safecities.economist.com/whitepapers/safe-cities-index-white-paper/) explains ranking Brussels lower than Mexico City:

Nor do Rome and Brussels perform well.
Europe’s ancient and modern capital cities
are ranked 40th and 41st, respectively. This
could be explained by the prevalence of petty
crimes, such as muggings, bag snatching and
pick-pocketing, which the US State Department
warns American travellers about in its
advisories on both cities.

This is a competition between a select number of cities, 50 "global" cities (http://safecities.economist.com/whitepapers/safe-cities-index-white-paper/), 13 cities in Europe (Stockholm most safe/Moscow least safe), 7 in North America except Mexico (Toronto/Washington DC), 6 in Latin America (Santiago/Mexico city), 6 in Middle East and Africa (Abu Dhabi/Tehran), 18 in Asia-Pacific (Tokyo/Jakarta). This seems to be the first time around, the sample is likely to be bigger in the future.

I didn't see the weights, but I would assume most people place more value in personal safety and health over digital and infrastructure security.

6 in Middle East and Africa (Abu Dhabi/Tehran)

Ah yes, let's see how the woman in Femme de la Rue would do in one of those "safer" cities… :right:

I think those idiots of Isis instead of shooting a gazette no ones knows should shoot instead The Economist. That would be a benefit for the civilized world.

This Russian almost came to a bad end.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150805-how-not-to-land-a-fighter-jet (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150805-how-not-to-land-a-fighter-jet)

He did nothing wrong. Jet fighters are supposed to land in hard ways.
Passengers didn't complain.

Passengers didn't complain.

As the first sentence of the linked article said:

Landing a fast, single-seat jet fighter takes no little amount of skill.

Almost as much as posting here… But the likely results are more embarrassing! :)

Quote from: Belfrager on 2015-08-09, 16:38:56

Passengers didn't complain.

As the first sentence of the linked article said:

Quote

Landing a fast, single-seat jet fighter takes no little amount of skill.

Almost as much as posting here… But the likely results are more embarrassing! :)

We could have someone just specialized in explaining humour to the American mind...
And many more things by the way.

Specialisng and explaining to them. Wow, Belfrager, how ambitious! :lol:

Specialisng and explaining to them. Wow, Belfrager, how ambitious!  :lol:

?
It must be the English influence...

We could have someone just specialized in explaining humour to the American mind...

Oh. Too subtle for me, sir! And too clever by half… :)

As Beijing Becomes a Supercity, the Rapid Growth Brings Pains (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/world/asia/in-china-a-supercity-rises-around-beijing.html)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic01.nyt.com%2Fimages%2F2015%2F07%2F18%2Fworld%2Fasia%2FXXXX-SUPERCITY-slide-A7IX%2FXXXX-SUPERCITY-slide-A7IX-articleLarge.jpg&hash=c36e2d84b8859fbde82c5efcba8d3cc3" rel="cached" data-hash="c36e2d84b8859fbde82c5efcba8d3cc3" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/07/18/world/asia/XXXX-SUPERCITY-slide-A7IX/XXXX-SUPERCITY-slide-A7IX-articleLarge.jpg)

The issue here is not big-city-got-much bigger, but the relationship between cities and their hinterland. Arbitrary city boundaries prevent integration. "Jingjinji" is thus quite similar to Pearl River Delta (http://www.forbes.com/sites/megacities/2011/04/11/a-city-of-260-million-where-else-but-china/) and the Shanghai Delta supercities. All have regions of great suckage, Dongguan in the Pearl River, Yanjiao a good candidate by Beijing. They are doing better in Guangdong in my view, with better infrastructure and integration that will eventually save Dongguan from itself.

That picture is just depressing.

So right there it is sad.

This post is more on topic here, really.

Quote from: Belfrager on 2015-10-18, 20:25:52

Cars kills more than guns and no one conplains.

I do. This person (http://www.upworthy.com/i-never-realized-how-dumb-our-cities-are-until-i-saw-what-a-smart-one-looks-like) does too.

This post is more on topic here, really.

No, my post is more on topic where I've posted it, wherever it was.
But since my posts have the gift of ubiquity sense, meaning they make sense in more than one place at the same time, I agree with your post. :)

It happens that I deffend the return to horses as a way of locomotion.
Horses kills less than cars, are cheaper than cars, any country can produce them and horse riding is an Art.
Besides, you don't need a nazi's driver license, horses are genuinely democratic.

Would you believe that cars came into being as a way to respond to the pollution that horses caused?

Consider the problem of thousands of horses in a fairly close urban area. Horses aren't exactly discreet in where they do their business, so most city streets were something of a minefield. Worse--- for the longest time streets weren't even paved, so you had all of that mess in the mud of the streets. Fun.

By the time the automobile came on the scene, almost anything had to be better than the quagmire left by several thousand horses in a city like London or New York.

Today you think horses are cleaner than cars. They are--- because they're not so congested. They live on farms with open fields, and the few that do pull buggies do it in Amish communities that tend to be small and agrarian in the way they're set up. A farm with half a dozen horses is quite a different thing from a city with several hundred horses in the same area.

You miss the point, mjm: Belfrager is opposed to cities (…except those he'd frequent); they're unnatural, because people should be hunter/gatherers — except for the few "gentlemen" farmers, supported by serfs or slaves… :)

Belfrager can be opposed to cities all he likes. They've been around almost since the beginning, and cities show no sign of going away any time soon.

Not quite since the beginning mjsmsprt40 and i think that is a ;little stretching things. people live in small hamlets and groups and cities took a long time coming actually.

You miss the point, mjm: Belfrager is opposed to cities (…except those he'd frequent); they're unnatural, because people should be hunter/gatherers — except for the few "gentlemen" farmers, supported by serfs or slaves…  :)

Ohhh... Oakdale understands the main and founding principles of civilization... but since he's so altruist he atributtes it to me instead to himself... :)

Oakdale understands the main and founding principles of civilization...

