Sunday reading 22 November 2015
Welcome back to Sunday reading. This week, we’re starting with an article for the bird-lovers. The NZ Herald’s science reporter Jamie Morton reports that city tuis are changing their song:
Tui are renowned for their wide repertoire of songs – it’s been estimated at more than 300 – yet we’re only just beginning to find out how urban environments are influencing their singing behaviour.…
50 Comments Sunday reading 15 November 2015
Here’s the latest installment of Sunday Reading starting with a cartoon cameo of parking guru Donald Shoup. Eric Jaffe. “California’s DOT Admits That More Roads Mean More Traffic“, CityLab.
Congestion relief itself is a dubious claim when it comes to road expansions.…
Sunday reading 8 November 2015
Welcome back to Sunday reading. This week we’re leading off with a public service announcement: regular walking is a great way to get fit and healthy. In Vox, Alasdair Wilkins writes about how he lost 100 pounds [45 kgs] in a year:
Just so we’re completely clear about how unqualified I am to tell people how to lose weight, I’ll run down how I lost that 100 pounds.…
Sunday reading 1 November 2015
The big news this week was the decision of the Vancouver City Council to remove their clunky viaduct. Like the Dominion Road Flyover the viaducts are a legacy fragment of a wider scale scheme that was never realised. To this day the viaducts remain an asterisk for one of the only North American cities to resist the widescale incursion of motorways into the city centre.…
Sunday reading 25 October 2015
Welcome back to Sunday reading. This week, we’re starting with a look at the law of unintended consequences. At Vox, Brad Plumer describes how “Europe’s love affair with diesel cars has been a disaster“:
Europe’s diesel push seemed like a perfectly sensible idea at the time.…
Sunday reading 18 October 2015
John Greenfield. “Ghost Parcels Show How Urban Highways Squandered Valuable Land“, StreetsBlog Chicago. Captivating images and interesting discussion about the ghost parcels that remain after the motorways wiped away neighbourhoods.
Alissa Walker. “How a Former Video Game Designer Created the Best Intersection For Bikes“, GIZMODO.…
Sunday reading 11 October 2015
Welcome back to Sunday reading. The most interesting thing I’ve read this week is actually about macroeconomics, rather than urban issues. As it deals with trends in Asia, a region that we’re now economically intertwined with, it’s still worth thinking about.…
Sunday reading 4 October 2015
Mikael Colville-Andersen, “Paris’ Day Sans Cars Shows Us What Our Cities Can Be“, WIRED.
Everyone wandering around the streets of Paris yesterday enjoyed it. There were people thinking, “Amazing! If only this was every day!” and others thinking, “Amazing! But as long as it’s just one day”.…
Sunday reading 27 September 2015
Tim Harford, “What cities tell us about the economy“, Undercover Economist:
Jacobs is not the only person to argue that economic development may be profitably studied through a magnifying glass. A new research paper from three development economists, William Easterly, Laura Freschi and Steven Pennings, offers “A Long History of a Short Block” — a Shinohata-style tale of the economic development of a single 486ft block of Greene Street, between Houston and Prince Street in downtown Manhattan.…
Sunday reading 20 September 2015
Eric Jaffe, “Milan Abruptly Suspended Congestion Pricing and Traffic Immediately Soared“, CityLab. A very popular congestion pricing scheme in Milan was suspended for an 8-week period during a court challenge. Researchers evaluated the impacts on driver behaviour during the suspension. Somewhat surprisingly drivers immediately took back to the roads the first day of the suspension.…
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