World Streets This Week - 30 May 2011
From the editor's desk
In addition to our (as yet not yet successful) continuing search for funding and support
to ensure the future of World Streets, we got ourselves engaged in a major overhaul of
the site itself, which you are invited to check out at www.WorldStreets.org. Our goal
was to open up and facilitate access to what has grown into a pretty consequent
database, with more than a thousand articles and media in since the end of 2008. We
have also tried to improve access to the considerable collection of resources and links that have been built
into the main site, which is also intended to serve as a research tool. Come visit and tell us what you would
like to see us doing more of and better. In the meantime over the last week we published . . .
AFRICA: 'Bicycles Are For Good'
Eric Britton, editor | 29 May 2011 at 08:45 | Categories: Cycling, empowerment | URL: http://wp.me/psKUY-1Gk
Gail Jennings reports from Cape Town. Politicians may tell us that bicycles are a sign that
we are not advancing,” says Patrick Kayemba, managing director of the First African
Bicycle Information Organization in Uganda, “but we ourselves have seen that cycling is a
socio-economic tool. It works now – we don’t have to wait for someone to rescue us with
better public transport, better this, or better that…”
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Editorial: On private, public and . . . social space
Eric Britton, editor | 27 May 2011 at 16:04 | Categories: sharing, event, social space | URL: http://wp.me/psKUY-
1FM
Toward the end of last year I was asked by the team responsible for organizing this year's fifth
annual congress of the Cities for mobility program, which is to take place in Stuttgart from 3-5
July, to brainstorm with them about a central theme for the presentations. We ended up with the
idea of trying to orient the congress around the theme of "social space". Here is what we
eventually produced to introduce the concept.
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Wor ld Str e et s. Mon d ay , 30 May 2 01 1 1 | Pa g e
World Streets This Week - 30 May 2011
1st National Working Party on Carsharing in France
Eric Britton, editor | 26 May 2011 at 06:42 | Categories: carshare, cities, Governance | URL: http://wp.me/psKUY-
1F8
The following notes were prepared on the fly to guide my presentation as the "closing
summary" I was invited to make at the closure of the Strasburg conference. I took it
as my task to sum up a certain number of observations that the formal presentations
and the lively exchanges over the day brought to mind. And then to round them out
here with some other findings and recommendations that I hope will be useful to the
carshare community in France. The presentation itself was in French, but if you turn
to Youtube.com you will see an informal commentary in English to round out these bare notes.
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Doodling with Frank
Eric Britton, editor | 25 May 2011 at 12:38 | Categories: analogy, creativity | URL: http://wp.me/psKUY-1F2
A recent edition of the Atlantic Monthly carried a series of short articles on creativity, and one of their short
profiles was an interview with Frank Gehry which I reproduce
below. (Click here for the original article). And here is why I am
sharing this with you this morning, namely my attempt to
understand the early minutes of his (and yours and my) creative
process. I am uber-struck by the relations between his initial pen
sketches as his mind wanders about his problem, and the
building that he finally makes happen a couple of years later.
What is going on in his head? For that matter what is going on in
MY (or your) head when an idea germinates, which in time and with luck and hard work just may turn into
something that does an interesting job. Anyway I am fascinated, and if you have not seen the excellent
documentary that Sydney Pollack made on this a few years back, you can catch a trailer at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu9orvtStdY. In the meantime excuse me, I have some important doodling
to do.
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Wor ld Str e et s. Mon d ay , 30 May 2 01 1 2 | Pa g e
World Streets This Week - 30 May 2011
The Silly Argument Over BRT and Rail: US Perspectives
Eric Britton, editor | 24 May 2011 at 07:44 | Categories: BRT, tramway | URL: http://wp.me/psKUY-1Fq
Yonah Freemark reports from The Transport Politic:
The following sensible commentary from our friends over at The Transport Politic helps put
this "competition" into perspective. "Silly" being an entirely apt word in this context.
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On expertise and public participation
Eric Britton, editor | 23 May 2011 at 09:45 | Categories: India, local government, participation | URL:
http://wp.me/psKUY-1EY
Karthik Rao-Cavale reports on public participation practices in Lucknow India:
It appears that the folks at the Lucknow Municipal Corporation have a curious notion of
the meaning and purpose of public participation. When their funding proposals under the
centrally sponsored scheme for urban development (JNNURM) were rejected due to the
lack of public participation, they came up with the brilliant idea of a “city volunteer
technical corps” that would participate in the planning process. Members will be chosen
by the city corporation based on “expertise” in planning and related areas. The newspaper also reports that a
prior attempt to constitute such a consultative body was aborted when “undesirable” persons who were not
“experts” entered the consultative group. The corporation promises only to include “desirable” persons this
time round.
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Wor ld Str e et s. Mon d ay , 30 May 2 01 1 3 | Pa g e
World Streets This Week - 30 May 2011
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Hands-on collaboration: With you and your city?
How can World Streets help support sustainable transport initiatives in your neighborhood, city, country,
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This we will have to do together. So now all that remains to be done is to get you
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partner so that in 2011 we can together go from strength to strength. Get in touch
so that we can swap ideas concerning how to go about it.
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Wor ld Str e et s. Mon d ay , 30 May 2 01 1 4 | Pa g e