Yes, I do understand the main and founding principles of civilization. Just as you do not understand their evolution… :)
The way the term "conservative" is most often used irks me. (Even Hayek seemed not to understand it.) Traditions usually have value, and institutions long traditioned likely have great value.

But -here in this neck of the woods- there's still an honorable and inexorable penchant for valuing the individual!
Not just the prancy-pants aristocrisy. Everyone.

But -here in this neck of the woods- there's still an honorable and inexorable penchant for valuing the individual!

And they say such things without start laughing immediately... amazing, indeed.

Let me see, since this is an urban thread, the symbol for such "valuing the individual" must be your skyscrapers, right? or ten million people plus cities?

6 Big European Cities With Plans to Go Car-Free (http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2015/10/6-european-cities-with-plans-to-go-car-free/411439)

Plans to ban private cars in parts of a downtown area have become so common among big European cities that it’s getting hard to keep track of them all. Since the start of 2014 alone at least six metros have announced ambitions to convert parts of their central districts into pedestrian havens with less automobile congestion and air pollution.

This overview is no doubt a consequence of the municipal election in Norway, in particular Oslo: Oslo moves to ban cars from city centre within four years (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/19/oslo-moves-to-ban-cars-from-city-centre-within-four-years).

For Oslo it is a smaller issue than it might seem. This applies to the historic core of the city, the old town if you like, except Oslo has an old town and the old town is on the outside. History, it's complicated. Either way it is a tiny part of today's city and only applies to private traffic, not public transport, goods transport, emergency vehicles and the like.

But increasingly the parts of the city built  before the cars took over the cities aree getting car-free. 

For Oslo it is a smaller issue than it might seem. This applies to the historic core of the city, the old town if you like, except Oslo has an old town and the old town is on the outside. History, it's complicated. Either way it is a tiny part of today's city and only applies to private traffic, not public transport, goods transport, emergency vehicles and the like.

But increasingly the parts of the city built  before the cars took over the cities aree getting car-free.

Some think that when cars are removed, stinking horses will take over. I would very much welcome horses in historical parts of cities that were originally built for people and horses, e.g. the medieval old town of Tallinn. Where cars cannot enter, but shops must be serviced, horses can do it.

Two decades ago the outright ban of (personal) motor vehicles was effected in Tallinn old town for a few years and it was good (for pedestrians, including the wandering groups of tourists). But then it occurred to the city council that it's more profitable to collect money from the inevitable breakage of traffic and parking rules on the medieval streets than allowing pedestrians have a life in that part of the city.  

They tried banning cars from State Street in Chicago's Loop. Made the street into a mall from Wacker Drive on the North to Van Buren on the South. The idea didn't work as well as they hoped. Sure, they kept cars off of State Street and turned that into a pedestrian mall--- that "worked" as far as that went. Problem is, State Street businesses suffered. Eventually, the Mall went the way of the dodo bird, and is no more.

Keeping cars apart from city center is nothing but an hypocrisy, aimed to satisfy the sense of guilty of the bourgeois populace that owns two or three cars by family.

Ban cars everywhere. It's false that the world economy needs desperately to move at car velocity in such a way that it justifies all the consequences cars cause.

Keeping cars apart from city center is nothing but an hypocrisy, aimed to satisfy the sense of guilty of the bourgeois populace that owns two or three cars by family.

Ban cars everywhere. It's false that the world economy needs desperately to move at car velocity in such a way that it justifies all the consequences cars cause.

Everybody has an idea that won't work. Banning cars everywhere is yours. Congratulations, I think....

They tried banning cars from State Street in Chicago's Loop. Made the street into a mall from Wacker Drive on the North to Van Buren on the South. The idea didn't work as well as they hoped. Sure, they kept cars off of State Street and turned that into a pedestrian mall--- that "worked" as far as that went. Problem is, State Street businesses suffered. Eventually, the Mall went the way of the dodo bird, and is no more.

You mean this one from 1979 (http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/03/11/why-was-the-state-street-pedestrian-mall-a-failure/)? That's half a lifetime ago, but failures have much more to teach than successes. This was in the middle of the lost decades of US cities. You let your inner cities decay, unlike cities elsewhere in the world. That failure too teaches many lessons, hopefully the right ones.

The Oslo case is different. The main street (from Central Station to the Royal Palace) became pedestrian just a few years before State Street in Chicago, and has grown a little into neighbouring streets over the decades. In many ways it is a typical European pedestrian main street, plenty of people and commerce, but the locals tend to stay away, including me. This leaves the street for the out-of-towners and tourists. It could be considered another form of decay, but tourists too need a place to be.

This is turning what back in 1979 would have been the whole downtown/city centre into a pedestrian(ish) area. 150 years ago it would have been the entire city (minus the 'burbs). It's a small area though, as Oslo was a small town, you can get across with a 15 minutes walk. Today it's about half the downtown/city core area.

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fap.mnocdn.no%2Fincoming%2Farticle8183687.ece%2Falternates%2Fw580c169%2FBilfri-pos1Rl4_3R.jpg%3Fupdated%3D290920151325&hash=b0cfd6d8ead598562a26ff49b401bcf7" rel="cached" data-hash="b0cfd6d8ead598562a26ff49b401bcf7" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://ap.mnocdn.no/incoming/article8183687.ece/alternates/w580c169/Bilfri-pos1Rl4_3R.jpg?updated=290920151325)

Oslo is a lot less car-centric than Chicago, or what Oslo used to be. 7% of central shopping is done by car. If half those take their shopping elsewhere, and the other half are willing to walk an additional couple hundred metes that would be a loss of 3-4%. That would probably be more than made up for by an increase traffic from the 93% walking, bicycling, taking public or other transport. Pedestrian streets lead to more business, as people linger longer. This in a time where central shopping/entertainment and suburban malls both face the competition from the internet.

Ban cars everywhere. It's false that the world economy needs desperately to move at car velocity in such a way that it justifies all the consequences cars cause.

It almost feels as if that sentiment were the intent of the Institut Curie's current slogan:
<img src=http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Curie1.png alt="Ensemble, prenons le cancer de vitesse">

Everybody has an idea that won't work. Banning cars everywhere is yours. Congratulations, I think...

