Community

Urban planning and housing affordability

By Alain Bertaud, Urbanist, Senior Research Scholar, Stern School of Business, New York University Former Principal Planner – The World Bank. http://alainbertaud.com/ This year, Demographia is publishing its 10th Annual International Housing Affordability Survey. It ranks 360 metropolitan markets in nine countries. Are planners in the worst performing cities paying any attention? And are they drawing any conclusions on how to improve the situation? Or do local governments conclude that the best way to increase the supply of affordable housing is to impose new regulations that will mandate developers to build housing units at prices, standards, and in locations selected by the government? The last approach, under the name of inclusionary zoning is unfortunately the most common response, as recently seen, for instance, in New York and Mexico City. Urban planners have been inventing all sorts of abstractly worded objectives to justify their plans for our future cities – smart growth, liveability, sustainability, are among the most recent fads. There is nothing wrong, of course, for a city to try to be smart, liveable, or sustainable. But for some reasons these vague and benign sounding objectives usually become a proxy for imposing planning regulations that severely limit the supply of buildable land and the number of housing units built, resulting in ever higher housing prices. In the name of smart growth or sustainability, planners decide that densities should be lower in some places and higher in others. Population densities are not a design parameter whose value depends on the whim of planners but are consumption indicators which are set by markets. Even the Communist Party of China recently declared that resource allocation is best achieved through markets; why can’t urban planners in so-called market economies reach the same conclusions and let markets decide how much land and floor space households and firms will […]

Eco village in England made out of natural materials.

Kids learning computers at work

Communities advance when computers speak their language Citizens in remote rural areas in 11 Asian countries are leaping over language barriers and into the Internet age. They may now access government services online, and submit college applications without making an arduous trek to the city. And their children are learning the computer skills that promise greater economic opportunities in the future. This is just a sampling of the Internet-era benefits available to millions more people across Asia thanks to the work of the PAN Localisation program. This IDRC-supported network of computer experts (known as PANL10n) has been working since 2003 to develop new technologies that allow computers to function in local languages. Asia’s relatively low Internet use does not reflect a lack of public enthusiasm, says project coordinator Sarmad Hussain, a professor at Pakistan’s University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. Whenonline demonstrations have been set up in rural communities, the use of computers “is a very easy sell. People are excited that this technology can give them access to many things they don’t have access to right now,” Hussain says. Local scripts A major obstacle to Internet use – until now, at least – has been language. With 3,500 local languages in the Asia-Pacific region, and fewer than 10% of people able to communicate in English, Internet use is typically restricted to urban areas. Focusing on the way language hinders online access was a strategic approach that has allowed the PAN Localization initiative to “tackle the digital divide in Asia at its root,” says former IDRC program officer Maria Ng. The network has assembled a pool of highly skilled software engineers, linguists, and sociologists. They work together to overcome the formidable technical obstacles to making local scripts compatible with computers, and to promote their use. “{Each language has its own […]

Charity work versus unpaid volunteering

Thousands of people, especially the young, go abroad each year on solidarity initiatives. Their motivation, roles and status vary. There are many ways of taking part in international solidarity, from ‘fair travel’ for tourists to missions lasting several years by highly qualified experts. Many are called ‘volunteering’. This term, common in Anglo-Saxon cultures, is associated with particular aspirations and values: commitment, sharing, a taste for discovery and otherness. It often goes with a belief in a globalised society that encourages curiosity, meetings between cultures and travel, and with a new geopolitical discourse that reflects our multi-polar world and the changing balance between North and South. Volunteering can mean many different things. In France, its definition is narrow: it has a precise legal status, which grants certain social rights and financial allowances for clearly defined missions of finite duration. Volunteering as understood in France is neither charity work, nor paid employment: it is a hybrid that combines the commitment and giving of the former with the efficiency and professionalism of the latter. One can volunteer to take part in international solidarity under a number of different schemes. The most popular is Volontariat de SolidaritŽ Internationale (VSI), part of France’s official development assistance and run by the ministry of foreign affairs. Around 2,500 French citizens a year volunteer under VSI. Their profile is fairly homogenous: they are often female, highly qualified, established professionals, with experience of working abroad. This national scheme may soon be complemented by EU Aid Volunteers (possibly inspired by the US Peace Corps), a body of 10,000 volunteers to be available for deployment to crisis areas from 2014. One of its aims is to increase the visibility of humanitarian aid from Brussels: not many people know that half the monetary aid to poor countries comes from the EU and […]

