This Big City

Ever wondered what goes on in the sky above one of the world’s largest cities? Check out this timelapse video of London’s skies created by the guys at Digital Urban. Made up of thousands of photographs taken over 12 hours at 5 second intervals, this video reveals cloud movement, aeroplane activity, and even a few birds flying into shot!

The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destinations.

John Scharr, Futurist

This Big City in Conversation with Bonnie Wong

Bonnie Wong - an independent consultant who makes enterprises investment ready, with an equal interest in sustainable development - recently met with This Big City for a coffee in east London. Sustainable developments and the role of communities in planning were just a few of the topics that emerged in conversation:

Bonnie Wong: I work for private sector clients, and they have access to a lot of assets, they do stuff quickly and they’ve got their processes down. I’m trying to take a bit of that into the social enterprise, not-for-profit sector, trying to get them to move a bit more…

This Big City: Efficiently? There is a lot to be said for that, because these private sectors do that so well. They’ve refined their working methods almost to perfection, and that level of organisation between divisions could be utilised well in start-up social enterprises.

The Truth About London’s Cycle Superhighways - Part 2

Earlier this month I cycled the entire length of the CS3 - one of London’s new ‘Cycle Superhighways’ - and presented a photo essay of the route here on TBC. Now, in order to further explore London’s new cycle infrastructure, I am doing the same for the CS7 - the second of the routes. These superhighways are supposed to provide safe, fast and more direct journeys into the city centre, and London will see two more open every summer through to 2015.