American Evolution ~ Rails, Roads & US Cities!

The FT shares this compelling piece Mapping how railroads built America mashing up the evolution of US railroads over time with the growth in physical expansion and population of American cities...

"A new look at antique US railroad maps reveals how cities grew over the past 200 years. The FT's Alan Smith and Steven Bernard trace how cities, people and the economy spread from coast to coast"

Surreal Value ~ Apple's Exponential Exhuberance

The FT reports on the Apple Effect...

"When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, it was valued at $3bn, less than one-tenth of Siemens, Europe’s largest industrial group then and now. Today, Apple is worth more than Germany’s 30 leading companies."

Circular Economies ~ From Trashflow to Cashflow

I've become increasingly intrigued by the circular economies idea wherein the classic linear material and energy flows going from source-to-sink are supplanted by recycling or reuse or waste-use material flow loops. Sarah Murray makes The case for a circular world in the recent FT Special Report on the Circular Economy...

"This is an approach to industrial and consumption systems that shifts from linear “take-make-dispose” models to circular ones that return what comes from nature to the production cycle. This means going back to the drawing board.  For example, Steelcase, the US office furniture maker, designs products with disassembly in mind. […] "we’re trying to, by design, keep things in the system as opposed to just reducing their negative impact,” […] For some companies, this has meant rethinking the business model. [Umcore made] the shift from mining operations to a business in refining, recycling and recovering speciality metals. […] DSM, a life sciences and materials sciences group [is] looking at how to recycle and reuse 100 per cent of carpets by making them from a single type of material, rather than from multiple materials. […] “People are frustrated by the extent of packaging and by having to throw a washing machine out after three years. Companies are responding —- that’s a big shift.”

In the WEF report Towards the circular economy: Accelerating the scale-up across global supply they spotlight -- and illustrate -- the material flows of a restorative industry system...

"First, a circular economy aims to design out waste. [...] Second, circularity introduces a strict differentiation between consumable and durable components of a product. [...] Third, the energy required to fuel this cycle should be renewable by nature."

Remittance Flows ~ FT Infographic on Pathways

The FT writes about Remittances: the hidden engine of globalisation...

"The number of people in the world who live outside the country of their birth has risen from 153m in 1990 to 270m last year according to the World Bank, swelling global remittance payments from a trickle to a flood. As migration has increased, these financial snail-trails have become one of the defining trends of the past quarter-century of globalisation -- the private, informal, personal face of global capital flows. For many developing economies, it is a lifeline. [...] Some governments have sought to channel remittances into development efforts; Indonesia is the latest country to consider a “diaspora bond” in a bid to tap the savings of its wealthier overseas residents."

Boiling (Mad) Frogs ~ French High-Tax Exodus...

The FT's Hugh Carnegy and Scheherazade Daneshkhu write that Entrepreneurs follow Depardieu out of France...

"Jean-Gil Boitouzet’s departure may not cause the same hullabaloo as the tax exile of Gérard Depardieu but, like the film star, the businessman is quitting France for Belgium. [The] founder of the online brokerage Bourse Direct [...] will move across the border before January 1, when President François Hollande’s new tax regime -- including a 75 per cent marginal rate of income tax -- takes effect. He says tax is not the main reason he is relocating to Belgium, but rather the anti-business culture in France. “It is like boiling the frog. But I am jumping out of the water before it boils.” A “morose” national mood and high taxes add up to a hostile “ambience”, he says. “This is a country where there is no growth, the cost of labour is very high, and when entrepreneurs succeed they are criticised for exploiting their workers.” Just how many people are treading a similar path to Mr Boitouzet and Mr Depardieu -- to less harsh tax regimes [...] -- is impossible to gauge: the two men are unusual in being open about their plans."

Invest in Africa ~ FT Spots Tullow's Campaign...

Fascinating story by the FT's Michael Kavanagh noting that Tullow keeps the ball rolling in Africa...

"...as founder of “Invest in Africa”, Tullow Oil has emblazoned the name of the campaign group on to TV screens in a sponsorship deal with Sunderland football club in northeast England [...] Aidan Heavey, Tullow’s chief executive, said: “At a stroke, this association will make Sunderland the most popular football club in Africa.” Mr Heavey’s claim will appear to many as quixotic. Yet it clearly reflects a desire by Tullow and its Irish founder to act as a cheerleader for investment, rather than aid, in the continent where the Chiswick-based company continues to concentrate its attention. [...] since its creation in 1985, Tullow’s main focus has been in Africa, where it now operates in 15 countries and claims to be the continent’s leading independent oil company. The stated aim of Mr Heavey’s campaign vehicle is to attract the support of other companies operating successfully in the region, challenge misconceptions about doing business on the continent and “tackle the gap between the perception and reality of doing business in Africa”. Tullow itself claims credit for encouraging local recruitment and training of senior management in the territories where it operates, as well as job creation and investment."

Very compelling indeed! Here's their promo film...

