Paradigms, paradigms

Have you ever had a gnawing feeling that – recession and austerity aside – all is not right with the way we live today? And have you ever tried to describe why you feel that way, or what could be done about it, but drawn a blank? If you have, it seems you’re not alone, [...]

Sending nudges down the Tube

The Nudge blog is always worth reading for its quirky and thought-provoking content, and a recent post about the influence of the London Tube map on travel decisions caught my eye.  This schematic ‘Beck’ map simplifies the complex web of Tube lines by distorting the distance between, and location of, the stations.  It makes the [...]

Size isn’t everything

This post was prompted by a very interesting article by Jonah Lehrer in which he brings together two recent papers on how a city’s population size affects the lives of its inhabitants. In the first, theoretical physicists Geoffrey West and Luis Bettencourt demonstrate that the inhabitants of a city will, on average, produce and enjoy [...]

To AV or not to AV – what is the question?

There is a tremendous irony at the heart of the current debate on AV.  Politicians of all persuasions are looking the electorate in the eye and telling us, as sincerely as they can, that we are the audience with the greatest stake in the issue of voting reform.  But their internal debates suggest something rather [...]

The mean streets of [insert your town here]

So, the government continues on its march towards complete openness and transparency with the aim of maximising public accountability and choice. The latest step on the way has been, of course, the launch of police.uk, which maps individual crimes for all to see. Now, I’m all in favour of transparency and public accountability, and in [...]