The offer applies to anyone aged 18-30 who is an EU citizen and a resident in Spain. It includes discounts of up to 90 percent on state-run buses and short-to-medium distance trains.
https://www.thelocal.es/20230510/spain-to-pay-national-bus-and-train-tickets-for-young-people-this-summer?tpcc=newsletter_subscriber&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=how_to_get_a_100_mortgage_in_spain_and_more_travel_discounts_for_young_people&utm_term=2023-05-10
Category Archives: urban planning
Waymap: Mapping the way for the blind
“Mobility is not a luxury,” said Waymap founder and CEO Tom Pey, who is blind and argues other apps are not precise enough. “It is, in fact, a human right.”
Blind travelers often use a small number of routes from home because they are relying on memory to get around and they lack confidence, Pey said.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/app-to-help-blind-people-navigate-public-transit-to-debut-in-washington?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social_video&utm_term=1_1&utm_content=28222_AI_glasses_deaf_people&utm_campaign=social_video_2022
Why are some urban Indians choosing to live in homes made out of mud, cow dung or sugar cane?
Many other middle and upper-middle class families who used to live in sprawling bungalows or big city flats are now choosing to live in smaller mud houses, largely on the outskirts of small towns, opting for simpler living while coping with climate change.
Designers, planners and architects are helping them to build minimalist homes with primarily mud, but also other locally-sourced materials including bamboo, recycled wood, lime, baked bricks, cow dung, wheat husks and stones.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3218042/why-are-some-urban-indians-choosing-live-homes-made-out-mud-cow-dung-or-sugar-cane
A City Is Not a Computer
Just as important as the data stored and accessed on city servers, in archival boxes, on library shelves and museum walls are the forms of urban intelligence that cannot be easily contained, framed, and catalogued. We need to ask: What place-based “information” doesn’t fit on a shelf or in a database?
https://placesjournal.org/article/a-city-is-not-a-computer/?gclid=CjwKCAjw9J2iBhBPEiwAErwpeQHVt79G7jzEW3h3qz-0x-OsBS7DzJEehv_ddOMjEX47sVfclHjTNRoCPG8QAvD_BwE&cn-reloaded=1
This Tiny Town Created by ChatGPT Is Better Than Reality TV
A team of AI researchers at Google and Stanford University posted a study online on April 7 where they used OpenAI’s chatbot to create 25 “generative agents,” or unique personas with identities and goals, and placed them into a sandbox environment resembling a town called Smallville much like The Sims. The authors of the study (which hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet) observed the agents as they went about their days, going to work, talking with one another, and even planning activities.
The bots and their virtual environment were rendered in delightful 16-bit sprites, giving it the look and feel of a video game. The results were a pretty idyllic village that seemed ripped out of Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing—if, you know, those games were also rife with incredibly complex and uncomfortable ethical and existential questions.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/google-and-stanford-researchers-used-chatgpt-to-invent-a-small-virtual-town#:~:text=A%20team%20of%20AI%20researchers,Smallville%20much%20like%20The%20Sims.
‘The Era of Urban Supremacy Is Over’
From July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021, “New census data shows a huge spike in movement out of big metro areas during the pandemic,” Frey wrote in an April 2022 paper, including “an absolute decline in the aggregate size of the nation’s 56 major metropolitan areas (those with populations exceeding 1 million).”
This is the first time, Frey continued, “that the nation’s major metro areas registered an annual negative growth rate since at least 1990.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/opinion/post-pandemic-cities-suburbs-future.html?utm_source=Blueprint&utm_campaign=3a02128ede-Newsletter_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b0b9cbf437-3a02128ede-231014502
VW Gets Ready to Reveal a People’s Car for the Electric Age
Volkswagen is about to do what Tesla didn’t during its recent investor day: show off an affordable electric vehicle for the masses.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-15/vw-gets-ready-to-reveal-a-people-s-car-for-the-electric-age
The 15-minute city is already here. It’s called Paris
Is the “15-minute city,” a concept in which all of life’s necessary amenities are no more than a brisk walk away, a vision of urban paradise or a thinly disguised open-air prison? Town planning experts tend toward the former, conspiracy theorists toward the latter.
The maps, by the Paris Urbanism Agency (Apur), reflect the result of the latest triennial survey of shops, cafés, and restaurants in the French capital in 2020. The survey shows that there were 1,180 boulangeries (bakeries) and/or patisseries (cake shops) in the city. After declining in the first decade of the 21st century, their number has remained stable over the decade up to 2020. In the previous three years, 94 businesses had closed, but 91 new ones had started up.
https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/15-minute-city-paris/
Women in Their Place: Public Spaces Where Women Thrive
Women generally navigate a different set of social situations in public spaces – which means that the way that they use spaces is unique, and requires dedicated attention. To make public spaces truly gender-inclusive, a certain set of considerations for accessibility, services, and amenities need to be made. In this article, we explore places that seem to work for women, and try to get to the heart of what they get right.
https://www.sociallifeproject.org/women-in-their-place-public-spaces-where-women-thrive/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
For Adah Crandall, a high-school student in Portland, Oregon, a daily annoyance is family members asking when she is going to learn to drive. Ms Crandall, who is 16, has spent a quarter of her life arguing against the car-centric planning of her city. At 12 she attended a school next to a major road down which thousands of lorries thundered every day. When a teacher invited a speaker to talk about air pollution, she and her classmates were galvanised. Within a year, she was travelling to Salem, Oregon’s capital, to demand lawmakers pass stricter laws on diesel engines.
https://www.economist.com/international/2023/02/16/throughout-the-rich-world-the-young-are-falling-out-of-love-with-cars
Analyzing Trends with Tim Stock 