by admin | Jun 6, 2014 | Blogging, Disaster, Disaster policy, Public safety, Urban Planning
A few months ago, I was asked to speak at the 2014 annual Science Policy Conference of the American Geophysical Union, a scientific organization that has developed a growing interest in natural hazards. I agreed, and am one of four speakers on a panel that will...
by admin | May 18, 2014 | Disaster, Disaster policy, Political philosophy, Public safety, Urban Planning
As a young man from a blue-collar family, I partially worked my way through college during the summers at a chemical company near Cleveland that employed my father as a truck mechanic. If there is one thing I learned at the time, it was the value of safety and...
by admin | May 14, 2014 | Disaster, Education, Urban Planning
Opportunities exist both May 20 in Chicago, and June 18-19 in Boston, to learn more about creating resilient communities that can survive and thrive in the face of disaster. The first involves a roundtable, “Smart Systems, Resilient Regions,” hosted by the...
by admin | Mar 19, 2014 | Activism, Disaster, Travel
Early in 2008, after I learned that I would be offered a three-week visiting fellowship by the Centre for Advanced Engineering in New Zealand (CAENZ), colleagues and friends had a tendency to ask why that country was so interested in my expertise in planning for...
by admin | Feb 23, 2014 | Blogging
I am going to abandon any pretense to scholarship in this particular commentary. Scholarship would defeat the purpose, which is creativity, not that the two never go together, but there are times when we need to rely on intuition first, and figure out the rationale...
by admin | Feb 20, 2014 | Blogging, Chicago, Uncategorized
Those who live in big cities know how unforgiving the parking meters are. Leave your car unattended longer than the time on the meter allows, forget to put that extra money in before time runs out, and here comes a parking ticket, with a hefty fine–$25, $50, or...
