So when @jenandtheart made a comment about how the Global Culture blog was rising above the usual lightness with which most people talk about travel and culture, he really got me thinking. Long time ago I diagnosed myself with the “meaningful conversation disorder” by which I usually feel inadequate unless a conversation can transcend the mundane. And it seems this blog suffers that same fate.

If I have been talking about travel a little bit too much and it seemed out of place amid the more profound earlier debate, here is a spin that should bring the tone of the blog back to its usual depth:

First some context: in smaller houses, better [...]]]> Because I spend a lot of my day working around all things travel, that knowledge somehow defines a general theme for many of my posts. Even on my twitter account (@globalculture) I often find it easier to engage in casual conversation whenever the topic is travel. People lighten up when talking about travel.

So when @jenandtheart made a comment about how the Global Culture blog was rising above the usual lightness with which most people talk about travel and culture, he really got me thinking. Long time ago I diagnosed myself with the “meaningful conversation disorder” by which I usually feel inadequate unless a conversation can transcend the mundane. And it seems this blog suffers that same fate.

If I have been talking about travel a little bit too much and it seemed out of place amid the more profound earlier debate, here is a spin that should bring the tone of the blog back to its usual depth:

If you have been planning on reducing your travel budget because the current economy makes you cautious, start packing. You may be travelling sooner than you’d expect.

First some context: in smaller houses, better communities I echoed the idea that the current environment should accelerate some of the urbanization trends, such as concentrating within the core areas that foster creativity and innovation, even if that means moving more often:

“Less ties to a place would create an incentive for people to relocate to the hubs where new opportunities arise.”

And in a call to not waste the current crisis, I seconded the notion to take advantage of the unique opportunity that we have to challenge the old ways to lead to a new standard of living:

“as we grow aware of the world around us and educate ourselves in the ways of other peoples and cultures, we can’t help but notice that things abroad are not too different from things around the corner. In the midst of a global recession it’s easy to panic if we are all doing things in the same ways, buying the same products, asserting the same way of live. After all when the entire boat is going down, you don’t want to be where the majority of the crowd is (pardon the extreme analogy). Instead each one of us will look at doing things a little bit different, trying to use all those lessons on global culture to create a unique mix that will allow us to become unique actors in a complex stage where the rules are about to be rewritten.

In “How the Crash Will Reshape America“, Richard Florida provides an insightful look at the various factors that will be changing the balance of power among American cities. He challenges the assumption that New York will succumb at the same pace its financial industry melts down and believes it will in fact force its creative industries to take the lead in many other fronts… diversifying its portfolio, so to speak.

And just like being in New York during this transitional phase will likely present key opportunities to those that storm the weather, all the other world’s mega-regions will continue to concentrate talent and produce most economic output. Urban innovation will have to accelerate to sustain the rhythm of life in these regions.

Ultimately a variety of factors will lead to a new American urban geography according to Florida:

It will likely be sparser in the Midwest and also, ultimately, in those parts of the Southeast that are dependent on manufacturing. Its suburbs will be thinner and its houses, perhaps, smaller. Some of its southwestern cities will grow less quickly. Its great mega-regions will rise farther upward and extend farther outward. It will feature a lower rate of homeownership, and a more mobile population of renters. In short, it will be a more concentrated geography, one that allows more people to mix more freely and interact more efficiently in a discrete number of dense, innovative mega-regions and creative cities.

An uprooted population, globally inclined, aware of the fact that jobs will be scarce is likely to give away its current address in exchange for some job security. In particular if those jobs are in tune with the zeitgeist. Settling in a new city used to be something you did maybe twice in a lifetime. I believe many of us will be faced with this transition more than a few times. In the same way that the average person would move to a bigger house every 3-5 years (eventually buying the one they couldn’t afford), many of us will find ourselves pondering not a better neighbourhood but a completely new city.

