The Dashboard

he UK Centre for Cities has identified the economic gap that is emerging between cities in the UK.  It can be found here   www.centreforcities.org/outlook12 o

Regards, Jurij

There is a well developed strategy for bringing fundamental services to ‘rural’ disasters - drought, famine etc.  But cities, even poor cities, are becoming complex systems. When those systems fail (some cities that have suffered targetted attack on urban services have had terrible times recovering) getting even elementary services in place becomes difficult because they are interconnected.  At 9/11 the payphones still had a dialling tone, but the keypads had no grid power so the back up was pointless.  The backup to a cell phone network in a regional power failure  is only as good as the least charged handset battery.  So what would networks theory have to say to the aid workers trying to proritise?

We have moved our blogging effort to http://urbansystemscollaborative.org/blog/

Seminar | Giovanni Sala - Green Landscape Economy

LAND, Landscape Nature Architecture Development is a group of professionals working in the field of landscape architecture and was founded in 1990 in Milan by ANDREAS KIPAR and GIOVANNI SALA.

Taking a brave and innovative step, a young German landscape architect, experienced in environmental/ecological matters, joins forces with a young Italian agronomist and they start to work together sharing the same value and working philosophy where research and experimentation are routine practices.

Please join the next Urban Systems Collaborative online seminar this Friday from 12:30pm-1:30pm EST.

Screen share code: https://join.me/openplans

The passcode is 804-08-104. The toll-free access numbers are:
Canada Toll-Free 888-426-6840
Finland Caller Paid 0-9-72519565
Finland Toll-Free 0800-9-18357
France Caller Paid 0-170911580
Germany Caller Paid 0-69-2443-2290
Germany Toll-Free 0800-000-1018
Ireland Caller Paid 0-1-5264424
Ireland Toll-Free 1-800-943-427
Italy Caller Paid 0-2-00621263
Italy Toll-Free 800-975100
Japan Caller Paid 0-3-64042596
Japan Toll-Free 00531-11-0086 JAPAN KDD USERS
Japan Toll-Free 0066-33-830321 JAPAN C&W USERS
Japan Toll-Free 0034-800-900377 JAPAN NTT USERS
Netherlands Caller Paid 0-20-7996800
Netherlands Toll-Free 0-800-363-6036
United Kingdom Caller Paid 0-20-30596451
United Kingdom Toll-Free 0800-368-0638
USA Caller Paid 215-861-6239
USA Toll-Free 888-426-6840

For details on all upcoming seminars, please add our public calendar
http://blog.urbansystemscollaborative.org
.
To see all past and forthcoming seminars, click here
http://urbansystemscollaborative.org/webinars

Seminar | Carl Skelton - Polytechnic Institute of New York University

DIRECTOR OF BROOKLYN EXPERIMENTAL MEDIA CENTER

Carl Skelton is Industry Professor and the founding director of the Brooklyn Experimental Media Center and the academic programs in Integrated Digital Media at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. His creative/research work bridges the arts, design, technology, and community engagement. He is currently working on two books: “New Soft City Culture: The Case of Betaville” for Springer, and “The Multimedia Programming Fakebook” with R. Luke DuBois for MIT Press. Carl’s work has been supported by Microsoft Research, the Rockefeller Foundation through its Cultural Innovation Fund, the National Science Foundation, the Ontario Arts council, and the Canada council for the Arts.

Please join the next Urban Systems Collaborative online seminar this Friday from 12:00pm-1pm EST.

Screen share code: https://join.me/openplans

The passcode is  804-08-104. The toll-free access numbers are:
Canada   Toll-Free   888-426-6840 
Finland   Caller Paid   0-9-72519565 
Finland   Toll-Free   0800-9-18357 
France   Caller Paid   0-170911580 
Germany   Caller Paid   0-69-2443-2290 
Germany   Toll-Free   0800-000-1018 
Ireland   Caller Paid   0-1-5264424 
Ireland   Toll-Free   1-800-943-427 
Italy   Caller Paid   0-2-00621263 
Italy   Toll-Free   800-975100 
Japan   Caller Paid   0-3-64042596 
Japan   Toll-Free   00531-11-0086 JAPAN KDD USERS
Japan   Toll-Free   0066-33-830321 JAPAN C&W USERS
Japan   Toll-Free   0034-800-900377 JAPAN NTT USERS
Netherlands   Caller Paid   0-20-7996800 
Netherlands   Toll-Free   0-800-363-6036 
United Kingdom   Caller Paid   0-20-30596451 
United Kingdom   Toll-Free   0800-368-0638 
USA   Caller Paid   215-861-6239 
USA   Toll-Free   888-426-6840

For details on all upcoming seminars, please add our public calendar
http://blog.urbansystemscollaborative.org
.
To see all past and forthcoming seminars, click here
http://urbansystemscollaborative.org/webinars

Urban Systems Collaborative Webinar Series | Constantine Kontokosta | Building Energy Performance Disclosure and the Implications of New York City’s Local Law 84

Please join the next Urban Systems Collaborative online seminar tomorrow from 12:30pm-2pm ET.

