Enabling participatory budgeting with a card game
Participatory budgeting has been a “thing” in cities for a while now; assigning a small budget to citizens ideas, and giving them some agency in choosing to which projects the money goes to.
Geofencing vehicles, an experiment in Sweden
This article about Geofencing some vehicles in Sweden is quite short, yet the topic connects to multiple opportunities and challenges. Let’s look at the pilot project first and then at some of those connected issues.
All aboard the bike trains
Another one of those “it existed before, but the pandemic accelerated it” stories (not that there’s anything wrong with that). The concept of “bike buses” has been around for years, but the slower or even closed streets that various cities implemented in the last couple of years provided new opportunities.
Promising new materials
New materials can be quite fascinating. Although some of them are not completely new but re-invented, which is often done by integrating things nature does by itself. Dezeen has a great list of ten future materials that could change the way we build. Favourites in this list: 3D-printed mycelium, hemp rebar, and carbon-sequestering Carbicrete (ok, the last one might be in part because it's from a Montréal company).
Cities are the only sustainable way forward
At first glance, it might still be unintuitive for some but the evidence is mounting that living in cities is actually more sustainable than in the countryside. Hélène Chartier goes further, arguing that sustainable living is “not viable outside cities.” Interviewed after the release of the most recent IPCC report, she says that “cities are the only sustainable way to house Earth’s growing population–but the importance of protecting them from climate risks has been totally underrated.”