If, at least, you could explain why it "won't work"... but you can't, because it works perfectly.
Since young age that humans are being indoctrinated that we need cars, we don't.

It almost feels as if that sentiment were the intent of the Institut Curie's current slogan:

My Fench got a little rusty since, unfortunately, French as the language of Culture, was killed for long ago and not substituted by anything, but that's a somehow strange slogan, isn't it?
Together, let's get the cancer of speed? or Together, let's get rapidly cancer?...

Le Français, il sont fous...

Le Français, il sont fous...

I believe that should be "il sont fous, ces Gaulois!" :)

but that's a somehow strange slogan, isn't it?
Together, let's get the cancer of speed? or Together, let's get rapidly cancer?...

Prendre means to take in more ways than one. Together, let's take on cancer quickly! (i.e. let's fight against…)

I kind of like it as Together, let's take on the cancer of speed.

In Dutch the same kind of ambiguity applies. Opnemen has similar meanings to take on or indeed prendre. To make matters simpler, in Dutch it's disambiguated by the addition of the word against (tegen). So you take on against cancer, rather than simply taking on cancer.

Prendre means to take in more ways than one. Together, let's take on cancer quickly! (i.e. let's fight against…)

I kind of like it as Together, let's take on the cancer of speed.

Yes, I was exploring the funny part of it... :)

P.S. well, maybe "funny" was not the most appropriate word to use. Dark humor.

What's going on in Houston, Texas, and what do you think about it?
Here's a clip from the NYT article.

Supporters said the ordinance was similar to those approved in 200 other cities and prohibited bias in housing, employment, city contracting and business services for 15 protected classes, including race, age, sexual orientation and gender identity. Opponents said the measure would allow men claiming to be women to enter women’s bathrooms and inflict harm, and that simple message — “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms” — was plastered on signs and emphasized in television and radio ads, turning the debate from one about equal rights to one about protecting women and girls from sexual predators.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/us/houston-voters-repeal-anti-bias-measure.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/us/houston-voters-repeal-anti-bias-measure.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fforgifs.com%2Fgallery%2Fd%2F239119-2%2FDress-bikini-trap.gif&hash=e56d66d4b140105dddb927dd76c39a82" rel="cached" data-hash="e56d66d4b140105dddb927dd76c39a82" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://forgifs.com/gallery/d/239119-2/Dress-bikini-trap.gif)

I like it!

The guy is clearly German. Only a German needs to dress as a woman just to take out the "soutien" to a girl...

A question of definitions, but China’s Pearl River Delta overtakes Tokyo as world’s largest megacity (http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jan/28/china-pearl-river-delta-overtake-tokyo-world-largest-megacity-urban-area)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi344.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp340%2FDalianon%2FApartment%2520Design%2FDa%2520Tu%2520and%2520Ping%2520Mian%2520Tu%2F2b3da7d9.jpg&hash=152e62caa6f3248f230d3626097af414" rel="cached" data-hash="152e62caa6f3248f230d3626097af414" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i344.photobucket.com/albums/p340/Dalianon/Apartment%20Design/Da%20Tu%20and%20Ping%20Mian%20Tu/2b3da7d9.jpg)

California City,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO3LUhFwx6k

Although I would find it boring it is fascinating and imaginative.

If I had any confidence in your ability to speak the Queen's English, I'd think you meant that anything "fascinating and imaginative" is boring, for you! :) But I don't.
So, you likely meant you expected it to boring but… But it's almost telly, eh? :) Suits your attention span.

Quite interesting coming from a bloke who lives in a country that tortures the English language. :sing:

So: You won't say which you meant? Is that because you don't know the difference? :)

Granted, Spanglish and Ebonics are almost as bad as Scots… But give us time!

 :hat:

This video is alright (not great, just alright):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQSxPzafO_k

Well the urban thing actually differs in countries I would suggest. Here railways expanded to the benefit of the less well off for example and changed society. On trams here they did not have the gaps of miles between routes as suggested in that film and so on.  it was an interesting film but not something that covers everywhere else.

This video is alright (not great, just alright):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQSxPzafO_k

There are some points on density and transport-oriented development (TOD). A living city is essentially a walking city. Not necessarily because the citizens will be walking, but because cities interact better on a human scale. That makes the cityscape you're in "here" and not "somewhere inbetween".

Compare New York City around  1955, 1985 and 2015. 1955 was the time the suburbs literally made inroads into NYC in the form of expressways and physical segregration (Robert Moses). While New York was a lively and highly enjoyable city in 1985 as well, it didn't put high emphasis on quality of life.  By 2015 projects like the High Line, Times Square, Hudson were more likely to happen.

Being a staunch Glaswegian (in case anyone was not aware) my city lost it's tram system in 1962. It was over 125 miles altogether and had been the largest outside London and I took 3 years to build it on a railway simulator programme i have. Even today our suburban railway which is mostly overhead electric is second to London. Although there has been like anywhere suburban growth the population is very much lower than decades ago. In the early 1980's around '81 or or 82 it was circa 1,089,000 but today over 500,000. And before some numpty comes on yakking there were 2 very constructive points.

Firstly here there were still big families (thing of the past nowadays except for immigrants) and overcrowding. But our politicians did something very progressive in building not just one but several new towns  and proved very popular.  So progressive politicians and the places thrived. Just shows what can be done.

But our politicians did something very progressive in building not just one but several new towns  and proved very popular.  So progressive politicians and the places thrived. Just shows what can be done.

This must be the time when the fairytale appears...

Shows how much you know and zilch an easy answer. We HAVE had new towns here but then we don't have to go with the begging bowl like south Europe.....

How many are strewn with minarets…? :)

None.  :P

Of course, you wouldn't notice (https://books.google.com/books?id=65A-KFw1GU8C&pg=PA578&lpg=PA578&dq=Glasgow+skyline+minarets&source=bl&ots=YXZJOkx7wy&sig=m0j5Z1xvrWU3ONMubfR7LJj-kn8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikv7TDv6fRAhUD7WMKHfhJCD0Q6AEIQzAJ#v=onepage&q=Glasgow%20skyline%20minarets&f=false)… :) 

Minarets gives to towns a fancy oriental atmosphere. I like it.
The belly dance is also good for culture and... art.

