Pigeons With Backpacks Join The Fight Against Air Pollution

The pigeons were sent across London.

In March, a team of 10 pigeons wearing small pollution-monitoring backpacks were sent across London. Londoners themselves are now invited to wear their own sensors to create the first human-powered air pollution monitoring network.

Nearly 9,500 people die early each year in London due to long-term exposure to air pollution — more than twice as many as previously thought, according to newresearch. Paris-based tech companyPlume Labshas created an app that helps people in polluted urban areas do something to reduce the risk of pollution-related health issues — avoiding excessive exposure at peak times, for instance. Plume Air Report, as it’s called, tells you if it’s safe to run, bike, go out with your children, or eat outside. The company relies on thousands of pollution monitoring stations around the world for data and it already works in 150 cities around the world.

Last March, Plume Labes launched in collaboration with Twitter and marketing and tech agency DigitasLBi a campaign intended to draw attention to London’s air pollution issues by releasing a flock of pollution-monitoring pigeons to map pollution in the city. As the birds flew throughout the city, Londoners could tweet to @PigeonAir to get up-to-the minute information on the air quality in their neighborhood. While the Pigeon Air Patrol was only in the skies for three days, Plume Labs turnt to humans to join the ranks.

The main goal was to inspire Londoners to join Plume’s new Air Patrol as beta testers of the air pollution-sensing device. Plume is hoping to create a network of these human sensors that will enable it to crowdsource very detailed and specific readings of air pollution to compliment the data pulled in from monitoring stations and they already use for their app.

The crowdfunding campaign set up to finance the project managed to collect the needed £10,000 in only 21 days. The project, in collaboration with Imperial College London, seeks dozens of Londoners (think cyclists, runners, pram pushers and so on) to test their wearable personal air quality sensors later this year. Problems like air pollution often seem too big to tackle, but sometimes the small scale, creative and pro-active ideas can achieve more than you’d expect. Read more information.

Source: Popupcity
Picture: Popupcity

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AMS Institute, Re-inventing the city (urban innovation) at AMS Institute, posted about 11 hours ago

Do you want to learn from and network with the best researchers and scientists working to tackle pressing urban challenges?

AMS Institute, is organizing the AMS Scientific Conference from April 23-25 at the Marineterrein, Amsterdam, to address pressing urban challenges. The event is organized in collaboration with the City of Amsterdam.

The conference brings together leading institutions in urban research and innovation, thought leaders, municipalities, researchers, and practitioners to explore innovative solutions for sustainable development in Amsterdam and other global cities.

Keynotes, research workshops, learning tracks, and special sessions will explore the latest papers in the fields of mobility, circularity, energy transition, climate adaptation, urban food systems, digitization, diversity, inclusion, living labs experimentation, and transdisciplinary research.

Attendees can expect to gain valuable insights into cutting-edge research and engage in meaningful discussions with leading experts in their field. You can see the full program and all available sessions here.

This year's theme is 'Blueprints for messy cities? Navigating the interplay of order and messiness'.

The program

Day 1: The good, the bad, and the ugly
Keynotes by Paul Behrens of Leiden University and Elin Andersdotter Fabre of UN-Habitat will be followed by a city panel including climate activist Hannah Prins. The first day concludes with a dinner at the Koepelkerk in Amsterdam: you're welcome to join our three-course meal with a 50 euro ticket.

Day 2️: Amazing discoveries
Keynotes by Carlo Ratti of MIT and Sacha Stolp of the Municipality of Amsterdam discuss innovation and research in cities. Corinne Vigreux, co-founder of TomTom, and Erik Versnel from Rabobank will participate in the city panel.

Day 3️: We are the city
Keynotes by Paul Chatterton of Leeds University and Victor Neequaye Kotey Deputy Director of the Waste Management Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Ghana. They discuss how we shape the future of our cities together. This will be followed by a city panel including Ria Braaf-Fränkel of WomenMakeTheCity and prof. dr. Aleid Brouwer of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

To buy tickets: You can secure your conference tickets through our website.
Dinner tickets: On April 23 we’re hosting a dinner at the Koepelkerk in Amsterdam. Tickets for this can be added to your conference pass or bought separately.

Rihards Dzelme, Inclusive Cities & AI / Trained Architect and Urbanist , posted Apr 15th

We hebben uiteenlopende en interessante reacties ontvangen van stedenbouwkundigen, architecten en gemeenten. Als u wilt weten wat andere professionals denken, vul dan deze enquête in met uw e-mailadres en wij delen de inzichten met u.

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Herman van den Bosch, professor in management development , posted Apr 14th

A previous post made it clear that a 15-minute city ideally consists of a 5-minute walking zone, a 15-minute walking zone, also a 5-minute cycling zone and a the 15-minute cycling zone. These three types of neighbourhoods and districts should be developed in conjunction, with employment accessibility also playing an important role.

In the plans for 15-minute cities in many places around the world, these types of zones intertwine, and often it is not even clear which type of zone is meant. In Paris too, I miss clear choices in this regard.

The city of Melbourne aims to give a local lifestyle a dominant place among all residents. Therefore, everyone should live within at most 10 minutes' walking distance to and from all daily amenities. For this reason, it is referred to as a 20-minute city, whereas in most examples of a 15-minute city, such as Paris, it is only about the round trip. The policy in Melbourne has received strong support from the health sector, which highlights the negative effects of traffic and air pollution.

In Vancouver, there is talk of a 5-minute city. The idea is for neighbourhoods to become more distinct parts of the city. Each neighbourhood should have several locally owned shops as well as public facilities such as parks, schools, community centres, childcare and libraries. High on the agenda is the push for greater diversity of residents and housing types. Especially in inner-city neighbourhoods, this is accompanied by high densities and high-rise buildings. Confronting this idea with reality yields a pattern of about 120 such geographical units (see map above).

Many other cities picked up the idea of the 15-minute city. Among them: Barcelona, London, Milan, Ottawa, Detroit and Portland. The organisation of world cities C40 (now consisting of 96 cities) elevated the idea to the main policy goal in the post-Covid period.

All these cities advocate a reversal of mainstream urbanisation policies. In recent decades, many billions have been invested in building roads with the aim of improving accessibility. This means increasing the distance you can travel in a given time. As a result, facilities were scaled up and concentrated in increasingly distant places. This in turn led to increased congestion that negated improvements in accessibility. The response was further expansion of the road network. This phenomenon is known as the 'mobility trap' or the Marchetti constant.

Instead of increasing accessibility, the 15-minute city aims to expand the number of urban functions you can access within a certain amount of time. This includes employment opportunities. The possibility of working from home has reduced the relevance of the distance between home and workplace. In contrast, the importance of a pleasant living environment has increased. A modified version of the 15-minute city, the 'walkable city' then throws high hopes. That, among other things, is the subject of my next post.