Sociable Trash Box: Proxemics in Dynamic Interactions

Picture: Children interacting with the sociable trash-box. Toyohashi Tech researchers use ‘robotic social trash boxes’ to investigate interactions between humans and robots for improving robot-to-human communications. This report is featured in the September issue of the Toyohashi Tech eNewsletter : http://www.tut.ac.jp/english/newsletter/ Humans regulate their interactions according to different contexts, the degree of the relationship, cultural factors, gender, age, and so on. These factors can be utilized as an interpersonal boundary-control mechanism which is totally dependent on encouraging or discouraging another person’s interactions. Humans are expected to dynamically optimize the above mechanism according to the interpersonal distances and personal spaces (proxemics). Michio Okada and colleagues at Toyohashi University of Technology were interested in determining what kind of distances (spheres), effective social cue, and behaviors that an sociable trash box (STB) requires with children in order to convey its intention to acquire child assistance in collecting trash from the environment as a child-dependent robot. The experiments were carries out at the Developmental Center for Children at Toyohashi City, and evaluated the validity and effectiveness of the approach through different interactive scenarios. The experiments on naturally interacting with the STBs were conducted with the participation of 108 children aged 4 and 11 years old). The results of the proxemics showed that when the STBs moved individually in the environment and moved in a swarm (three STBs), the children established different spaces (according to distance and interactive time) to interact with the STB. These extracted spaces can be utilised in the STB decision process (moving with distances, staying time and so on) to convey its intention to collect trash with assistance from children. This will be the basis of our future plans to extend our study in order to develop a decision hierarchy inside of the STBs.

Pilgrims journey

Pilgrims Journey on the Great Mountain with Significance for Man – A Blessing Tour, was held recently on Lushan Mountain. A warm welcome ceremony was held at the mountain resort’s Beishan Gate, then, a prayer ceremony was held at Lushan Five Religions Blessing Cultural Park, and leaders from several areas with religious significance gave welcome speeches. The next morning, another welcome event was held in Xiufeng Peak. Mt. Lushan is known as a place of harmony and gathering point for five of the world’s great religions. The Journey thoroughly embodies the spirit of the religious experience and rich expression of Chinese culture. The Lushan Tourism enthusiastically organised activities bringing together natural, religious, historical and cultural references. The tour included an intensive look at the history of the religions, tracing to the original sages and wise men and paying homage to holy sites while praying for good health and safety. More than 3,000 guests registered via a participating travel agency. They explored the great temples and the holy sites that tell the development of the Chinese version of Buddhism, and the home of Pure Land Buddhism, ChinaÕs most popular form of the religion. They then visited Xiufeng Peak for the most exquisite natural scenery in the region known as a favorite gathering place of ancient and contemporary Chinese poets, artists and scholars. The pilgrims took a moment to appreciate the unique time in history when Chinese and western cultures collided and profited from the exchanges. Lastly they experienced beauty and harmony in Five Religions Park. Lushan Tourism hopes that every guest was able to have a real opportunity to express their thanks for the beauty of life as they bring their blessings bring back to their hometowns. Of special significance was the blessing tour and the Life Free Pond inauguration ceremony, […]

Who are you (really) communicating with?

By Doug Green The cover of May issue says quite a lot in a few words. It highlights some of the key contact sites – like Facebook – for communicating around the world both socially and for business. And these days we seem to treat every connection we make through these sites as ‘a friend’. We have a whole directory of people we contact, but don’t know personally. There are thousands of people on our ‘friends’ list but to have that many friends is just not possible. Friends we have are usually those we meet for a meal or go bushwalking with. So who are all these other friends on line? People who want to connect with you to build up their contact bases – as simple as that. This way of connecting, however, can be powerful and assists people to develop their businesses and social networks. The method provides a base. The point is that to seriously get to know someone it is important to have a face to face relationship. To sit behind a computer and add people to your list is not usually taking you anywhere. There are exceptions, I have to admit. Protests in the Middle East -the Arab Spring – have benefited by exposure on sites like Twitter and FaceBook and YouTube. The world has been able to see the atrocities and protests very quickly and this is a powerful way of illustrating such issues of concern and putting pressure on governments to change. I expect that environmental issues like fracking will be highlighted this way and pressure brought to bear on companies like TAG and Shell to back off and heed the concerns of people around the world.