Ah yes, the oriental charm of an old garage or factory with a couple of towers added. :p

Consider more spires in a city a testudo formation against paratroopers, an invasion defence.

California City,

Reminds me of a plan someone had for a planned city of 250,000 in Lincoln County, Nevada. That's many times that county's current population of ~5,5000 and there isn't a whole lot of reason for that many people to live there, considering how long the commute to Las Vegas will be. It's one county north of us, but remember counties in the western US are as big as entire eastern states and some European countries.

Long live the country side. Urbans are sissies.

This isn't my thing exactly, but it sounds like something @jax  might like.

(https://oapen.org/cover/2/8/1/9/579182/579182_cover.jpg)

Vaughan, Laura (2015), Suburban Urbanities. https://oapen.org/search?identifier=579182

   
Suburban space has traditionally been understood as a formless remnant of physical city expansion, without a dynamic or logic of its own. Suburban Urbanities challenges this view by defining the suburb as a temporally evolving feature of urban growth.

[…]

While the suburbs are no longer the fastest growing like half a century ago (that is now the cities proper), suburbs are the living environment for a large number of people. I consider there to be to categories of suburbs, those that are a (separate) part of a city and dormitory towns that are at a commute distance from them.

I'd define suburbs as the yearning for rural living by people who could afford to leave the city… (But what do I know!?)

That may be the case when cities are dysfunctional, which many cities have been from time to time and place to place. 

Prices are a good indication of yearning for the people able to pick and not just take what they can afford. Near universally the most expensive locations are inner cities followed by rich suburban areas, villa districts, with poor suburban areas near the bottom, symbolised by the French banlieue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banlieue). In the US the near equivalent would be public housing (for some reasons the Americans are rarely able to make anything good with the word "public" in it). 

Worldwide that's not the cheapest forms of living, what's classified as informal settlements, or more negatively "slums", are a lower-priced and lower-status option. Europe doesn't have much of that any longer, but American trailer parks would be close. A nicer informal alternative is the houseboat. 

I find suburbs, both in the dormitory town and the banlieue variety, unpleasant, with some far worse than others. The worst I've found in the US and China, though there is plenty bad to go around everywhere. Making suburbs liveable is going to be a future challenge, but the planning should be done by those who enjoy living in the suburbs. We shouldn't repeat the mistake done half a century ago, when cities were planned by people who didn't like cities, and who themselves lived outside them. 

For fun here are some examples from Stockholm. It's from the real estate interchange web site, the pictures may not stay up forever.

The most expensive place per square meter (or square foot) in Stockholm right now is this inner city penthouse (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/bostadsratt-2rum-ostermalm-stockholms-kommun-linnegatan-80-10729195) council flat with four-way views and 124 m2  (there are 10,7 square feet in a square meter), with an almost shocking price of 232,000 SEK/m2 (192,000 $/sq.ft, divide the number by 1.22 to get USD/sq.ft,  or divide by 9.5 for €/m2).

(https://process.fasad.eu/rimage.php?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages03.fasad.eu%2F447%2F400333%2F779557%2Fhighres%2F5706067.jpg&i=1&m=strict&w=1920&h=1116)

This penthouse inner city building society flat has four-way views in the most expensive neighbourhood.  Skipping a central medieval town house (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/bostadsratt-9rum-gamla-stan-stockholms-kommun-trangsund-6-9771415) (127,000/m2) the next exhibit is another penthouse, where the selling point is the sea view, a former industrial area freshly turned into residences (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/bostadsratt-4rum-kvarnholmen-nacka-kommun-siloplatsen-10-10244576) (98,000/m2)

(https://bilder.hemnet.se/images/x1024/0d/cf/0dcf4ab7aedf30354f645c1352ba56eb.jpg)

A villa by the coast (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/villa-9rum-solsidan-nacka-kommun-bjornbacken-2a-10257575) practically in the city would cost 96,000/m2.

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm2.pics.objektdata.se%2Fpic%2Fpic.dll%2Fimage%3Furl%3D28647%2FSFDC99812047A004A2B976A5F8CEC45C083.jpg%26amp%3BsizeX%3D800%26amp%3BsizeY%3D800&hash=fac3cbcef25ec55544122ef1ddc76e98" rel="cached" data-hash="fac3cbcef25ec55544122ef1ddc76e98" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://farm2.pics.objektdata.se/pic/pic.dll/image?url=28647/SFDC99812047A004A2B976A5F8CEC45C083.jpg&sizeX=800&sizeY=800)



A more regular villa (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/villa-7rum-edsviken-sollentuna-kommun-dalbovagen-5-10715415) 16 km (10 miles) from Stockholm centre would set you back 55,000/m2. 

(https://www.susannepersson.se/vitec_images/4IHAM46HDU86RRV4.jpg)




It is possible to get a central apartment (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/bostadsratt-5rum-sodermalm-stockholms-kommun-ringvagen-62-10624878) for a similar price (58,000/m2), if a larger apartment at a somewhat less attractive neighbourhood.

https://youtu.be/mjVh6wBn6-I


Going further down in price you will end up in the suburbs. You could opt for a terraced house like this (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/radhus-5rum-enebyberg-danderyds-kommun-mojavagen-35-10714035) (52,000/m2)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fs3.sfcdn.se%2Fs%2Fresurs%2Fimage%2F153811%2Fmedium%2F636197388840000000%2Fmdiynnwwmdawmji5mza3m3w5ng...jpg&hash=cf50fea86ad82f88a406226e757b53d0" rel="cached" data-hash="cf50fea86ad82f88a406226e757b53d0" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://s3.sfcdn.se/s/resurs/image/153811/medium/636197388840000000/mdiynnwwmdawmji5mza3m3w5ng...jpg)

Or a quite nice apartment (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/bostadsratt-3rum-kista-stockholms-kommun-borgarfjordsgatan-21a-9752255) in a suburban area that is becoming urban like this (44,000/m2), and with great views to where the riots were a few years ago.