Dr. Constantine Kontokosta, PE, is the Founding Director of the NYU
Center for the Sustainable Built Environment and a Clinical Associate
Professor at the New York University Schack Institute of Real Estate,
where he teaches courses on entrepreneurship and innovation,
sustainable urban development, real estate finance and economics, and
land use regulation. He serves on the Americas Board of the Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Board of the United Nations
Environment Programme Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative,
and the Urban Systems Collaborative. He is a member of the Executive
Team of the NYC Urban Technology Innovation Center, where he focuses
on policy and finance issues relating to green building technologies,
and is an appointed member of the New York City Council’s Municipal
Entrepreneurial Testing System Advisory Committee. Dr. Kontokosta’s
research interests include real estate investment and valuation and
building energy performance, urban systems theory and intelligent
governance and finance of complex urban systems, the diffusion of
policy innovations and the effects of land use regulations and
sustainable development policies, and the intersection of technology
innovation and urban economic development.

Screen share code: https://join.me/openplans

Dial in via:
USA Toll-Free:  888-426-6840
USA Caller Paid:  215-861-6239
Participant code:  804-08-104


For details on all upcoming seminars, please add our public calendar
http://blog.urbansystemscollaborative.org
.
To see all past and forthcoming seminars, click here
http://urbansystemscollaborative.org/wiki

Calling all urban innovators! We are delighted to announce that we have joined as a partner of the FT-Citi Ingenuity Awards: Urban Ideas in Action. This fantastic program put together by Citi, the Financial Times and INSEAD recognizes ingenious solutions to urban challenges in the fields of education, energy, healthcare and infrastructure.

If you – or an individual, group or organization you know – has implemented an ingenious urban solution, we encourage you to apply to this great initiative and spread the word.

All entries will be reviewed by the FT and INSEAD for qualification. A panel of subject matter experts will select finalists and winners. Category finalists will be profiled in a series of FT global magazines and will be invited to attend an awards dinner in New York in November where winners in each category and an overall winner will be announced.

Take a moment to ENTER HERE

The deadline is 31 March 2012.

Find out more at: www.ft.com/ingenuity

Join the conversation on Twitter: #FTCitiAwards

Nominate an individual (or group) via email: FTCitiAwards@FT.com

Read More

An award for entrepreneurial ventures in sustainable transportation. Created by the University of Michigan SMART initiative with the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, MobiPrize recognizes enterprises that demonstrate innovative and replicable solutions to local and global transportation challenges. There are three prizes : $5000 USD; a trip to Rio + 20 in June; and top notch mentorship. Special Streams highlight solutions that: link to and improve the whole (sustainable) transport system; serve the urban poor; and engage young entrepreneurs. Deadline: April 1, 2012. For your language, scroll down to “TRANSLATE” box. APPLY NOW !!

http://www.mobiprize.com/2012/01/10/apply/

SAO PAULO and ARMONK, N.Y., - 27 Dec 2010: The city government and IBM (NYSE: IBM) signed an agreement to build a public information management center for Rio de Janeiro. The Rio Operations Center, which will be located in Cidade Nova, will integrate and interconnect information from multiple government departments and public agencies in the municipality to improve city safety and responsiveness to various types of incidents, such as flash floods and landslides.

Additionally, as part of the agreement,

Read More

How two of the IT industry’s largest companies plan to rewire urban living
There is a much-derided and apocryphal story that former US vice president Al Gore once claimed to have invented the Internet. In fact, he simply said that he had promoted the development of the technology in Congress – a claim that has been corroborated by the Internet’s actual inventors, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.

Future historians may look back at

Read More

Seminar | Philip Ashlock - Open311: An open communication standard for public services & local government

Please join the next Urban Systems Collaborative online seminar today from 12:30pm-2pm ET.

As the Open Government Program Manager at OpenPlans, Phil has been opening up government in a variety of ways. He’s been leading the development of the Open311 standard so that cities can leverage web enabled citizen services in a more accessible and transparent way. Over the past few years he has taken Open311 from an idea to a standardized API for publicly tracking civic issues in dozens of cities around the world. In partnership with Code for America, Phil is also a co-founder of Civic Commons, an initiative to help governments more easily share technology. Phil primarily focuses on Open311 but he also facilitates broader collaboration between cities and other government bodies on the development of open standards and reusable technology.

Screen share code: https://join.me/openplans

Dial in via:
USA Toll-Free:  888-426-6840
USA Caller Paid:  215-861-6239
Participant code:  804-08-104


For details on all upcoming seminars, please add our public calendar
http://blog.urbansystemscollaborative.org
.
To see all past and forthcoming seminars, click here
http://urbansystemscollaborative.org/wiki

The Sustainable Business Committee of the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York (www.CBSACNY.org) is hosting an event on Sustainable Transportation on May 17th (a Thursday evening program at PWC in midtown). They have invited distinguished panelists from industry, advocacy, investment and research to discuss developments and opportunities at the intersection of transportation, technology, urban planning, and resource management. The tentative title of the discussion is, “Hitting ‘Reset’ on Clean Transportation: Fresh Solutions to Vexing Problems”.