This may sound like a bold move, but your inner global citizen is rejoicing at the possibility that a new travel adventure is around the corner. Pack lightly as you may be on the road for some time. I believe our ancestors used to call this a ‘nomadic’ life.

A recent study by the Global Enrironment Monitoring unit of the European Commission has produced a very interesting visualization of how accessible areas around the world are. Representing in brighter yellow colours those areas that are just a few hours away from a major city and darker red colours those that can only be reached after days of travelling, the map clearly conveys the simple fact that there are very few regions in the world that are truly isolated.

Produced by GEM

As I start to structure the notion of a slurb, one element to consider is how far away would you be willing to travel. Most tourists will assume a half-day for their journeys, a couple of hours getting to the airport and waiting for a flight, four to eight hours on a plane and maybe another hour getting to the final destination. The end point will usually be another major city or tourist destination with decent road infrastructure.

But knowing that there are very few places in the world that are more than a couple of days away [...]]]>

Wilderness? Only 10% of the land area is remote – more than 48 hours from a large city

A recent study by the Global Enrironment Monitoring unit of the European Commission has produced a very interesting visualization of how accessible areas around the world are. Representing in brighter yellow colours those areas that are just a few hours away from a major city and darker red colours those that can only be reached after days of travelling, the map clearly conveys the simple fact that there are very few regions in the world that are truly isolated.

Produced by GEM

As I start to structure the notion of a slurb, one element to consider is how far away would you be willing to travel. Most tourists will assume a half-day for their journeys, a couple of hours getting to the airport and waiting for a flight, four to eight hours on a plane and maybe another hour getting to the final destination. The end point will usually be another major city or tourist destination with decent road infrastructure.

But knowing that there are very few places in the world that are more than a couple of days away from “civilization” you could easily add another day to your journey to venture into a less accessible location, leaving behind most tourist traps and blending with the local scene. All this without risking too much as you would still be “near” a major city. All of the sudden the possibilities are endless.

The journey may end up costing more because you need to make arrangements for a car or a driver, but it is likely that settling in a remote community away from the tourist buzz will also drive your accommodation costs. Of course it now makes sense to stay longer. In fact, it makes sense to travel not only for vacations but the reconnect with your creative self, that part of your mind that needs to slow down and retreat in a quiet place to invent and define your next few months of greatness.

The methodology to rank the cities includes 24 metrics in five dimensions:

The first is business activity: including the value of its capital markets, the number of Fortune Global 500 firms headquartered there, and the volume of the goods that pass through the city. The second dimension measures human capital, or how well the city acts as a magnet for diverse groups of people and talent. This includes the size of a city’s immigrant population, the number of international schools, and the percentage of residents with university degrees. The third dimension is information exchange—how well news and information is dispersed about and to the rest of [...]]]> In January of 2007 I posted the globalization index, a partnership between Foreign Policy magazine and A.T. Kearney. At the time the report listed the most globalized countries, led by Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. A few weeks ago I decided to once again fine tune the editorial line of this blog by dedicating more time to cover urban issues and the role of cities in the shaping of our global culture. So finding the Foreign Policy’s 2008 Global Cities Index serves to reinforce the recent spirit of this blog.

The methodology to rank the cities includes 24 metrics in five dimensions:

The first is business activity: including the value of its capital markets, the number of Fortune Global 500 firms headquartered there, and the volume of the goods that pass through the city. The second dimension measures human capital, or how well the city acts as a magnet for diverse groups of people and talent. This includes the size of a city’s immigrant population, the number of international schools, and the percentage of residents with university degrees. The third dimension is information exchange—how well news and information is dispersed about and to the rest of the world. The number of international news bureaus, the amount of international news in the leading local papers, and the number of broadband subscribers round out that dimension.

The final two areas of analysis are unusual for most rankings of globalized cities or states. The fourth is cultural experience, or the level of diverse attractions for international residents and travelers. That includes everything from how many major sporting events a city hosts to the number of performing arts venues it boasts. The final dimension— political engagement—measures the degree to which a city influences global policymaking and dialogue. How? By examining the number of embassies and consulates, major think tanks, international organizations, sister city relationships, and political conferences a city hosts.