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpics.objektdata.se%2F_media_%2F12230%2FSFD195951745F724773968953794E440DA3.jpg&hash=4cfe5833e1e771527b40c53a59ef21f7" rel="cached" data-hash="4cfe5833e1e771527b40c53a59ef21f7" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://pics.objektdata.se/_media_/12230/SFD195951745F724773968953794E440DA3.jpg)


For 31,000/m2 within the municipality you have to get to the outskirts (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/bostadsratt-4rum-skarpnack-stockholms-kommun-skarpnacks-alle-37-10769818)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpics2.objektdata.se%2F_cache_%2F19207%2FSFDC5A7E4EB942746778BE44BCB01C619EB_x.jpg&hash=21d888096a89f34d8959701de392d122" rel="cached" data-hash="21d888096a89f34d8959701de392d122" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://pics2.objektdata.se/_cache_/19207/SFDC5A7E4EB942746778BE44BCB01C619EB_x.jpg)


The cheapest two places in the Stockholm area right now (both 10,000/m2) are this one (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/bostadsratt-3rum-elmsta-udde-norrtalje-kommun-elmsta-udde-19b-9595418)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fimg12.quedro.com%2Feaimages%2F149%2F50b5a-d495b-ab397-dc7eb-3864a-eac51-c8785-a3957%2F69e30-2a3c2-e48ac-0a391-20fe0-d111d-d6965-81bbd.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1250%26amp%3Bcrop%3D1&hash=41345b4cfbd8e955096a71a6c7cf0e41" rel="cached" data-hash="41345b4cfbd8e955096a71a6c7cf0e41" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://img12.quedro.com/eaimages/149/50b5a-d495b-ab397-dc7eb-3864a-eac51-c8785-a3957/69e30-2a3c2-e48ac-0a391-20fe0-d111d-d6965-81bbd.jpg?width=1250&crop=1)

and a flat a few km away from me (http://www.hemnet.se/bostad/bostadsratt-5rum-lina-hage-sodertalje-kommun-monsterstigen-7-10777040)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fimg11.quedro.com%2Feaimages%2F149%2Fa9d38-d94c7-22838-8ae60-dc1c8-ea76e-59be8-918ba%2F858a0-dae4c-a9a7a-15136-f5299-1f3f2-5e032-0a5bc.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1250%26amp%3Bcrop%3D1&hash=94695fb678656fe346528e045fef7175" rel="cached" data-hash="94695fb678656fe346528e045fef7175" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://img11.quedro.com/eaimages/149/a9d38-d94c7-22838-8ae60-dc1c8-ea76e-59be8-918ba/858a0-dae4c-a9a7a-15136-f5299-1f3f2-5e032-0a5bc.jpg?width=1250&crop=1)

I find suburbs, both in the dormitory town and the banlieue variety, unpleasant, with some far worse than others.

I now live in a transitional dormitory town (Left Bank) and it's quite pleasant. As little as a decade ago the situation was still a lot worse (cf. this thriller movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0940723/)) but things have improved a lot since then. Although as always with these things people tend to judge entire areas by their worst parts. Where I live has always been alright; its the formerly worse parts north of here that have improved immensely since then. There's also a new jolly cop show (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4432948/) to contrast with the thriller movie.

I found US suburbs depressing, even if the fancy ones where my marital family lives in Detroit look great. Roads and car-based design in general have an immense divisionary strength that's hard to appreciate if you're used to Europe. I'm used to being able to walk to stores normally, even if it would take a while due to the distance (although then you'd cycle instead).

Former villages that get embedded in a city are generally good suburbs (though obviously there aren't many of those), as are many but not most "town within a town" suburbs. Sweden built most of today's suburbs in the 1960's, some as (function separated) towns within towns, most at least partially failures, though not worse than other suburbs built in the same period. The 31,000/m2 flat above is from one such town-within-town (Skarpnäck), which I think is quite likeable, though it was made later, in the 1980's.

American suburbs tend to be places without a sense of place, and quite literally depressing. My first instinct is to run away. Those that try to be "Smalltown USA" are better, for all their fauxery. Some old commute towns from New York and Chicago I've been to were almost OK.  

I have never been to Antwerp (except I believe I passed it on a train), but looking up the Antwerp Left Bank it seems to be former port/industrial areas (?), the main nexus for (sub)urban rejuvenation everywhere these days. Transitional areas are particularly fascinating, and often, but not always successful.

No, that would be the Eilandje (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilandje_%28Antwerpen%29) (little Island) area in the north of the inner city, as well as previously 't Zuid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuid,_Antwerp) (the South), south of the inner city. South was up and coming in the '80s; it's long since arrived. And I suppose Luchtbal, quite a bit further north still, might also count.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Antwerpen_-_wijk_Dam_-_Eilandje.PNG)
Eilandje in red, under that is the medieval city center, under that is Sint-Andries, and under that is South. (Sorry, a bit unclear.)

I used to live in South. Linkeroever (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkeroever) was mostly built in the '60s in the spirit of the time, although one or two former villages were incorporated. Its main attraction compared to many a dormitory town (besides not being completely deserted) is just how close you are to the city proper. I basically live no further away by any mode of transportation (other than the car) from the inner city than I used to, and I can actually get there in 5 to 10 minutes now, as opposed to previously 15 to 20. I'm better connected to pretty much everything except the area where I used to live.

A nice clip of YouTube

https://youtu.be/xOOWk5yCMMs

Death to the car!  :yes:  :devil:  (In cities.) American-style cities are the worst. :knight:

When the bicycle beat the car. (Stockholm is deservedly not on that list, though Antwerp is.)

