progressX

-- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet There is not a single future of mobility. Transport will vary according to settlement size, geography, culture and the existing infrastructure and services that will evolve to provide future mobility. There tends to be a future view of mobility that centres around high-rise megacities and high-tech transport systems - hover cars, jet packs, railroads in the sky. This view has remained the same for almost a century - but I believe the future is oversold and under-imagined. The world's population is growing and becoming more urban. There are currently seven billion people living on the planet, with just over half in urban areas - but beware the word urban, it has no single definition and can refer to quite small settlements. Only 5% of the world's population live in megacities (using the UN definition of more than 10 million people). In Europe, two thirds of the urban population live in settlements of fewer than 500,000 people. Forecast...

-- a _kt75 | reprint   Tweet How can you design a city by designing a car? Today’s automobiles are driven by an increasing number of users who live in cities. The United Nations reported in 2007 that migration patterns and population growth have created an equal split between inhabitants of cities and rural areas for the first time in human history. This general trend will continue for the next several decades and will produce a very urbanized world. In 1950, New York City was the only megacity on the planet, with 10 million occupants. Today, there are 25 megacities that are mostly in developing countries. To verify this trend, we need only to look at the rapid urbanization in China to see the mass migration of the rural poor to urban areas for economic opportunity. Population experts project that most of the urban growth will occur in Asia and Africa for the next several decades. Simultaneously, humanity’s thirst for personal mobility will continue to grow. History ...

-- a _kt75 | reflection  _download Paper: server 1 | server 2  _download Supporting Information: server 1 | server 2  _download troubles: get your free copy Keywords Genuine sustainable development, turnover, sales figures, hype, car makers, China, overhang-effect, overlap-effect. Figures contained: _Annual GDP growth in China 2003-2013 (incl. projections till 2015) _Sales figures of Audi, BMW and VW 2008-2012 _CO 2 -emissions China 2008-2012 _Ground plan of Chinese expressway network 2010 _Annual road fatalities in China 2008-2012 Summary Corporate sales/turnover figures represent the quantitative and qualitative specification of the impacts of any kind on resources of any type. Also here are ‘facts’ and ‘figures’ vehicles typically used to promote, convey and enforce interests in a more or less reliable way. The car industry, with particular consideration of the so-called ‘emerging economies’ (e.g. China), represents an excellent basis to analyse this issue. In this conte...

-- a note from _kt75   Key words : Mobility, Sustainability, Hydro-, Wind-, Solar power, Railways, Transport Downloads (problems ? contact: kt75@gmx.ch ) Server 1 | 2 Server 3   Summary It is a popular misconception that a certain good , for example a certain transport service possesses an inherent sustainability per se. Attended is this perception by the widespread belief that technical/technological development (i.e. any kind of tools, standards, etc.) more or less guarantees the sustainability of a certain good. Such technical measures in addition to e.g. environmental standards, labels, certificates, protocols, might be helpful to facilitate the sustainable use of a certain good, if applied appropriately and if – in addition to the economic dimension - also the technical, environmental and geo-political dimensions of a certain good are considered in a comprehensive way. Decisive however, for successful and robust, thus sustainable development according to the Brundtla...