Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls

Congestion pricing: the political viability of a neoliberal spatial mobility proposal in London, Stockholm, and New York City(23 page pdf, Themis Chronopoulos, Urban Research & Practice, Jul. 2012)

Today we review an article that looks at the political factors behind the success or failure of congestion charging systems in Europe and the USA. Several key factors are at play that vary by geography and seem to involve class privileges: the clash between middle income and high income groups most affected by the charges and the need to have a plan to use congestion charge revenue in a fair way to improve other mobility options, principally mass transit which favours the low income sector.

To see Key Quotes and Links to key reports about this post, click HERE

Today, March 14th, is the International Day of Action for Rivers. It’s organised by International Rivers who say that they’re ‘at the heart of the global struggle to protect rivers and the rights of communities that depend on them.’

It’s not yet clear to me how International Rivers cooperates with the United Nations (UN). This year, 2013, is the UN’s International Year of Water Cooperation. The UN’s World Water Day is to be in a week’s time, on March 22nd. If you find the link between International Rivers and the UN, please let me know.

I’m grateful to my fellow bloggers at Sunset Daily for drawing attention to the International Day of Action for Rivers.

The nearly mile-long Superkilen park in Denmark is a bold attempt to create a new identity for an “ethnically diverse and socially challenged” neighborhood in Copenhagen, Denmark. An in-depth community outreach process organized by the city has led to a place like no other, with a sequence of plazas that honor different ethnics groups living in the area. Designed by Bjarke Ingels’ firm, BIG, landscape architecture firm, Topotek 1, and artists’ group, Superflex, the massive project also accomplished a lot with a little budget: at just $34 per square foot, the landscape “packs a lot of bang for the buck.” The project, which has recently been all over the design press, also just took home the AIA Institute Honor Award for urban and regional design and an annual design award from Architect Magazine in the “play” category.

The AIA jury, which included Ellen Dunham Jones, author of Retrofitting Suburbia