More bikes than cars: this is the world's most bike-friendly city (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-city-centre-now-has-more-bikes-than-cars)
(https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/this-city-centre-now-has-more-bikes-than-cars)
(https://assets.weforum.org/editor/TfvoGO6uGRCFdB-L2V9SdlAiR7W8NtB9rYqvEyHgvpY.JPG)

– can I interject something? Urbanity requires the rubes in the hinterlands to grow their food… If there's a Department of Urban Affairs that doesn't recognize that the rural folk are crucial to the survival of those city-folk, they'll die.
One can only live so long on canned Spam! :)

The agricultural transformation, together with women's lib, is the biggest driver in the world today. For millennia we were farmers, mostly. Then came mechanisation, the industrial revolution and industrial farming, biotech and the green revolution, and now robotics.

The upshot is that there is no need for "rubes" in farming anymore, they are replaced with robots. So like a century ago in the West, the rubes are leaving. Most of these will end up in cities, in their birth country or some other.

So urban planning matters for the rural rubes too, because that's where they and their children are likely to live. Incidentally urban farming and vertical farming is a thing, but in my view a subtheme.

I can't discount the scenario of farmers and food factories starving city dwellers for political gain, but in that case it will be robots starving humanity. So, be kind to a machine today, it may be for your own good.

For millennia we were farmers, mostly. Then came mechanisation, the industrial revolution and industrial farming, biotech and the green revolution, and now robotics.

The upshot is that there is no need for "rubes" in farming anymore, they are replaced with robots. So like a century ago in the West, the rubes are leaving.

Robotics applies to industry. Agriculture is characterised by mechanisation, which is a bit different thing. A simple question: Compare an average city dude and a country dude - which one has more "robots" (anything electronemechanical or electronic)? Even though "robotics" has increased in the countryside, cities have always been far ahead.

And there's also a difference between agroindustry and agriculture, something city dudes tend to be unaware of. Seasonal workers are still very much needed in agriculture. Urbanisation has occurred not because seasonal workers are not needed, but because agriculture as a whole, as a way of life, has been forced to recede, to be replaced with industry that produces something remotely resembling food and gets called "agriculture" for that reason alone.

Real food comes from the field, milk from cows, etc. Modern food comes from the supermarket. That's another distinction that city dudes tend to be unaware of. I never forget what a student of Oxford University once said, "Strawberry is a plant? I thought it was a flavour like vanilla." Yeah, except that vanilla is also a plant. Whereas vanillin is a synthetic chemical. Millennials cannot distinguish these either nor understand the importance of the distinction. Or any other relevant distinction - purebred or contaminated, ecological or gmo, etc.

And those are the people who say cities are more ecological, energy-saving and what not, as if for centuries we had been wasteful. Just compare the amount and kind of waste produced in countryside versus in the city. Can you find a relevant map or graph, jax?

(Stockholm is deservedly not on that list, though Antwerp is.)

I could find the criteria for the list…

The ranking system was developed in 2011 together with James Schwartz from The Urban Country. Inspiration was gleaned from rankings like Monocle's Liveable Cities Index and rankings produced by The Economist.

In short, cities are given between 0 and 4 points in 13 different categories. In addition, there is a potential for a maximum of 12 bonus points awarded for particularly impressive efforts or results. In the case of a tie, the city with the highest baseline score is ranked higher.

…but unfortunately I wasn't able to find out how the ranked cities actually scored on the categories.

Antwerp's alright, but the current municipal government isn't really interested in improving things. It's telling that for the moment I don't even possess a properly functioning bike (although obviously I do still have one) and stick to public transit and walking. In Utrecht, say, the public transit isn't really any worse but the cycling is just so much better. Finally there's the matter of how I think cycling infrastructure isn't just a city thing but includes the hinterland. A one-hour bike ride from here to the more rural town of Sint-Niklaas isn't something I'd look forward to, whereas basically the same time and distance from Utrecht to Amersfoort seems like a much more realistic option.^[1]

I saw something interesting under Utrecht:

Speaking with city planners, the same thing is said in Utrecht as in many Dutch cities. Bikes - and in particular parking - are a "problem". When Utrecht realises it’s a "problem" other cities are begging for and begins to see it as an opportunity, the city has the potential to redefine an urban landscape where bicycles are king. The step towards a legendary bike parking facility shows that the city is keen to be a leader, but there is more to it than parking spots.

"Strawberry is a plant? I thought it was a flavour like vanilla." Yeah, except that vanilla is also a plant.

To be fair, there are products with "ingredients" like strawberry and vanilla flavor. :lol: They taste disgusting. But you're sure they weren't joking? Not knowing vanilla pods lies within the realm of plausibility considering they don't grow here and are imported from faraway places in dried form. Strawberries on the other hand… can't miss 'em.

Quote from: ersi

"Strawberry is a plant? I thought it was a flavour like vanilla." Yeah, except that vanilla is also a plant.

To be fair, there are products with "ingredients" like strawberry and vanilla flavor. :lol: They taste disgusting. But you're sure they weren't joking?

Not joking at all. We were discussing (over ice cream) in full seriousness the nice things of summer, one of which is strawberries, and it was a revelation to the student that strawberries may come in other form than ice cream flavour. 

Not knowing vanilla pods lies within the realm of plausibility considering they don't grow here and are imported from faraway places in dried form.

Plausibility is a cultural thing and culture was the thrust of my post. When you actually see milk coming from a cow, potato growing in the field, and raspberries in the garden day in day out, you have a whole different understanding of them than when you see them in the supermarket where you go in quickly to satisfy a random desire and then get out quickly again.

The number of farmers has already collapsed in Europe and North America, a process that took well over a century. Soviet Europe was held in a time capsule for 40 years, so when the Wall collapsed there was a surplus of farmers. Now, 25 years later, not so much. 

Former farmers and their children is the brunt of the migration wave worldwide. But my comment on robotics leads to that the process hasn't ended yet. There is a large seasonal workforce in agriculture, it will grow smaller.

Plausibility is a cultural thing and culture was the thrust of my post. When you actually see milk coming from a cow, potato growing in the field, and raspberries in the garden day in day out, you have a whole different understanding of them than when you see them in the supermarket where you go in quickly to satisfy a random desire and then get out quickly again.

