The Sunday Diigo Links Post (weekly)

• Euro fund ‘like a Ponzi game’ says trader – BBC News

  Whoops…
  QUOTE
  Mike Johnson: It’s an extraordinary thing to get your head around. Let me just get this clear, what we are going to have is a situation where countries which are on the verge of bankruptcy are going to be borrowing money effectively from themselves?

  Satyajit Das: That’s exactly what’s going to happen. I will give you the picture. The European Financial Stability Fund is guaranteed by a whole bunch of countries including, interestingly enough, Spain and Italy. Spain and Italy between them make up 30% of the guarantee of the European Financial Stability Fund.

  Now what they are going to do is then the European Financial Stability Fund is going to borrow from the European Central Bank, which has also obviously got support from Spain and Italy, and then lend the money to Spain and Italy. It’s almost self dealing raised to an art form. It’s abstraction on a level of money which is almost incomprehensible.
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  QUOTE
  Mike Johnson: You think Germany, the German people will run out of patience with all of this before long, do you?

  Satyajit Das: Well, before they run out of patience, they will run out of money because in the end if you actually look at the amount needed just to get through the next two or three years, if you take Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy, they have maturing debt. This is debt they have issued, about $1.5 trillion between now and the end of 2013.

  So all of that money has to be found and at the end if Germany and France and the stronger countries start to take on that burden, their own credit worthiness will be called into question. And if they lose their triple-A ratings, well then the whole game starts to unravel yet again, and it’s very difficult to see this having what could be called a happy ending.
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  tags: satyajit_das bbc europe finance ponzi_scheme

• A Video Tour of the South Bronx With Amanda M. Burden and Michael Kimmelman – NYTimes.com

  Short blog post with wonderful video embedded featuring Amanda Burden (NYC planner) who talks about Yolanda Garcia. QUOTE
  Via Verde aside, nearly a dozen public housing complexes have been built in Melrose during the last decade, as part of the mayor’s $3 billion initiative to add some 165,000 new subsidized apartments around the city. It seemed like a good idea to make the video to give Times readers a look at a few of the buildings and some sense of the scope of the change that has come to the South Bronx.
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  tags: nyc bronx amanda_ burden yolanda_garcia urbanplanning urban_renewal

• Want to live longer? Build walking into your routine

  Meshes nicely with the research that shows sitting to be harmful to your health (whether in offices or in cars…)
  QUOTE
  Cars have so altered the way cities are planned that “it’s arguable that zoning is now health averse,” said Larry Frank, a professor at the University of B.C.’s school of community and regional planning. One of his studies found that for every hour spent in a car, there’s a six-per-cent increase in the likelihood that you’ll be obese.

  Old cities are pedestrianfriendly because they had to be. But the rise of mega-cities makes that impossible, unless you consider public transit to be an extension of walking. Transit riders almost invariably walk to and from their bus or train to work or home. In fact, they are nearly 3.5 times more likely than drivers to meet minimum physical activity guidelines, according to another of Frank’s studies.
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  tags: vancouver walkability cities cars health walking

• The Local-global Flip, Or, “the Lanier Effect” | Conversation | Edge

  Fantastic analysis and riff on the internet and our present prospects, by Jaron Lanier.
  QUOTE
  To expect liberty from democracy without a middle class is hopeless because without a middle class you can’t have democracy. The whole thing falls a part.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: edge jaron_lanier internet futurismo technology interview video socialtheory

• The Case for Strengthening Urban Property Rights – Housing – The Atlantic Cities

  QUOTE
  Strengthening property rights, however, would more closely align private costs and private benefits. A group of NIMBY neighbors forced to buy a property in order to limit development on it would only make the purchase if they felt very strongly about doing so and, in particular, if they felt the benefits to them of blocking the development were worth the cost of the land in question.

  But wait, you might argue: what if the potential developer stands to make billions by building on a particularly lucrative piece of land? How then could neighbors hope to buy the land to keep it un- or underdeveloped? It would obviously be much more difficult for NIMBY groups to halt development in such cases, but generally speaking, that’s a good thing. When land values are very high because development potential is very high, that suggests that demand is very high. And in such cases, the cost of blocking that high demand is also quite high. It is in precisely these cases that the economy is most harmed by NIMBYs who face low costs in restricting development.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: atlantic_cities cities urban_development ryan_avent nimbyism housing

• The important difference between a road and a street | New Urban Network

  Fascinating talk by Charles Marohn – at about 5min., I was reminded of Gordon Price’s “Motordom”… Must think about the two in tandem… Also, his talk touches on the problem of down- or offloading by senior levels of government to lower levels of government. And just get a load of the talk at around 9min. So true, so sad. “We’re so obsessed with moving cars…” It’s all about the cars, which are hogging everything related to infrastructure, and it’s sapping the economy. Not “a value-creation machine.” The way we physically structure our (suburban) environments retards innovation, which is based on interaction.

  tags: new_urbanism urbanplanning suburbia charles_marohn michigan strong_towns

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.