John Munro
@johnmunro
Pedestrian Historian. Imperialism Syllabus: The Anticolonial Front: Youtube:
"I tell you, Mr. Cassidy, this artificial intelligence is filling the world with utter bullshit" (311).
Proud to stand with the people of Stirchley today against a proposed McDonald's drive-through. As the heatwaves, pollution, congestion, and car-dominated space all remind us, we need a moratorium on drive-throughs across and well beyond Birmingham.
"Sugar production, dependent on African slave labor, required Indian land both in the islands and in the regions that fed the islands" (90-1).
"I hadn't taken public transport since the first round of austerity" (137).
"The 'freedom' implied by consumption and choice within markets ultimately rests on the profound unfreedom of countless others" (271).
Birmingham, UK: a city with limited resources but just enough money and more than enough political will to install new barriers to cycling in the year 2026.
"The powers and principles that govern the world, hardly in hiding, reveal themselves now in three dimensions and technicolor" (67).
"Getting rid of...the most offensive urban freeways can be a catalyst for much larger urban transformations" (148).
@benschneider.bsky.social's brilliant Unfinished Metropolis has the best discussion of induced demand I've seen. But beyond that, it gives a clear account of so many urban issues while making connections between them. A must read.
"Because the land was always here. It never cared about countries or borders" (273).
What's perhaps most striking about the fact that car owners use their property to block pedestrian and wheelchair crossing access on Birmingham's Pritchatts Road all the time is how easy this would be to stop. But no, let it continue, day after day. It's stunning when you think about it.
"The convergence between workplace and community mobilisations is a critical step in the construction of alternatives to the jobs versus environment dilemma" (166).
All things possible except, it seems, @bhamcitycouncil.bsky.social contracting tow trucks to remove vehicles parked on sidewalks.
The traffic light ahead keeps changing, but we keep sitting here. Taking the bus in Birmingham is always such a miserable experience.
My mission is to help make these connections into a widely held common sense! Inspired by the classic @friends-earth.bsky.social "Think Globally, Act Locally" slogan, and by Critical Mass, which originated out of the protests against George Bush I's war against Iraq back in 1991.
Never been to Dublin before, but what better way than this? Registered and looking forward!
The Big Ride will be here before you know it. Register now and spread the word!
Imagine a society in which relevant authorities believed that endangering passing cyclists by blocking sight lines with a parked car mattered enough to do something about.