In some sense school gardens offer merely a simulacrum, but in the Netherlands most kids will have experienced growing lettuce and various other produce, having their lettuce munched on by snails, fruits eaten by birds, and all such fun. Similarly even city children will have taken at least one school trip to a farm and have hopefully tasted milk fresh from a cow or sheep. It's hard to leave school like a complete ignoramus. Anyway, I guess British children are or were lacking this part of their education.

There is a large seasonal workforce in agriculture, it will grow smaller.

As the Daily Mail puts it, there's an increasing number of Wall-Es harvesting grapes in France: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2209975/Meet-Wall-Ye-The-French-grape-picking-robot-work-day-night--vineyard-workers-job.html

I do feel rather silly about one fact though. Where I grew up, an eel was called an aal. (Dutch & English are related like that.) But in Standard Dutch, for whatever reason, the creature's called a paling. So to me aaltjes were these real creatures on the wad, happily frolicking about, and palingen were these somewhat mysterious fatty fish acquired in stores, which were apparently under existential threat from overfishing. So I certainly get where you're coming from. Connecting the dots between aal and paling was a bit of a shock. But to a city-dweller, eels likely can't be connected to real creatures in quite the same way and they're doomed to remain slightly mysterious, depending on your level of curiosity. Because I feel I've got a reasonable-enough grasp of how salmon and tilapia are farmed thanks to documentaries and articles, even though I've never been anywhere near a fish farm (that I know of).

But in a similar way you're disconnected from the final product. As a teen I spent a couple of summers bulb peeling. This is when you have stuff like tulips and you peel them down to the bare necessities, so they can be taken to market elsewhere in the country and abroad. Until I went by a flower market in Amsterdam I only had a vague idea of how they sold bulbs like that, the product of my manual labor. It goes both ways.

Children needs to learn how to kill animals, not  how to grow plants.
That's the difference between a free hunter and a slave of the land.
Agriculture enslaved humanity.

I've done duck, chicken,^[1] and fish. But the free hunter still needs to realize that the forest strawberry is edible. :P

I've done duck, chicken,^{[1] (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=300.msg69718#fn1_1)} and fish. But the free hunter still needs to realize that the forest strawberry is edible.  :P

Hunters were also gatherers , you can eat your strawberries in peace. :)

Some urban beauty contests, starting with the EIU liveability ranking.

The EIU ranking is based on a selection of 140 cities worldwide ranked on five criteria (http://www.sciencealert.com/the-most-and-least-liveable-cities-in-the-world-have-just-been-ranked), Stability (25%), Healthcare (20%), Culture & Environment (25%), Education (10%), Infrastructure (20%). And the 2016 winners are:

• Melbourne, Australia
• Vienna, Austria
• Vancouver, Canada
• Toronto, Canada
• Calgary, Canada
• Adelaide, Australia
• Perth, Australia
• Auckland, New Zealand
• Helsinki, Finland
• Hamburg, Germany

Or in video form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2x9upK6oGU


But these 140 cities have actually become less liveable, as the cities in decline have lost more than the other cities have improved.

Most improved cities over five years (ranking) ∆ score

• Tehran Iran (126) +5.0
• Dubai UAE (74) +4.6
• Harare Zimbabwe (133) +4.4
• Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire (128) +3.8
• Kuwait City Kuwait (81)  +2.5
• Kathmandu Nepal (124) +2.3
• Warsaw Poland (65) +2.1
• Bratislava Slovakia (63) +1.7
• Baku Azerbaijan (103) +1.6
• Honolulu US (17) +1.3

Greatest decline over five years (ranking) ∆ score

• Damascus Syria (140)  -26.1 
• Kiev Ukraine (131)  -25.1 
• Detroit US (57) -5.7 
• Moscow Russia (80) -5.6 
• Bahrain Bahrain (91) -4.6 
• Tripoli Libya (139) -4.5 
• St Petersburg Russia (76) -4.4 
• Paris France (32) -3.7 
• Athens Greece (69) -3.4 
• Caracas Venezuela (123) -3.3

Then a branding agency has made a ranking of the world's most reputable cities (https://www.reputationinstitute.com/research/City-RepTrak.aspx).

They have polled 23,000 people in the G8 countries, and ranked 55 cities based on 23 criteria in esteem, economy, environment, and government. Further details are not available.

• Sydney
• Vienna
• Zürich
• Toronto
• Stockholm
• Edinburgh
• Montreal
• Rome
• Vancouver
• Copenhagen
• Helsinki
• Venice
• Melbourne
• Barcelona
• Madrid
• Frankfurt
• Amsterdam
• San Francisco
• Tokyo
• Dublin

The six cities at the bottom are: New Delhi, Istanbul, Mexico City, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo.

Edinburgh

Are you sure it shouldn't be Glasgow there?

a branding agency

Information to trust about.

An alternative approach to bike sharing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMkqVZ-EpG0

One cool consequence is that when you get rid of the racks you also make the system provider-independent, there could be different and independent schemes providing you with the bicycle of choice.

----------

This Wired Future City feature on Shenzhen could fit in many places, China, technology, history of technology, politics, but ultimately it is about urban affairs.

https://youtu.be/SGJ5cZnoodY

One cool consequence is that when you get rid of the racks you also make the system provider-independent, there could be different and independent schemes providing you with the bicycle of choice.

I think the racks are primarily about ensuring availability,^[1] although of course it also keeps the amount of technology that can fail lower. There may be a 100,000 bikes in Shanghai, but what if there isn't a single one near you? (Apologies if the vid mentioned; I only skimmed it which is more effective in reading.)

Why More People Didn't Get Hurt in Times Square (https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/05/why-more-people-didnt-get-hurt-in-times-square/527253/)

Pedestrian injuries in New York City’s most crowded space have plummeted since a recent redesign. But the real fix is to ban cars entirely.


