The speed of cities, part II

As I described in my last post, there is a strong relationship between the size of cities and the residents’ speed of walking. The larger the city, the quicker its residents scamper from A to B. A number of studies have confirmed this relationship and have broadened the relationship to the speed of other activities (such as betel nuts changing hands quicker in Port Moresby than in rural centres in Papua New Guinea).

The speed of cities

Over the weekend, I listened to a great Radiolab podcast in which Bob Levine was interviewed about the pace of walking in cities. Bob spoke about how people tend to walk faster in larger cities, with this relationship surprisingly consistent. Where does this walking pace comes from. As the host Jad asked, do we make the city, or does the city make us? The early movers in this area of research were Bornstein and Bornstein, who between 1972 and 1974 went to 15 countries across Europe, North America and Asia and measured the speed of pedestrians.

Clark on violence

In Greg Clark’s excellent book A Farewell to Alms, Clark posited that there was only one important event in human history - the Industrial Revolution. Before that time, per capita income was effectively flat, with no discernible trend. That all changed around 1800 AD with the Industrial Revolution. Clark saw the Neolithic revolution and the move to settled agriculture as simply an extension of hunting and gathering and symptomatic of the steadily improving efficiency that had occurred over the previous tens of thousands of years.

More on violence

Following yesterday’s post on female preference for masculine men, a couple of old articles came to mind. The first (and I am not sure why this did not come into my head yesterday) is the work by Napoleon Chagnon on the Yanomamo. From his paper Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population: Studies of the Yanomamo Indians of Amazonas during the past 23 years show that 44 percent of males estimated to be 25 or older have participated in the killing of someone, that approximately 30 percent of adult male deaths are due to violence, and that nearly 70 percent of all adults over an estimated 40 years of age have lost a close genetic relative due to violence.

Selection for aggression

Masculine appearance in a man is an indicator of their health, which in turn leads to more viable offspring. On this basis, one might assume that women prefer masculine men. However, empirical research into whether women prefer men with more masculine physical features has not shown the strong positive preference we might expect. While masculine appearance is linked to health, that masculine partner may be less interested in a long-term relationship and be unlikely to provide for the child over the long-term.

World population 500BC

Spurred by this chart, a number of bloggers (such as Robin Hanson and Razib Khan) have asked what was happening around 500 BC to cause the jump in population. Was this an almost industrial revolution (with population in the Malthusian state the primary indicator of the level of technology)? The data in the chart is based on the low estimate by the United States Census Bureau, which in turn comes from a range of sources.

My top 10 books in 2010

As is the fashion for this time of year, here are my top ten books of 2010. As I tend to read books that are both old and new, these are the top 10 books I_ have read_ this year. The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850 by Joel Mokyr - Although I don’t agree with the underlying hypothesis, it is a great analysis of the Industrial Revolution.

Trading fish

Alex Tabarrok has posted on Marginal Revolution a piece on the expansion of “catch shares” as a fisheries management tool. Under catch shares (also called individual tradeable quotas or ITQs), each fisher owns a percentage of the quota set for the fishery. The fisher can trade the share and it provides flexibility to the fisher about when and how they choose to catch their quota. The use of catch shares as a method of allocating fishing rights has many benefits.

A wasteful Christmas

As noted by Chris Berg, the Australia Institute has rolled out its annual reminder of Joel Waldfogel’s almost 20-year old observation about the wastefulness of Christmas giving. As the gift giver has less than complete knowledge of the preferences of the recipient, the recipient tends to value the gift at less than the amount that the giver paid. The disparity in value represents a deadweight loss. As for most of the annual responses to the Australia Institute’s release (with a special mention for Steven Kirchner’s 2009 comparison of Christmas gift giving with government spending), Berg suggests that such spending may not be wasteful.

Fitness spreading

One of the issues at the core of my research is the speed of human evolution, particularly over the last 10,000 years. There are several potential arguments to suggest that the speed of human evolution is increasing, such as a larger population (creating a larger source of mutations) and the huge changes in environment that humans have experienced. One of the obstacles to this argument is the largely monogamous nature of marriages, especially in more recent times and developed countries.