1.The World's Fastest-Growing Megacities
The modern megacity may have been largely an invention of the West, but it’s increasingly to be found largely in the East. The seven largest megacities (defined as areas of continuous urban development of over 10 million people) are located in Asia, based on a roundup of the latest population data released last month by Wendell Cox’s Demographia. The largest megacity remains the Tokyo-Yokohama area, home to 37 million, followed by the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, Seoul-Incheon, Delhi, Shanghai and Manila.
2. Houston Rising—Why the Next Great American Cities Aren’t What You Think
America’s urban landscape is changing, but in ways not always predicted or much admired by our media, planners, and pundits. The real trend-setters of the future—judged by both population and job growth—are not in the oft-praised great “legacy” cities like New York, Chicago, or San Francisco, but a crop of newer, more sprawling urban regions primarily located in the Sun Belt and, surprisingly, the resurgent Great Plains. ...
... Why are these people flocking to the aspirational cities, that lack the hip amenities, tourist draws, and cultural landmarks of the biggest American cities? People are still far more likely to buy a million dollar pied à terre in Manhattan than to do so in Oklahoma City. Like early-20th-century Polish peasants who came to work in Chicago’s factories or Russian immigrants, like my grandparents, who came to New York to labor in the rag trade, the appeal of today’s smaller cities is largely economic. The foreign born, along with generally younger educated workers, are canaries in the coal mine—singing loudest and most frequently in places that offer both employment and opportunities for upward mobility and a better life. ...
3. Cohabitation first is new norm for unmarrieds with kids
... For almost half of women ages 15-44, their "first union" was cohabitation rather than marriage, says the report from the National Center for Health Statistics. For less than one-quarter, the first union was marriage. The report was based on in-person interviews conducted between 2006 and 2010 with 12,279 women ages 15-44. ...
"Instead of marriage, people are moving into cohabitation as a first union," says demographer Casey Copen, the report's lead author. "It's kind of a ubiquitous phenomenon now." ...
4. James Tarnto says the decline of marriage has a more significant impact on boys. Boys Hardest Hit
5. Hunger Games: Reporters and pundits greatly exaggerate hunger in America
... In stark contrast, the latest USDA/Census data on hunger (page 12) reveals that 1.3% of households with children had a child who was hungry at least once during 2011. The same report (page 19) also shows that on any given day, an average of 0.18% of households with children had a child who was hungry. This first measure of hunger (at least once during 2011) is 22 times lower than the “29.2 percent” figure cited by Zaimov, and the second measure (the average on any given day) is 162 times lower. ...
6. Interfaith marriage: Across the aisles
... Americans are more likely to marry someone of a different faith than someone who supports a different political party. Jews spotted the trend early, with a survey triggering alarm in 1990 when it claimed that more than half of American Jews were marrying out. Interfaith marriage remains most frequent among Jews (and rarest among Mormons, of all creeds studied). But others have been catching up, with overall rates of such unions more than doubling since the 1960s. ...
So is this a positive sign of increasing religious tolerance or just a sign of how insignificant religion is to the lives of people that they do not care what others believe?
7.Emily Temple has a list of 21 Books Written by and About Women That Men Would Benefit From Reading
8. Kyle Roberts Reflecting on “The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work” by Darrell Cosden.
9. An interesting interview with Douglas Rushkoff on his new book: Why Living in the Present Is a Disorder
We’re living in the now, we no longer have a sense of future direction, and we have a completely new relationship to time. That’s the premise of Douglas Rushkoff’s latest book Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, a sort-of update to Alvin Toffler’s influential Future Shock from decades ago. ..
10. Annie-Marie Slaughter suggest that if women want more balanced sharing of household work they need to discover The Immense Value of Giving Men More Control of Household Tasks
As women are experiencing the satisfaction that comes from a professional career, men should also get to know the joy of investing in home life.
11. China Is No Longer A Low-Cost Producer
12. Forbes says The Death of the PC Has Not Been Exaggerated
It really wasn’t that long ago that a new computer every 3 years was a rite of passage. A fancy new chip from Intel or a nifty update to Windows sent both people and corporations out to replace PCs that felt awfully obsolete for shiny new ones. The latest data from IDC shows how things have changed: PC shipments down 14% year-over-year, despite the launch of Windows 8. While Microsoft and its fans might not want to admit it yet, Windows 8 is a flop. The failure to generate new sales is bad; the acceleration of a trend of declining PC shipments is downright awful. “At this point,” IDC said, “It seems clear that the Windows 8 launch [has] slowed the market.” ...
13. Here is an interesting article about some really "crapy" furniture. Sustainable Furniture Made From Agricultural Waste and Poop
14. Mashable says E-Books Now 23% of U.S. Publisher Sales.
15. This was an encouraging story amidst the strife in the PCUSA: Fremont Presbyterian's schism divides congregation - but they still share sacred spaces
16. This is a great piece: FLASHBACK: This Was The Internet In 1995
I am happy for Fremont Presbyterian Church.
Posted by: c141nav | Apr 14, 2013 at 05:05 PM