The complete ranking breaks down the position of each city in each dimension, but here is a preview of the overall winners:
New York – London – Paris – Tokyo – Hong Kong – Los Angeles – Singapore – Chicago – Seoul – Toronto – Washington – Beijing – Brussels – Madrid – San Francisco

The index, a collaboration between Foreign Policiy, A.T. Kearney and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, includes a few other features such as how to be a global city, the placement of the 19 megacities in the index, the massive role of Chinese cities, an unexpected relationship between most global and cleanest urban centres and more.

Here is my list of what Global Culture needs from the next president of the United States:

…the broad pattern of what countries produce is determined by things like resources and climate, but there’s a lot of additional specialization due to economies of scale, and there’s much more trade, especially between similar countries, than you would expect from a purely resource-based theory.

And on the impact of mobility of labor and capital:

Think of Henry Ford and his Model T. He could have established many factories, spread across the country, to be close to his customers. Instead, however, he found that it was worth incurring extra shipping costs to achieve the economies of scale of one big factory in Michigan. And once you’re concentrating production in a limited number of locations, which locations will you choose? Locations where there’s a large market – which will be locations where lots of other producers have also chosen to concentrate their production.

While [...]]]> Last week the Nobel Foundation awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences to Paul Krugman for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity. A good summary of his work can be found in the post About the work in The New York Times. In his own words the New Trade Theory explains patterns of trade:

…the broad pattern of what countries produce is determined by things like resources and climate, but there’s a lot of additional specialization due to economies of scale, and there’s much more trade, especially between similar countries, than you would expect from a purely resource-based theory.

And on the impact of mobility of labor and capital:

Think of Henry Ford and his Model T. He could have established many factories, spread across the country, to be close to his customers. Instead, however, he found that it was worth incurring extra shipping costs to achieve the economies of scale of one big factory in Michigan.
And once you’re concentrating production in a limited number of locations, which locations will you choose? Locations where there’s a large market – which will be locations where lots of other producers have also chosen to concentrate their production.

While the ideas appear to be common sense there are complex mathematical models that explain how the world of trade works and do it more accurately than previous models.

There are a number of interesting elements from these theories that have consequences to the various discussions going on in this blog:

• In a world increasingly complex, there are many finished goods that can only be produced in very few places, but those locations are often decided by historical accidents more than anything else and their location is of no consequence to the overall market. Such specialization will require top qualified knowledge workers to be highly movable, an effect that is well known in the consulting business and that emphasizes the need to understand their role as global citizens.
• Which location is best for producing a given good? Possibly near a large market. Where are large markets? Most likely where other producers have settled in the past. There is a trend to cluster production of specific industries in large urban areas only because they have momentum. This momentum started by accident but will be a cumulative process.
• As access to information becomes easier, it is to be expected that specialists will develop around the globe in specific techniques but the hubs in which they can excel will cluster in specific regions of the world, creating an incentive to migrate.

While these theories have been around for close to 20 years it is perhaps poetic that the Nobel prize goes to a “new” theory when the economy is in clear need of new ideas. One can only hope that policy is implemented around full understanding of how the world really works and not obsolete models.

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, with a special focus on the United States. All the stuff in our lives, beginning from the extraction of the resources to make it, through its production, sale, use and disposal, affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues and calls for all of us to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something. It’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Everyone should watch the full length video, but here is a quick teaser:

After watching the full video you’ll be itching to do something about it. Here is a quick summary of 10 things she suggests you can do: Power down, Waste less, Spread the word, DeTox your life, Unplug from media and Plug In the community, Drive less, [...]]]> The greatest documentary I’ve seen since “The Corporation” is delivered by Annie Leonard, an expert in sustainability, in a video.

