Cyberman №3 — Barcelona and Copenhagen urban reforms bring people closer together, Norwegian oil management and a song by Declan McKenna

Welcome fellow Cyber people.
Every week, this newsletter will bring you a few interesting articles about contemporary human beings, machines, and interactions between them.
It will be curated to bring different perspectives to these subjects, to ask important questions and maybe suggest a few possible answers.
You can find more articles on our Facebook Page or website.
Enjoy!

This week we will explore the domain of public policies and the way that cities and countries handle their resources like oil and space. These are good examples of what we should aspire to achieve in our countries and cities.

The Viking Guide to Oil Wealth Management

Norway is the 15th largest oil-producing nation in the world. As a country, it had managed its oil resources extremely well and accumulated more than 1 trillion USD in a state-controlled investment fund.

“After demanding a meeting with the Minister of Finance, oil executives around the room all pounded the table and threatened to abandon their concessions unless Norway backed down. The unfazed minister instead turned to his aides and said in full view of the enraged oilmen, “Why are they all still here? We should have taken more!”
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“That attitude, in a nutshell, is why the country now has more than $1 trillion in the bank. In spite of the usual industry fear-mongering, the new tax law easily passed the Norwegian parliament and has been supported by every government since 1975.”

Barcelona’s radical plan to take back streets from cars

The City of Barcelona has employed a radical plan to decrease pollution and improve mobility in urban areas but also to bring neighborhoods closer together.

“What I found was more fascinating than anything I could have imagined: not just an urban plan, but a vision for a different way of living in the 21st century, one that steps back from many of the mistakes of the auto-besotted 20th century, refocusing on health and community. It is a bigger and more ambitious city plan than anything being discussed in America and, more important, a plan that is actually being implemented, with a few solid pilot projects behind it, a list of lessons learned, and a half-dozen new projects in the works.”
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“There’s no guarantee Barcelona can follow through on its outsized aspirations; it faces the same political cross-currents and commercial pressures of any other big city. (Municipal elections today, May 26, will provide a crucial test for the plan.)

But it is also, by virtue of its history, character, and circumstances, uniquely well-positioned to push back the tide of cars. Other cities seeking to reduce pollution, prepare for climate change, and restore a sense of community have much to learn, not only from what Barcelona has done so far but also from what it’s able to do next.”

Do you live in a ‘soft city’? Here’s why you probably want to

Copenhagen is an example of the “soft city”, a city that supports relationships between people and the places around them by breaking down traditional silos.

“Rather than thinking about cities as a collection of buildings and impressive developments, designers like Sim thinks about them as a series of relationships: between people and place, people and planet, and people and other people. “The starting point is not a big, architectural urban idea — it’s about being a little human being, and how can you connect that human being to as many experiences as possible,” he says.”
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“For decades, so much urban planning has been focused on devising ways to reorganize human activity into distinct silos, to separate people and things, and, by doing so, reduce the risk of conflict,” Sim writes. “I would like, instead, to focus on how potentially conflicting aspects of everyday existence can be brought together and connected to deliver the quality of life.”

For the end of this issue listen to Humongous, a song by Declan McKenna:

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