Remember Spain

Spain is definitely high on my personal "places along the way" list... read and experienced IRL...

James R. Martel (SFSU): What Equality Would Actually Look Like: Lessons from Anarchist Spain on Equality, Temporality and the Art of the Possible .... The Genius of El Cid: How the Spanish superhero — outnumbered and under siege — broke out of Valencia, crushed a Muslim army, and inspired Christian crusaders. 

An interview with Javier Fernandez Sebastian on the Ibero-american world as another political powerhouse for modernity during the Revolution Age, thanks to the analysis of the history of concepts in the English and Portuguese speaking Atlantic. 

.... Many will remember Spain’s socialist prime minister for his mishandling of the economic crisis, but his legacy in other areas — particularly social reform — is substantial. 

From Books and Ideas, Jeanne Moisand on protectionism and the birth of Catalanism .... A review of Sovereignty and the Stateless Nation: Gibraltar in the Modern Legal Context by Keith Azopardi. 

.... Atlas Obscura visits the Josep Pujiula Labyrinth, a wonderland replication in progress by one persistent man.

Read all of Remember Spain at Omnivore

a new world order of maps

Timothy Erik Strom (Southern Cross): Space, Cyberspace and Interface: The Trouble with Google Maps. From Penn State, a series called the Geospatial Revolution Project. In the emerging field of “spatial humanities,” scholars are using mapmaking software to recreate vanished landscapes and envision history as it really happened. Mapmaking has a new challenge far more involved than depicting the traits of the physical world. A new world order of maps (Google and MapQuest) changes how we engage with cities. Creative Cartography: Here are 7 must-read books about maps. Restoring a 1770 map, found at the Brooklyn Historical Society, entailed boiling old books to get the right aged color. From Strange Maps, Fank Jacobs on Nazis up the Mississippi and other Axis invasion scenarios. From GeoJunk, while some artists use paint or charcoal, the artist Nikki Rosato prefers to make portraits of the human body using old road maps; and here is a brief history of maps. Ingenious Flat Earth Theory revealed in old map, with the Earth as an inverse toroid. From GeoCurrents, Martin W. Lewis on a key to map of geopolitical anomalies; delusional mapping: A review of The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hamalainen; and an article on microstates in cartograms. Maps with only words, known as “Typographic Maps”, are becoming increasingly popular (and more). Know your meme: “The World According to X” (a.k.a “How X Sees the World” or “The X World”) is a series of world map satires that are labeled with various geopolitical stereotypes and jokes to reflect the biased worldview of country X. Everybody, meet Kergolus: This little furry thing is a geo-mascot, shaped like the territory it symbolises. Mapping the human condition: What the empire of love has to do with the intellect forest and the bay of agoraphobia.

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cities rise and fall

How nice to find a city something to blog (re-purpose) for places, among other functions, also designated citylit destination ~ all the more so when I'm behind on posting. All MLA'd out too, without even attending. Appropriate for places along the way though, all those LA images, plus irresistible "MLA in LA" (aka "MLALA") inspired juxtapositions ~ Academy in Hard Times, End of the Univeristy as We Know (and other examples of the genre), The Day of the Locust and so on.

From Lapham's Quarterly, a special issue on The City. From City Journal, Victor Davis Hanson on the destiny of cities: Throughout history, forces both natural and human have made cities rise and fall; Asian megacities, free and unfree: How politics has shaped the growth of Shanghai, Beijing, and Seoul; and Brandon Fuller and Paul Romer on cities from scratch and a new path for development. From THES, a review of The Just City by Susan S. Fainstein; and a review of City Life by Adrian Franklin. There is a growing understanding that it is actually “love” that will be the prime force in the future economy of successful 21st century cities. The 30 most dynamic cities on Earth: Which metropolis is leading the world out of the recession? The answer is Istanbul — and the rest of the list is equally surprising. Mario Polese on seven reasons why big cities matter more than ever. Ross Perlin on ten megacities of the near future. What makes a city grow and thrive, and what causes it to stagnate and fall? Geoffrey West thinks the tools of physics can give us the answers. Tom Vanderbilt on how a planned highway can change a city, even if it never gets built. A new era for the city-state: Joel Kotkin on the New World Order. An article on predicting the climate-changed city of the future. An innovator in every apartment: Conor Friedersdorf on how cities should unravel their pre-digital regulations.

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... time enough tomorrow (or whenever the rest of the convention post-mortems roll in) to blog collected observations and links.

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Urbanites and their cities

1:00PM

Nov 17 2010

Andrey Korotayev (RSU): The World System Urbanization Dynamics: A Quantitative Analysis. William A. Fischel (Dartmouth): The Evolution of Zoning Since the 1980s: The Persistence of Localism. Urban-rural divide no more: An increasing number of urban dwellers are retreating to the country — and taking the city with them. Witold Rybczynski, author of Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities, on the cities we want (and part 2 — and a review). Could the increasingly complex systems needed to manage the next generation of megacities become our first true artificial intelligence? An interview with Saskia Sassen: Forget London and New York, the rest of the world should want to be the next Miami. A review of The Wealth and Poverty of Regions: Why Cities Matter by Mario Polese. Boosters still maintain that big cities remain unique centers for social uplift, but evidence suggests this is increasingly no longer the case. From New Geography, Zachary Neal on why city size does not matter much anymore. How to shrink a city: Not every great metropolis is going to make a comeback — planners consider some radical ways to embrace decline. Megacities: Here is Foreign Policy's guide to the coming urban age. From H-Net, a review of books on North African and Middle Eastern cities. How will climate change impact urbanites and their cities? Matthew Kahn on his book Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future. Alphabet City: What does a city’s signage tell you about its character? The introduction to Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City. Sustainable urban mobility in 2020: To make the car of the future, we need to make the city of the future. Here is a radical public transportation solution straight out of a sci-fi novel.

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