The Cities Programme at LSE

Starting the Masters program in City Design and Social Science at LSE on the 27th. What exactly is "City Design and Social Science"? Good question. Here's an interview with the director of the Cities Programme (with an extra "-me" because it's in London), Dr. Fran Tonkiss.

The key takeway:

"There are two ways of understanding our commitment to the concept of city design. Firstly and most simply, our approach differs from an idea of urban design as primarily concerned with the public realm, or with ‘the space between buildings’. While such spaces form part of our focus, our interest is less with specific design interventions than with larger processes of city-making, not only through the practice of design but through policy and planning, the economics of development, and environmental and infrastructure strategies. This links to the second point, which is the defining character of the Cities Programme approach: our central concern with the relationship between the social and the physical production of urban space. For us, cities are always understood as social as well as physical forms. The two parts of the equation are equally important: the focus on city design as an integrated process, and the value of social science – sociology, economics, geography, planning and public policy – in the analysis of how cities are made, and how they can be made better."

3rd Ward

Very cool article in the NYTimes about an urban artisans collective in Brooklyn called 3rd Ward. Communal design and fabrication facilities, classes, studio space. Amazing for both the creative community it's brought together and also that it's become a successful business model. Would this work in Mumbai??

Paul Romer: Charter Cities

About Paul Romer's concept of Charter Cities - autonomous regions in developing countries administered by a foreign nation. Roughly analogous to Hong Kong under British rule.

Why We Hate HR

A sentiment I can generally agree with.

Apple's Secret Sauce

The ingredients that make Apple the best company in the world (and have everyone trying to imitate them). From Fast Company.

Innovation in emerging economies is the next big business revolution, from The Economist. Also see their special report on the topic.

Long Cycles and the Start of a New Golden Age

Thought this article by Mark Stahlman in Strategy + Business was fascinating. It says that:

- We're in the middle of a 60-year technology cycle.
- The last 30 years have been all about investment and deployment of technology.
- The current crash is a typical phenomenon that happens mid-cycle when financial speculation runs too hot
- The next phase of the cycle is a "golden age" of technological adoption and maturity

Please read it and let me know what you think.

Cool article in Newsweek about the emerging field of cultural neuroscience. Researchers are using brainscans to identify the ways people from different cultures process information. Some commonly recognized cultural values are directly reflected in the brain areas people from those cultures use to process different types of information -- recognizing people, concepts of self and group, even doing math.

Hyperlocal Urban Development

Very cool blog post from Allison Arieff in the NYTimes.com site. Describes urban planners using GIS to identify abandoned, publicly-owned spaces in San Francisco and plan for their re-development.

"Looking through this lens also enables us to think about infrastructure in a new way. The era of massive, expensive, centralized projects like the Big Dig in Boston has passed. “Now, with the ability to model dynamic systems, we can show a much more decentralized collection of resources could provide greater benefit,” de Monchaux says. “If, in the 19th century, it was a biological metaphor that fueled the creation of Central and Golden Gate parks, the idea that a city needs hearts and lungs to grow, there’s now a networked metaphor. The city is a dense network of relationships. The best way to provide infrastructure is to not go in with a meat ax but to practice urban acupuncture, finding thousands of different spots to go into.”"

High End R&D Increasingly Coming to India

Major multinationals (MNCs) have rapidly increased the scale of their R&D operations in India. See this brief description from Rediff.com Business.

India vs. China - Which is stronger after the recession?

Yup. I agree with this article in Time Magazine's online edition. Although India's recovery in the last year has been slightly less spectacular then China's, I think the underlying growth here is much more sustainable.