Happy New Year - the Chinese Year of the Dragon! Every Chinese New Year 130 million people in the world’s most populous country head back home to their villages for family celebrations. It is the world’s largest human migration and the story is captured in the film “Last Train Home”. It focuses on one family spanning 3 generations and their annual get-togethers between 2006 and 2009. It combines documentary and drama to give a picture of how the different generations have become fragmented by China’s urban economic growth.

Helensburgh is a town of about 20,000 residents. Located on the Firth of Clyde it attracts day trip visitors as well as serving as a commuter settlement for Glasgow about 35 kms away. An innovative community-based design programme has been undertaken there that has similarities to work that partners in the Trans-in-Form project are doing.

Summer has been late arriving in Chicago this year, but Millennium Park draws crowds all the year round. It’s a public space right in the heart of the city that undoubtedly works. Chicago’s citizens seem to have forgiven the fact that it was millions of dollars over budget and not completed until 2004, after almost seven years of construction.

I use low cost airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet a lot. I find them cheap and convenient, and no less reliable than more traditional operators like SAS or British Airways. So I was fascinated to see that the French-language magazine “Constructif” currently has a series of articles on Les nouvelles frontières du “low cost”. 

First, the good news. In 2009 global emissions of CO2 fell. These findings come from the US Energy Information Administration. Next, the small print. He data only covers CO2 from use of energy – the fuel we use in our cars, on planes, in factories and the gas, oil and coal that we burn to keep us warm, keep the lights on, and drive machinery. It does not include the emissions of methane from cattle, for example. Nor does it factor in the impact on CO2 of deforestation. Now, the bad news. We are in the deepest recession since the 1930s. Industrial output in the energy-hungry west has dropped. In the USA, for example, emissions are back down to 1995-6 levels. So the 0.1% fall globally really disguises a continuing underlying upwards trend. Indeed in previous economic downturns the fall in CO2 emissions was much more marked. This was the case in 1981-83 and in 1991-92. However, on each of these occasions economic recovery saw the upward trend in CO2 re-established.

Everybody wants higher education, but nobody wants to pay for it. This statement seems to hold true across many countries. The dilemma is very acute in the UK at present. The Conservative-led coalition government has decided that the people who should pay are students and their parents. They are proposing that universities in England should be able to charge up to around Euros 10,800 a year in fees. Just as significant is their plan to completely withdraw the funding the government provides to universities for teaching on degrees in humanities and social sciences. If you want to study history or modern languages you will have to pay the full cost. The market will decide what courses (and universities) are viable and what are not.