West African Mining ~ Big Corporate Action...

Spotlight on international mining and resource extraction in West Africa, starting with this FT piece on Sierra Leone's new chapter... And a survey piece on SL's mining sector... Corporate promo video by London Mining in Marampa, Sierra Leone... Also one by Koidu Holdings, Sierra Leone. ArcelorMittal in Liberia Mines Again: From Dream to Reality... And more from AM in Liberia... Al Jazeera on Chinese reviving Bong Mine, Liberia...

Operation Palliser ~ Enlightened Intervention...

I'm very interested in the current boom times in Sierra Leone, with dramatic growth rates and the problems of prosperity and entanglements over ownership and sharing the wealth. How different from just over a decade ago when SL was in the throes of civil war. Until, that is, Operation Palliser, which began as an evacuation by UK troops but escalated into the protection of the capital, Freetown, and fight against the RUF rebellion. The story deserves further review because it is a successful example of Enlightened Intervention by outside powers in ending strife and restoring a people to a more peaceful pathway forward. The BBC tells of The brigadier who saved Sierra Leone, the story of the British deployment and their leader...

"The force commander, a little-known brigadier called David Richards, had other ideas. He saw a chance, took a risk, and changed the fate of the country. [...] "I could see," he told me, "that with a little robustness, we could make a difference." [...] Richards promised the president that Britain would supply arms and ammunition to the government forces. [...] Richards was committing Britain to taking sides in Sierra Leone's civil war. However, there was one important difficulty. The general's political bosses in London had sent him to carry out a quick evacuation and then leave. "So," I asked him 10 years on, "you were promising the president all this before you had the political authority from London to do so?" "Er, yes," he said, "I'm afraid I was, yes."

Wow! See more from the BBC about this remarkable story... And here's a Master's thesis by Patrick Evoe on Operation Palliser: The British Military Intervention into Sierra Leone, A Case of a Successful Use of Western Military Interdiction in a Sub-Sahara African Civil War.

Megacities ~ FT's Pilling on Urbanizing Humanity

Megacities -- writes David Pilling in the FT -- are humanity's future...

"By 2050, three-quarters of the world’s population will be urban. That means more -- and much bigger -- metropolises. [...] The character of cities -- and their larger cousins the megacities -- is being rapidly redefined [to mean] massive agglomerations, mostly in the developing world. In truth, more of the world’s population is moving to second-tier cities than to the megacities. But huge conurbations have a symbolic potency. For some, they represent a brave new world in which Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and others in the developing world are clambering from poverty. For others, the megacity is nothing less than a nightmare. [...] Whether we like it or not, it is no longer possible to keep the bulk of humanity down on the farm. By 2050, three-quarters of the world’s population will be urban. That means more cities -- and more megacities. “These megacities are a big part of humanity’s future and the prospect should be both exhilarating and terrifying,” says [Harvard's] Glaeser. The examples of Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai show that megacities don’t have to be monstrosities. For many of us, the megacity is our fate. The goal of humanity should be to manage that fate, not succumb to it."

Read the rest of the piece.

Flower Towers ~ FT on Forests in the Urban Sky!

Christopher Woodward, director of London’s Garden Museum, writes in the FT about The age of flower towers...

"Architects are tackling the problems of the concrete jungle with ambitious schemes using green technology to grow forests in the sky. [...] The most exciting new tower in the world is under construction in Milan. At 27 storeys high, Bosco Verticale is a splinter beside the Shard, the 87-storey skyscraper under construction in London. What sets the Milan tower apart is that it will be the world’s first vertical forest, with each apartment having a balcony planted with trees. In summer, oaks and amelanchiers will shade the windows and filter the city’s dust; in winter, sunlight will shrine through the bare branches. Bosco Verticale is the vision of Stefano Boeri..."

Fantastic stuff! Read the rest of the FT article and check out the Garden Museum's From Garden City to Green City exhibition link too!

Coup de Grâce ~ Trigger of Soviet Disunion @ 20

The Soviet hardliner attempted coup twenty years ago, 19-21 August 1991, triggered the dissolution of the USSR by Christmas that year. An amazing period in history but still shrouded in mystery as the FT's Moscow chief Charles Clover writes in Last days of the USSR...

"...the failure of the GKChP [coup committee] has long been characterised as a triumph for democracy over the forces of reaction, people over politburo. It was a pivotal episode in the extraordinary year of 1991, which academics and statesmen now speak of in the same breath as 1789 and 1917: a moment of inflection between the paradigms of totalitarian rule and liberal democracy. In this story, the Soviet coup provides a microcosm: the two systems collided, and one emerged victorious. As Yeltsin said afterwards: “One century ended, the century of fear, and another began.” The image of the ordeal remains Yeltsin standing on a tank, an elected leader facing down the gun."

"The only problem with this reading of the putsch is that it doesn’t sit well with the facts. The more one delves into those three days, the more shadowy and shifting they become. The vital, decisive moments had very little to do with democracy, or the march of history; what counted in the crisis was the superior ability to mystify, mislead and manipulate. This was a clash of conspiracies, and the best conspiracy won."

