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From Vinay Gupta: Simple Critical Infrastructure Mapping - Understanding Vital Systems and How They Keep You Safe
Retail Infrastructure
Canada has four times more retail space per capita than any European country; second only to the US.
The CRTC and Conservative government have for the most part adopted a do-nothing approach. Allowing Bell Canada and others to continue throttling the Internet and limit competition leaves Canada behind in terms Internet speed, cost, and access. Allowing big telecoms to become Internet gatekeepers is bad for free speech, bad for consumer choice, and bad for the innovation economy.
While the benefits, necessity, and easily replicable models for a new, more open and accessible Internet in Canada are clear, Canada lacks what it needs most — a national plan. A new approach could put Canada on a path to a “New Deal” for broadband — a path to a better Internet for everyone, for free speech, and open innovation. As Bell continues to lobby the government for greater control over the Internet, it is imperative that we keep the pressure on policy makers to protect the interests of Internet users.
Steve Anderson - Canada Needs a Serious Agenda for Media Innovation
Traffic-free Broadway, NYC.
Vancouver Council approves car-free sundays in four neighbourhoods
“Council also approved a new program called Summer Spaces, which will close four neighbourhoods — Collingwood, Mount Pleasant, Gastown, and Commercial Drive — to vehicle traffic on several Sundays each summer.”
The "Uncreative Class"
“Not everyone can afford to move and the poorest are left behind amidst urban blight and neglect. What do we do about the immobile? What do we do with cities that are net losers of the “creative class”? For this so-called creative brand of capitalism, the uncreative are someone else’s problem. As Florida says, “We need to be clear that ultimately, we can’t stop the decline of some places, and that we would be foolish to try.” I would say that this is not at all clear. There is an inherent inhumanity in leaving people and their cities in the dust. Besides, the cost of finding ways to get so-called obsolete classes of workers gainfully employed where they live is looking preferable to the social costs of managing huge ghost cities and permanent spatial inequality.”
Krugram on Cities and the Future
From the preeminent economist Paul Krugman, The future is not what it used to be:
I’m in Hong Kong right now; as always, I’m just awed by the way the city looks. And this time I think I’ve figured out why it’s so appealing.
Hong Kong, with its incredible cluster of tall buildings stacked up the slope of a mountain, is the way the future was supposed to look. The future — the way I learned it from science-fiction movies — was supposed to be Manhattan squared: vertical, modernistic, art decoish.
What the future mainly ended up looking like instead was Atlanta — sprawl, sprawl, and even more sprawl, a landscape of boxy malls and McMansions. Bo-ring.
So for a little while I get to visit the 1950s version of the 21st century. Yay!
But where are the flying cars?
Three Examples of How to Achieve Equity While Building Green
Three of Portland’s best examples of affordable, green buildings: Central City Concern’s Richard Harris Building, Reach Community Development’s Station Place Tower and the Turtle Island Development LLC’s Sitka Apartments.
