Peter Bradwell
Researcher
Peter Bradwell is a researcher at Demos. He is interested in the ways that information and knowledge is shared between people, and between people and government...
- I'm trying to sleep here... Cities are loud. My world cup experience has already been defined by eerie sonic mash-ups of John Motson, Sainsbury’s delivery trucks and screaming emergency response vehicles.But silence-lovers of London rejoice (Quietly). Artist Simon Elvins has sketched a beautiful ‘Silent London’ map, detailing the pockets of quiet that hide seductively amidst the capital’s cacophony.Should we expect droves of the sleep-deprived, mattresses and duvets in tow, to hold alternative... continue reading on 28th June 2006
- Where the rubber hits the grid-road We spent Wednesday and Thursday this week in Milton Keynes talking to planners and council members - the first of our case study visits. I had some initial thoughts I thought might be worth putting up.For the debutant visitor the grid-planned streets and wide, tree-lined pedestrian walkways lend ‘MK’ an LA-tinged other-worldliness. It was planned into existence, so inevitably it's fairly unique.Milton Keynes is indeed a special case from a planning perspective. But the challenges... continue reading on 23rd June 2006 in Future Planners
- Friday Rant: It's Not Magic. It's Stupid Two examples stand out. First, his stunt was called ?Drowned Alive?. Has anyone, ever, anywhere, drowned without being alive first? Or is that syntactically insane title supposed to mean something else? Second, he suggests that ??what's different about me?is (that) my stuff is more about?the art of doing absolutely nothing, which in this day and age is so unusual.? I?ve got a transitional labour force and an emerging post-industrial legacy that says different.I don?t want to rain on the parade... continue reading on 26th May 2006
- Everyday Cartography Projects like OpenStreetMap and the related ?Mapchester? show how technology ? often GPS-based ? can be used by the public to map and draw out the hidden secrets of place. Time-lapse movies from Cabspotting and eCourier in particular sketch the curious arrhythmia of a cities heartbeat, while the Greenwich Emotion Map fused its results with Google Earth to create a compelling cartography of people?s experience of walking through South-East London.It seems that meaningful community-led efforts... continue reading on 23rd May 2006
- My Back Yard is Your Back Yard Peter Pan - sorry, Ruth Kelly, in her new role as Secretary of State for Communities, said yesterday that she wanted to ?root out? the social culture that sees people being ?protective of their own space?.I can?t help but wonder if this is a curious attitude for someone with responsibility for communities. It certainly sits a little uncomfortably with the tone of nearly every planning policy statement to emerge from the ODPM over the past couple of years. (And apparently her record in... continue reading on 12th May 2006
- Friday Rant Imperialism - It's still here and it?s more rational than ever?I picked up yesterday on the verbal fracas between George Monbiot and Jenny Tonge regarding her comments in the House of Lords on Botswanan Bushmen. Today saw Lady Tonge in the Guardian attempting to repudiate the suggestion that her views about these people being in the ?Stone Age? might have been a touch, um, crude.Her piece included this remark on the ?Stone Age? comparison:?A more accurate description would have been... continue reading on 24th March 2006 Comments (1)
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