(https://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/citylab/2017/05/snohetta_times_square/lead_large.jpg?1495141469)


The fatal tragedy might have been a lot deadlier were it not for the work of designers to boost public safety in Times Square over the last decade. The motorist drove north on the west-side sidewalk of Seventh Avenue for three blocks between 42nd Street and 45th Street, when he crashed into steel bollards—public-safety features introduced to Times Square in its recent reconstruction (http://snohetta.com/projects/327-times-square). “The car eventually impaled itself on the bollards,” says David Burney, former commissioner of New York City’s Department of Design and Construction. “If those bollards hadn’t been there, it would have been much worse.”

In fact, the death was the first pedestrian traffic fatality in Times Square since 2003. Burney, who is now the director of the Urban Placemaking and Management Program (https://www.pratt.edu/academics/architecture/urban-placemaking-and-management/) at the Pratt Institute, says that he regular takes his students through Times Square as a case study in how to do traffic calming. Between 2010 and 2017, the architecture firm Snøhetta rebuilt this area, one of the hottest pockets of foot traffic in the world. This redesign work, spread across two-and-a-half acres, included the dedication of a true public plaza for pedestrians in the heart of the Times Square Bowtie (http://www.timessquarenyc.org/about-the-alliance/public-space-projects/times-square-bowtie/index.aspx#.WR4EGhMrJTY), the area between 42nd and 47th Streets along Seventh Avenue and Broadway. Pedestrian injuries in the Bowtie fell from an average of 62 injuries per year in 2006-2008 to 37 in 2014-2016—a 40 percent reduction, according to New York City’s Department of Transportation.

How to prevent rat running (https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2015/12/15/how-to-prevent-rat-running/)

(https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/ratrunning02.jpg)

Bollards have a bad reputation. They are considered dangerous for cycling and indeed many people get injured when they hit one, but bollards also have a very good side. They can regulate the traffic volumes in areas inside and outside the cities. This prevents rat running (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_running) and increases the safety for walking and cycling. It also improves an area’s liveability, even more so when automatic retractable bollards are used.

https://youtu.be/Okb63flApDY

Think that central New York picture is a groan and shows the power of corporate advertising everywhere. A friend of mine from younger years when she got married to a another Glaswegian went to live in California in her twenties. On her two visits back home to see an ageing relative she commented to me when we met twice for lunch that the obvious thing that struck her was that back across the ocean big advertising boards everywhere but a constructive difference here. had noticed that on my two ex-colonial visits years ago but was amusing to note that someone who had lived there for ages noticed the big difference between her old home country and her long term stay where she is!

Bollards have a bad reputation. They are considered dangerous for cycling and indeed many people get injured when they hit one

I'd say news items stereotypically look something like "driver ignored red light and hit bollard." In at least one unfortunate cases followed by something like "airbags activated and driver subsequently hit cyclist." It seems odd at best to blame bollards as being unsafe in these scenarios, given that drivers would be causing far more accidents still by turning into cut-through traffic. But also I've never heard of that in the first place, so maybe it's car-centric propaganda from a foreign car-obsessed country.^[1]

Or like you can see on this video: someone deliberately trying to game the poles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xB1FMimxNo

In rare cases this could happen legitimately, I suppose, but you must understand that these poles aren't some kind of lonely warrior against traffic sneaking. There'll likely be a sign at the beginning of the street that says dead end and a sign prior to the poles saying entrance forbidden. The poles are there because of the few @#$@#$ who ignore the signs. You can fine them, but that only helps state income without improving actual safely. The goal is to keep these kinds of drivers out before they become a problem, not to fine them afterward.

Self-driving bus involved in crash less than two hours after Las Vegas launch

A truck driver is blamed for the accident, which passengers say could have been avoided if the autonomous vehicle had only reversed

Basically, the truck driver backed on the nose of the self-driving bus that apparently had no concept of going in reverse.

Good thing humans have, we can be blamed. It seems machines can't.

Looks like a bus not a truck.

More bike sharing (https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732701-two-wheeled-journey-anarchist-provocation-high-stakes-capitalism-how?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/howbikesharingconqueredtheworldthebicyclesthatbrokefree).

More bike sharing (https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732701-two-wheeled-journey-anarchist-provocation-high-stakes-capitalism-how?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/howbikesharingconqueredtheworldthebicyclesthatbrokefree).

Less bike sharing https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/25/chinas-bike-share-graveyard-a-monument-to-industrys-arrogance

Population density thingie https://pudding.cool/2018/10/city_3d/

Interesting, but Fx on my laptop brings my whole computer down and in Vivaldi it's just slow. On my desktop it might work out. :P

So my laptops are better than yours? Or maybe Palemoon manages resources so much better. I don't even remember when I last opened Fx, but I remember that I opened it only to see what it looked like after some update a while ago. Everything looked ever more misaligned and I did not feel like trying any actual website with it. I should uninstall it because it has no reason to exist on my end.

So my laptops are better than yours?

It works smoothly on my desktop in Fx.

The reason it became nigh unresponsive for a few moments is RAM of course. Naturally I have most RAM used up with the 4 GB on my laptop but I still never expect a new tab to be an issue, which it never is… normally. This website is heavy.

As for speed my laptop is an Core M i3 something or other. But the i5^[1] in my work laptop certainly doesn't render it smoothly either (in Chrome/Vivaldi), and memory usage for the tab is what, 1.7 GB? It's no surprise my other laptop would have issues with that unless it were just about the only thing running.

Interestingly, performance on my phone is similar to those laptops, presumably mainly because of the GPU. It has a 4-core Intel Atom CPU, which may or may not put it lower in CPU power than my laptop.

Russian "urbanist" and youtuber Varlamov introduces Tallinn, featuring head of Tallinn central district Vladimir Svet

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NedUDpWcywk[/video]

A Russian dude made a decent docu-vlog about Japan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb0TQ7VeApY
Nice cinematography and mostly coherent commentary. A few places I did not know about.

The drone part begins at 27 minutes. Have I mentioned earlier that I hate cities? I particularly hate dense cities.

https://youtu.be/JkrrKhuTjNY

City Skylines looks easier than Transport Tycoon.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWW8Nm4NbxI[/video]