As seen in Berlin: "Community Garden 48. Participate :)"
As seen in Berlin: "Community Garden 48. Participate :)"
Fuck Cars: VanMoof’s e-bike ad banned in France for creating a ‘climate of anxiety’
VanMoof, the Dutch electric bicycle brand, is officially too hot for (French) television.
The company’s first TV advertisement was banned in France for its negative portrayal of car traffic and pollution. The commercial was rejected by France’s advertising regulatory authority, ARPP, because it “discredit[s] the automobile sector [...] while creating a climate of anxiety.”
Open tools for bridging the gap between science-policy-practice - by Aristide Athanassiadis
Revealed: millions of Americans can’t afford water as bills rise 80% in a decade
Exclusive analysis of 12 US cities shows the combined price of water and sewage increased by an average of 80% between 2010 and 2018, with more than two-fifths of residents in some cities living in neighbourhoods with unaffordable bills.
The Diet enacted a bill Wednesday to create "super cities" where artificial intelligence, big data and other technologies are utilized to resolve social problems. The bill revising the national strategic special zone law. The revision stipulates procedures to speed up the changing of regulations in various fields to facilitate the creating of such smart cities. The government hopes to utilize cutting-edge technologies to address issues such as depopulation and the aging of society.
Milan announces ambitious scheme to reduce car use after lockdown (Guardian)
Milan is to introduce one of Europe’s most ambitious schemes reallocating street space from cars to cycling and walking, in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Paris To Create 650 Kilometers Of Post-Lockdown Cycleways (Forbes)
Paris is the latest global city to roll out emergency bike lanes for the use of key workers and others during the lockdown. 650 kilometers of cycleways—including a number of pop-up “corona cycleways”—will be readied for May 11 when lockdown is eased in France.
Interview: Wie Barcelona eine offene „Smart City“ im Dienste des Gemeinwohls plant
Im Interview spricht Francesca Bria, Barcelonas Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer, über „Digitale Soziale Innovation“ und passende Strategien, um die lokale Wirtschaft, Privatsphäre und die demokratische Teilhabe der Bürger*innen auch in einer „Smart City“ langfristig zu sichern und zu fördern.
64% rise in rental properties across Dublin in midst of Covid_19 crisis according to property website @daftmedia as landlords start withdrawing their rentals from short-term listing sites like AirBnB and are offering them into the market instead.
What Happened After Market Street in Sanfranscio Went Car-Free (citylab)
Less than two months after San Francisco’s Market Street went mostly car-free, the central downtown artery is palpably calmer. While freight deliveries, fire trucks, buses and streetcars are still trundling along the vehicle lanes, navigating by bike, scooter or foot feels far less death-defying now that clots of private autos and ride-hailing vehicles are no longer allowed to vie for space among them.
London’s Trees Are Saving the City Billions (citylab)
#Comment: Why is the "saving money" perspective used so frequently when talking about nature ("nature based services" etc.)? Do these foolish people really not comprehended, that the notion that "Nature = Money" is at the very core of the problem they pretend to address?
#Regenerative #Urban #Infrastructure #Economics #ClimateChange
Abstract: Urban planning is facing multi-layered challenges to manage the transformation towards a more sustainable and inclusive society. The recently evolved concept of an “urban commons” responds to the crucial need to re-situate residents as key actors. Urban food commons summarize all initiatives that are food-related (e.g., cultivation, harvest, and distribution), aiming at a visualization and utilization of value chains and the commons-based linkage between them.
We explored first insights of food commons in Berlin based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Urban food commons strengthen identification, participation, self-organization, and social resilience, are steered by bottom-up processes, and can be a powerful tool for a transformation towards urban sustainability. However, a viable political integration of existing initiatives lacks due to structural implementation problems. Respondents recommend a pooling of all initiatives in a strong network and a mediation interface to coordinate between food commons and city administration and politics. A combined approach of commons and edible cities will be helpful for the development of future prove food systems.
Sharing food and risk in Berlin’s urban food commons (2018)
Abstract: Public fridges are open-access community-stewarded spaces where food can be freely and anonymously shared. As such, they are fertile ground for understanding the obstacles and opportunities for governing food as a commons. This paper examines the governance strategies that have developed within and around Foodsharing.de, a grassroots food-rescue network in Berlin, to manage food as a commons. Analyzing the commoning of food in Foodsharing.de provides a novel entry point into the multi-scalar and multi-stakeholder governance processes that shape our broader food system. In this paper, I further develop the concept of urban food commons to specifically analyze the governance of food and risk. In particular, I draw on qualitative research to analyze a conflict between Foodsharing.de and the Berlin Food Safety Authority over the potential health and safety risks of public fridges. Building on this, I show how different governance practices, informed by different risk ontologies and understandings of the common good/hazard of food, come into tension through the everyday practices of sharing food. This paper departs from previous research that has focused on how the benefits of food commons are shared and regulated at various scales, to also explore how their risks are managed, or could be managed, within an urban food commons framework.
Bullshit Alert: Citroën rolls out accessible-to-all Ami car that works "just like a smartphone"
#Comment: Electric or Gasoline, Tiny or Big - A car is a car is a car. Compared with public transport (trams etc. which they compete against), the passenger density of a car is horrendous. The incredibly high accident/death ratio of cars won't change due to such new form-factors either (maybe on the contrary), the same is true for traffic congestion. Plus such "cheap tiny throwaway elector cars" will clearly have a substantial environmental impact, just at a different position in the supply chain then gasoline cars. The designers, engineers and managers of such "innovations" clearly suffer from a radical lack of imagination and compassion.
The Smart(er) City - Computational Urban Design and Analysis
Uber and Lyft generate 70 percent more pollution than trips they displace: study
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, ride-hailing trips today result in an estimated 69% more climate pollution on average than the trips they displace. In cities, ride-hailing trips typically displace low-carbon trips, such as public transportation, biking, or walking. Uber and Lyft could reduce these emissions with a more concerted effort to electrify its fleet of vehicles or by incentivizing customers to take pooled rides, the group recommends.
Uber Adding To Air Pollution In Europe - Report
The report suggests the surge in taxi apps like Uber is actually contributing to air pollution and climate change. Data compiled by Euromonitor shows a correlation between the surge in the number of ride-share drivers in major European cities and increasing levels of air pollution.
Paris Mayor: It's Time for a '15-Minute City'
In her re-election campaign, Mayor Anne Hidalgo says that every Paris resident should be able to meet their essential needs within a short walk or bike ride.
Energy and material flows of megacities - by Christopher A. Kennedy, Iain Stewart, et.al
On the doorstep - by Kyla Fisher
"E-commerce packaging has already disrupted the materials recovery system, but the seismic shopping shift is still in its early stages. Here's how the recycling industry can start planning for more changes to be delivered soon."