Jump Start – the experience of being alive

As the first rays of light shine over the horizon, Royal NZ Air Force (RNZAF) Base Auckland wakes up with a sleep-eyed yawn to the cough and splutter of an engine. A group of grinning teenagers walk up the runway. These kids are about to experience the feeling of being alive. The ramp of the Air Force C130 Hercules is dotted with brightly coloured jumpsuits and parachute rigs. Huge smiles decorate the austere background of green and grey, and nervous laughter fills the tarmac. Groups pose for photos with the plane towering behind them, wiping sweaty palms and hiding fear behind silly expressions and poking tongues. Two by two the pairs walk up into the plane and seem to disappear into its gaping mouth. The door is shut and ear plugs are squeezed in to deafen the roar of the monster aircraft. The huge metal beast flexes its muscles. Inside a group of teenagers hold on tight and prepare for takeoff. Jump Start is an annual New Zealand charity event that gives 50 youths from CanTeen and Project K the chance to jump out of a C130 HerculesÊat 10,000ft. It began in 2007, when Tim Fastnedge (Director of Plastic Machinery supplier Techspan Group) was President of the New Zealand Parachute Federation. Now once a year the Air Force provides Tim with a C130 Hercules as “jump ship” for the event. The Airforce base at Whenuapai is transformed into a hub of people in bright red t-shirts. Tents, BBQ’s, a loudspeaker, observers, jumpers and RNZAF members are overshadowed by a swarm of teenagers with happy faces watching skydiving footage. The New Zealand skydiving community pulls together to back Jump Start every year, with tandem instructors and cameramen travelling from all over the country to Auckland for the event. The teenagers […]

Environmentalism Lost and Found

Mainstream environmentalism is preoccupied with giant technofixes – from windfarms to ‘sustainable consumption’ – and pays almost no attention to the underlying cultural reasons why our civilisation is destroying the planet. Somewhere along the way of observing and experiencing the degradation of the planet, environmentalism morphed from being a project designed to protect the wider natural world from destruction by human industry, into a project that exists to protect the lifestyles of middle-class consumers in as ‘sustainableÕway as possible. We are kidding ourselves that we will not have to radically change our ways; if oil, food and commodity prices keep on rising, then localisation will happen, if not for economic rather than simply sentimental reasons. The effects of the 2008 collapse are still playing themselves out, but globalisation is already in retreat. In ten years time, the world will look very different. By acting now, rather than waiting for systems to fail catastrophically and force our hands, the long-term future for renewal can be extremely bright. Ridiculously high land property prices and entrenched land ownership patters are major obstacles preventing an intelligent use of our countryside today, but as a greater majority of the world’s population migrates towards urban living, cities must regenerate and reinvent themselves. But the exciting thing about cities is their dynamism and agility in adapting and renewing themselves, absorbing new ideas and becoming more enjoyable places to live and work. The new element in the mix is climate change, and so all development must now embrace social, economic and environmental sustainability. Consumers have traditionally expected governments to take the lead in protecting the environment, but now they are looking more to the corporate world to take action, rather than individuals with political influence. Increasingly, Asians want economic growth but believe it should be achieved through greener […]

Occupying planet earth

As you can gather from our cover feature which appears on Page 3, we are focussing this issue on the differences which are making living intolerable for people around the world. The Occupy Wall Street movement which is now in other countries highlights a whole raft of issues which really do show the imbalances on this planet of 7 billion people. Overnight the Greek government is calling for a vote to have their financial rescue package put into action so the situation has changed already. Food availability is becoming a real problem, especially with the economic growth of emerging nations like China and India. This has brought resource price hikes including crude oil as well as a rapid increase of livestock product consumption due to an income increase among the people in emerging nations. Funny about that. There has recently been comment on whether oil will fall in price now in Libya now that Gadaffi is no longer around. Again as long as consumption is high (in demand) prices for oil will stay that way too. Overall, in the scheme of things, we’re in a mess. Social unrest around the globe threatens stability because people are not getting a fair go. How on earth is the planet going to look after 7 billion people today when she is struggling? When we get to 50 billion who will be growing the crops, what will the quality of the soil be like? Will there be enough transport to move the goods around the world? You concerned about these comments? I hope so because itÕs about time we all did something about the pressures of life we currently have and the future we are facing. The world is not caring enough for its people. Send in your ideas on how to make a […]

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