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, with a special focus on the United States. All the stuff in our lives, beginning from the extraction of the resources to make it, through its production, sale, use and disposal, affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues and calls for all of us to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something. It’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Everyone should watch the full length video, but here is a quick teaser:

After watching the full video you’ll be itching to do something about it. Here is a quick summary of 10 things she suggests you can do: Power down, Waste less, Spread the word, DeTox your life, Unplug from media and Plug In the community, Drive less, Recycle, Buy Green, Buy Fair, Buy Local, Buy Used, and most importantly, Buy Less.

I’ll share my own ideas about “stuff” in another post, but for now read what I’ve been saying for the last couple of years: global warming, a new economic era, the idle class, earth inc. and the rights of the victors.

Look beyond the cliché of hidebound insularism and you quickly see that just as the rest of the world is not immune to American influences, America is not immune to the rest of the world, even in its domestic affairs.

I had already explored the cultural influence that the world exercises on the United States, but given the political strength of the super power, it would seem absurd to expect that the United States would open up to the point of allowing foreigners to exercise any kind of influence on the outcome of their elections. Nevertheless the fact is that such influence is not gained in the form of votes (at least not of the popular kind), but through lobbyists that represent the most diverse interests, from foreign countries to global corporations trying to advocate their private causes. Somehow the idea of a few global corporations paying the salaries of lobbyist that work side by side with the most influential politicians of the United States doesn’t seem as crazy as [...]]]> Do you think that foreign nations should participate in the election of American presidents?
Writer David Usborne writes Outside Influence – USA in the February 2008 issue of Monocle:

Look beyond the cliché of hidebound insularism and you quickly see that just as the rest of the world is not immune to American influences, America is not immune to the rest of the world, even in its domestic affairs.

I had already explored the cultural influence that the world exercises on the United States, but given the political strength of the super power, it would seem absurd to expect that the United States would open up to the point of allowing foreigners to exercise any kind of influence on the outcome of their elections. Nevertheless the fact is that such influence is not gained in the form of votes (at least not of the popular kind), but through lobbyists that represent the most diverse interests, from foreign countries to global corporations trying to advocate their private causes. Somehow the idea of a few global corporations paying the salaries of lobbyist that work side by side with the most influential politicians of the United States doesn’t seem as crazy as gathering a open forum of global citizens speaking their mind about who should be the leader of the United States.

However, since money is the one language that the American system understands well, let’s hope that a growing number of concerned global citizens will be able to influence their business peers in the United States and eventually state the higher goals that may lead to benefits abroad. The following table shows some of the countries already making an impact on specific regions of the United States through business deals in most cases:

Source: Monocle, Issue 10, Pg 24-25

. However I wasn’t able to find such factors anywhere, not even after paying for the full report. Anyway, this are the top 10 according to them, nothing that we haven’t seen before:

Still, I never get tired of ranking cities and feeling a bit proud on behalf [...]]]> I’m sure is not because Monocle released their most liveable cities report just a month ago, but now is The Economist releasing their Liveability rankings with the article Where the grass is greener. While Monocle’s report came in the form of a wonderful edition, perfectly written and documented, the Economist Intelligence Unit barely delivers a table with the rankings without much analysis behind. True, Monocle used criteria such “fair balance of sunny and warm days” and “availability of drinks after hours”, but the overall delivery convinced. According to The Economist

The survey takes over 40 factors into consideration which are weighted across five different categories: Stability; Healthcare; Culture & Environment; Education; and Infrastructure. Across the survey a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data are used, which are combined to give an overall Quality of Life Index rating.

.
However I wasn’t able to find such factors anywhere, not even after paying for the full report. Anyway, this are the top 10 according to them, nothing that we haven’t seen before:

1. Vancouver, Canada
2. Melbourne, Australia
3. Vienna, Austria
4. Perth, Australia
5. Toronto, Canada
6. Adelaide, Australia
7. Sydney, Australia
8. Copenhagen, Denmark
9. Geneva, Switzerland
10. Zurich, Switzerland

Still, I never get tired of ranking cities and feeling a bit proud on behalf of those cities that I’ve come to know one way or another.

