[sustran] World Urban Forum ends / "Real" Sim City

[Todd Edelman]

Hi,

Are we going about these things the right way? I would like to hear from
some people with direct experience at the Forum (Pascal?) and with the
"real" applications of Sim City...

- T

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Forum ends with urban poor focus

The World Urban Forum in Vancouver has closed with a call for developing
countries to pay more attention to the problems of the urban poor.

Excerpt: "With no real concluding statement or an expression of goals to
be met before the next meeting in 2008, it's likely that the UN city
summit will also be criticised as a talking shop and defended as a place
to learn about how other are handling similar challenges."

Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5112386.stm

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The Real Sim City

The legendary computer game Sim City has been used as the basis for a new
programme which is being used to project what the world's cities will look
like in the future.

Excerpt: Given the options, the sustainability experts using MetroQuest
invariably selected to go for the expensive "best practices" - which made
the city much more sound, but are options perhaps beyond the budget of the
average city mayor.

[...]....when the tool is used by people other than the gathered for the
demonstraton, people are much more cautious.

"Sustainable development cannot be defined academically - it is defined by
the people living in the community,"...

Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5105534.stm

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Todd Edelman
Director
Green Idea Factory

++420 605 915 970

edelman at greenidea.info
http://www.worldcarfree.net/onthetrain

Green Idea Factory,
a member of World Carfree Network