December 2006

>  31 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in ,
The violence of European cartography and partition. Fisk charts a brief history of imperialism and conflict in Lebanon.
>  30 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in , ,
>  30 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in ,

Blast

Blast

Seen on East 4th street.

>  30 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in
Our Ailing Communities. “If that poor woman [on the right shoulder, struggling along] had collapsed from heat stroke, we docs would have written the cause of death as heat stroke and not lack of trees and public transportation, poor urban form, and heat-island effects. If she had been killed by a truck going by, the cause of death would have been ‘motor-vehicle trauma,’ and not lack of sidewalks and transit, poor urban ­planning, and failed political leadership.” A brief interview with public-health advocate Richard Jackson.
>  25 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in , , ,
Who Knew 04. A student project out of design department at Art Center looks at social issues including the water shortage, e-waste, social design, and other dirty secrets.
>  16 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in

Internet Activism in the Wall Street Journal

My 2005 research An Introduction to Activism on the Internet was featured in the November 27 “Recommended Reading” column of the Wall Street Journal. Katrin Verclas, executive director of the Nonprofit Technology Network, picked thirteen on- and offline resources for leveraging technology for social change. About my document, she says:

“John Emerson’s guide covers strategies and techniques of electronic advocacy using email, the Web and other new media to bring about social change. It provides a great overview and analysis of campaigning methods.”

See for yourself at http://backspace.com/action. Thanks, Katrin!

>  9 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in
Composting Green Map of Manhattan. “Created by Green Map System and Lower East Side Ecology Center, this pocket-size map shows you where to take your kitchen scraps and organic waste so it can be composted and naturally recycled into rich soil, along with resources so you can start your own composting project at home.”

Composting in the East Village Compost Map Front Compost Map Back

See the PDF online or send for a free printed map.
>  7 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in

Ghost Bikes

Ghost Bike

Last week, the New York Times ran a sober photo essay on the ghost bikes that Visual Resistance and Time’s Up! have been installing around New York City since June 2005. The bikes are public interventions, a grassroots action in the spirit of graffiti memorial walls. The bikes are painted white and chained near the site where a cyclist was killed by an automobile, along with a plaque with their name and the date they were killed. Several are plotted on this map.

The bikes were inspired by a similar project in St. Louis, and have since appeared in cities across the U.S. and the U.K.

A 2005 report on bicycle fatalities from the New York City police, parks, health, and transportation departments reports that between 1996 and 2005, 225 bicyclists were killed in crashes with motor vehicles. Between 1996 and 2003, 3,462 NYC bicyclists were seriously injured in crashes.While the annual number of serious injuries has decreased, deaths remained steady during the 10-year period.

The statistics show a failure of urban design and policy — 89% of crashes occurred at or near intersections, 92% of bicyclist fatalities resulted from crashes with motor vehicles — as well as the absence of personal equipment: 97% of the bicyclists who died were not wearing a helmet. 74% of the fatal crashes involved a head injury.

While it’s clear that helmets save lives, something else is broken in NYC: of the 3,964 transportation-related deaths in New York City between 1996 and 2005, only 6% were cyclists. Almost half the deaths (49%) were pedestrians.

>  5 December 2006 | LINK | Filed in , , , , , ,
>  1 December 2006 | LINK


On to January.
Back to November.