Update: after corresponding with the Editor of the report at the Economist Intelligence Unit I was given access to the full report which documents their methodology. The ranking is based on 5 categories:

• Stability (25%): crime, conflict
• Healthcare (20%): private & public healthcare
• Culture & Environment (25%): weather, freedoms, culture, food, goods
• Education (10%): private & public education
• Infrastructure (20%): public transportation, international connections, housing, services, telecomminications

As suspected, their analysis is far more methodic but is intended to help companies planning to expand make decisions about how to compensate workers being transferred.

The survey was conducted in June 2007 so if you’re curious about the ranking of your city, send me a note and I’ll share the data.

The ranking is based on a methodology that considers many indicators such as domestic and international conflict, crime, terrorism, political climate and militarization. When analyzing the list, one interesting fact is the strong correlation between this index and the most travel and most globalized reinforcing an idea that I’ve stated before: knowledge of the world around you improves your chances of influencing in the creation of a better society. The quest to identify global citizens that can effect change is not simple, but very important for the survival of humanity.

In canadians & globalization I had posted about the reactions of the public to the theme, which represent well the situation reflected in some of the [...]]]> The Toronto Star has been running a series entitled War on Poverty. Although the focus of the series is on the local problem (as it should be), the issues and ideas are likely to be global. To the main question as to Why is the gap between rich and poor widening, the newspaper suggests:

Part of the explanation is that the share of corporate profits as a percentage of GDP has increased at the expense of wages. According to the Bank for International Settlements, wages as a share of national income in the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland declined from 63 per cent in 1980 to less than 59 per cent last year. In the same period, corporate profits as a share of GDP in those countries increased from around 11 per cent to more than 15 per cent. That means a greater financial share wound up in the hands of corporate owners and less in the hands of workers.

In canadians & globalization I had posted about the reactions of the public to the theme, which represent well the situation reflected in some of the stats on human development trends. If you want to get frustrated, just consider these:

• The top 300,000 Americans collectively made as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans
• The top 1% received 21.8% of all reported income, a record only behind 1928 when they received 23.9%. A year before the Great Depression
• The top 0.1% reported an average income of US$5.6 million, an increase of almost one million thanks to rising stock markets and business profits.

Critics will say that the people doing well are the ones moving the economy, therefore they need all kinds of incentives and protection to keep things in order, but one argument that I haven’t seen used too often is related to the hidden costs of their success. If a particular oil company has record profits at the expense of environment degradation, poor work conditions or bullish pricing of their end product we must calculate the cost of restoring nature and dealing with generations of unhealthy people. Or think about some huge global merchant deciding to compensate its shareholders at the expense of an aggressive salary policy which leaves thousands of families just above the poverty line. A poor diet resulting from these conditions will likely have a permanent effect on the ability of their children to learn, therefore to get better jobs when they grow. I’m sure if we were to compare the savings from not paying the proper salary versus the cost of opportunity lost as a result of a less productive individual, the problem would be a no-brainer to any economist. All those costs are diluted over millions of people and eventually paid in the form of sacrifices, hunger, medical bills & frustration. The fact that these costs are not passed to the corporations is a flaw of the system. In principle any resource taken in the creation of a product should be paid for.
The more I think about his, the more I realize there is nothing wrong with the economic model we use, except for the fact that our accounting has been careless to say the least and we’ve been hiding way too many costs in the form of poverty. Maybe it would be possible for people to determine what costs they are carrying on behalf of irresponsible corporations and organize class action lawsuits to recup part of those costs, or maybe convince the government to install the necessary taxes to make sure that money goes back to where it belongs. I’m sure the gap would stop widening then.