Global Village or Global slums?
Seeing two news reports so close together got me thinking about the eternal connections (perhaps affinities is a better word) between government information and urban development. It strikes me that the myriad issues of information haves and have nots extends not only in terms of economics, but also in terms of population density. In other words, for the great many of the poor around the world live in essentially dense urban wastelands with little access to services or facilities that are quite commonplace in most developed cities. In America, this discussion often plays out along rural versus city lines, but even in most cities, there are still tens of thousands of people equally isolated from much of the broadbend and robust aspects of the web many middle-income families take for granted at home, work, and in school.
A recent UN report shows that the issue of housing and the poor is only going to become more difficult. World’s Cities Report 2006/7 points out that it --
"...comes at a time when the world is entering a historic urban transition; in 2007, for the first time in history, the world’s urban population will exceed the rural population. Most of the world’s urban growth – 95 per cent – in the next two decades will be absorbed by cities of the developing world, which are least equipped to deal with rapid urbanization. The majority of migrants will be moving to small towns and cities of less than one million inhabitants. Already, more than half of the world’s urban population lives in cities of fewer than 500,000 inhabitants, and almost one-fifth lives in cities of between 1 and 5 million inhabitants."
At the same, from another source, zdnet, is mention of an initiative called the Open Architecture Network (http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org) a program designed to use open source software to facilitate more affordable housing. Strikes me that these reports are just further indication that the importance of other kinds of public information (state, local, international, regional, non-profit) will likely dominate in our near futures.
Continue readingFreeing Thomas
A good overview of the need for open availability of government information and the current status of making Thomas more open:
- Lawmakers Favor Outside Access To Legislative Data, by Aliya Sternstein, National Journal's Technology Daily, January 23, 2008 PM edition [subscription required] [The article is available without a subcription here and here ]
Excerpts:
Continue readingThe legislative process could become a lot more exciting if lawmakers get their way in freeing the data inside the Library of Congress' legislative Internet database so that independent Web sites can repackage the information....
The data is important because no single view into the workings of Congress is best for everyone...
But the change likely would affect paid-subscription sites that charge for legislative updates. Their "business model will need to evolve to compete with citizen technologists," Sunlight Foundation Program Director John Wonderlich said.
There also may be resistance from congressional administrators, who "are often wary of taking on new departmental responsibilities if they are not accompanied by statutory justification or appropriations," Wonderlich said.
US censors Arctic scientists’ findings
US censors Arctic scientists' findings as it prepares for oil and gas auction, By Daniel Howden, The Independent, January 22, 2008.
The United States has blocked the release of a landmark assessment of oil and gas activity in the Arctic as it prepares to sell off exploration licences for the frozen Chukchi Sea off Alaska, one of the last intact habitats of the polar bear.
Scientists at the release of the censored report in Norway said there was "huge frustration" that the US had derailed a science-based effort to manage the race for the vast energy reserves of the Arctic.
The long-awaited assessment was meant to bring together work by scientists in all eight Arctic nations to give an up-to-date picture of oil and gas exploitation in the high north. In addition to that it was supposed to give policy makers a clear set of recommendations on how to extract safely what are thought to be up to one quarter of the world's energy reserves.
Speaking yesterday from Tromso, one of the report's lead authors, who asked not to be named, said: "They [the US] have blocked it. We have no executive summary and no plain language conclusions."...
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Two More Stories About Broadband
This seems to be a week of stories about the need for better broadband access in the United States. Yesterday, we noted the new report from the state of California. Today, we find a story in The Economist and a new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
- Open up those highways, From The Economist print edition, Jan 17th 2008.
- Municipal Broadband: Demystifying Wireless and Fiber-Optic Options, by Christopher Mitchell. (See also: press release.)
From The Economist:
What accounts for the differences among rich countries? Two or three years ago demography was often cited: small, densely populated countries were easier to wire up than big, sparsely inhabited ones. But the leaders in broadband usage include Canada, where a tiny population is spread over a vast area. The best explanation, in fact, is that broadband thrives on a mix of competition and active regulation, to ensure an open contest.
From the ILSR press release:
Continue readingThe United States, creator of the Internet, increasingly lags in high-speed access to it. In the absence of a national broadband strategy, hundreds of communities have invested in broadband infrastructure to solve their problem locally. A new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) explores this essential infrastructure and the options now available to communities.
The ILSR Report contends that DSL and cable networks fail to offer the speeds and capacity necessary for the digital future.
"As broadband has gone from convenience to necessity, communities can no longer rely on private providers to satisfy their broadband needs," explains Christopher Mitchell, author of the study and Director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative for ILSR.
Database of Administration Iraq Claims
Researchers at The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism have assembled a full-text database of every public statement made by eight top Bush administration officials from September 11, 2001, to September 11, 2003, regarding (1) Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and (2) Iraq's links to Al Qaeda.
The database was assembled from official government publications, news accounts, books, and more. Sources include the websites of the White House, State Department, and Defense Department, transcripts of interviews and briefings, texts of speeches and testimony, prepared statements, articles from major newspapers, transcripts of television programs, government studies or reports, and books.
The "Overview" of the research says that
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Press coverage:
- Study: False statements preceded war by Douglass K. Daniel, Associated Press, Jan 23, 2008.
- Web Site Assembles U.S. Prewar Claims by John H. Cushman Jr., January 23, 2008
The Fund for Independence in Journalism, is a nonprofit, tax exempt organization "created to foster independent, high quality public service journalism in the United States and around the world." It provides legal defense and endowment support for the Center for Public Integrity, The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit organization "dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern. The Center is non-partisan and non-advocacy."
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