Take a look at a contemporary newscast to get a sense of just how disconcerting these events in Moscow were. People really thought this was prelude to a bloody civil war... But with tank commanders shifting sides and the word spreading of Yeltsin and the defenders of the parliament, the coup collapsed, and by Friday, 23 August 1991, Russians had pulled down the statue of KGB founder Felix Dzerzhinsky right in front of the KGB headquarters in Moscow! And by Christmas, Gorbachev resigned live on global satellite TV! Amazing! And, of course, there's far more to the backstory as shared by Der Spiegel's Christian Neef in a joint interview with Gorbachev and his piece The Gorbachev Files: Secret Papers Reveal Truth Behind Soviet Collapse. In any case, the saddest thing about all this is that 70 years of pervasive and pernicious Communist dictatorship has been difficult to undo and the subsequent two decades has been extraordinarily disruptive for the common citizenry. Perhaps in another decade or so Russians will finally achieve their rightful measure of prosperity. The Guardian spotlights what happened with the former elements of the Soviet empire...

Slum Solutions ~ Mumbai's Vertical Challenges...

JDH Reddy writes in the FT of Mumbai's Vertical Challenge, making progress on rehabilitating slums...

"...in the world’s most crowded city, with an average population density of 20,038 per sq km, verticality is seen as both a necessity and a virtue. While the rich love high-rises for their glamour and views, the more than 8m people who live in Mumbai’s slums are being forced into vertical living, as powerful property developers seek profits amid the city’s desperate shortage of land. Although in principle the redevelopment of slums offers residents better living conditions, it has become intensely controversial as many are left homeless and corruption runs rampant. [...] More than half of Mumbai’s population of 12.4m are slum-dwellers. They are working poor and lower-middle class, by no means destitute, but unable to afford Mumbai’s sky-high rents. Although they are poor relative to buyers of luxury high-rises, they have something else that counts: the slums are known locally as “vote banks”, since whoever wins the slums has a hefty block of the electorate in the bank. [...] “Slum-dwellers want to move into flats, but the redevelopment needs to be done with community involvement,” says Chandrashekhar Prabhu, an architect who has been involved with several slum rehabilitation schemes."

Read the rest of the piece, plus sidebar, for rich additional details. Bottom-line: There's lots of challenges in seeking sustainable and scalable slum solutions.

Liveable vs Lovable ~ FT on Urban Attractiveness!

Edwin Heathcote asks in the FT about the relative merits of Liveable v lovable cities and revealing...

"...the fundamental fault that lies at the heart of the idea of measuring cities by their “liveability”. The most recent surveys, from Monocle magazine, Forbes, Mercer and The Economist, concur: Vancouver, Vienna, Zurich, Geneva, Copenhagen and Munich dominate the top. What, you might ask, no New York? No London? No LA or HK? None of the cities that people seem to actually want to emigrate to, to set up businesses in? To be in? None of the wealthiest, flashiest, fastest or most beautiful cities? Nope. Americans in particular seem to get wound up by the lack of US cities in the top tier. The one that does make it is Pittsburgh. Which winds them up even more. The big cities it seems, the established megacities of the US, Europe and Asia are just too big, too dangerous, too inefficient. So what do these top cities have in common? How exactly do you measure “liveability”? [...] Joel Garreau, the US urban academic and author, agrees. “These lists are journalistic catnip. Fun to read and look at the pictures but I find the liveable cities lists intellectually on a par with People magazine’s ‘sexiest people’ lists.” Ricky Burdett, who founded the London School of Economics’ Cities Programme, says: “These surveys always come up with a list where no one would want to live. One wants to live in places which are large and complex, where you don’t know everyone and you don’t always know what’s going to happen next"

Why not both? Maybe there's a third alternative combining livable and lovable!

Getting Better ~ Improving the World Even More

Thanks to FT review by Alan Beattie for spotting Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding -- and How We Can Improve the World Even More...

"...an intriguing book by Charles Kenny, an economist currently on leave from the World Bank, shows that there is more to life than GDP. The gap between the income of the world’s richest and poorest may widen but their respective qualities of life -- measured by infant mortality, life expectancy, education, the ability to communicate, civil rights, freedom from violence -- have converged. [...] The book’s first chapters are a brisk canter through the known unknowns of the study of economic development. Kenny emphasises how little we can prove about the effect of aid on economic growth, and the difficulty of transplanting governmental and legal institutions into developing countries from outside. He really gets going with an analysis of how new technologies have cut the price of quality of life, enabling billions to escape the Malthusian trap whereby higher population meant poorer people. [...] Getting Better seems likely to become a canonical addition to the development literature. It sets out a manageable thesis, argues it vigorously and with optimism, realism and humility -- a refreshing combination in any field, and particularly one like international development, too often marked by hubristic confidence or histrionic despair."