Avoided the Great Depression and Made Money

Pretty good rate of return for the US. We bailed out the Banks and Wall Street, saved our economy from another great depression, and made money doing so. Is this a great country or what?


"America’s Treasury Department sold the remaining 2.4 billion common shares it held in Citigroup. The government spent $45 billion directly to prop up the bank during the financial crisis, but it claims that Citi’s bail-out has reaped a profit of $12 billion, after the latest share sale, for taxpayers. Meanwhile, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve accelerated their efforts to exit their investments in American International Group."

Source: The Economist  

http://www.economist.com

IBM - Smarter Cities - Sustainability

Smart Cities, Sustainability - IBM efforts. Click on the links below:

http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/green_and_sustainability/overview/index.html?csr=agus_brpal-201011&cm=k&cr=google&ct=SPK001&S_TACT=SPK001&ck=ibm_sustainable_cities&cmp=00000&mkwid=si4LysBMW_6306441133_432spytgm4qw01052&cm_mmc=Google-_-BRAND-_-SUSTAINABILITY+-+Environmental+Sustainability+-+Branded-_-IBM+sustainable+cities_mkwid_Si4LysBMW_6306441133_432spytgm4qw01052

http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/sustainable_cities/ideas/index.html?ca=v_cities

Health and Wealth Increases Worldwide

The short video on the link below shows the progression of 200 countries over the past 20 years in terms of health and wealth in a visual format that anyone can grasp.

The industrial revolution fueled by capitalism is bringing the world to greater wealth and longer lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo&feature=player_embedded

Are Smaller Cities Better Equipped for the Future?

Are smaller urban regions more nimble than big cities?  I agree with the author of the article below. If so, good news for Peoria. The Metro area has about 360,000 people, enough for most cultural and business needs, but small enough to ensure few traffic hassles.  Yet close enough to Chicago for all the things that a very large urban provides.

Read the full story: The Rise of the Efficient City


http://www.planetizen.com/node/47043

http://www.planetizen.com/

America's Heartland

Urbanophile on Another River City

Louisville

See here the river city tradition as the Belle of Louisville steamboat fires up. There were obviously no emissions standards back in the day.

Read the article at:

http://www.urbanophile.com/

Fountains for Peoria - Prototype

A few years ago I proposed Fountains shooting across the Illinois River from Peoria and East Peoria. Still a good idea if someone wealthy would like to finance a great symbol of the City.  The large fountains would cost about $500,000. The large ones would be turned on for major celebrations and perhaps every weekend evening at sunset. The smaller ones could run periodically every day.

In the meantime we built the fountains in Sarasota as a kind of prototype.

More info at:

http://peoriafountains.blogspot.com/

Green Sense Radio Show

Shrinking Cities Revisited Sunday, November 14, 2010 High tech corridors in Silicon Valley, the Massachusetts 128 corridor and the financial district of New York attract investment and the brightest talent in the nation. But what about the Midwest and Great Lakes states? Many cities in these areas have been hollowed out as manufacturing jobs have left for foreign shores. The cities are left with vacant buildings, shrinking populations and big footprints resulting in a high per-capita cost to maintain aging infrastructure. We will explore how to right size a shrinking city and talk about an innovative approach called landbanking which allows a city to recapture these tax revert vacant properties and put them back to productive use.