Economic history has a long shelf-life when it comes to the data, but needs to be read in a changing context. Besides taking stock of my research, I want to interrogate myself what impact COVID-19 may have on a future monologue.
Author Archives: benbansal
YAG 2.0
Our Yangon Architectural Guide, which I co-wrote with Elliott Fox and Manuel Oka, came out in late 2015 and took a little more than four years to sell out its print run. What next? Some ideas regarding a second edition after the jump.
The future of retail
Syllabus Metropolitan Tokyo
The last of four posts sharing my TUJ syllabi is Metropolitan Tokyo. I probably put most work into this class: It was the one closest to my own research, the bar was high and I kept adapting the syllabus the more I taught it, in total five times over two years. Continue reading
Syllabus Global Cities
The last of my four classes I taught at TUJ was this general education — “Gen Ed” — urban studies class, which TUJ ran for three consecutive semesters. Looking back, this may have been the most enjoyable of the classes of the four I taught in Tokyo. (I have also added the syllabi for two other classes I taught, i.e. Politics of the Global Economy and Economics of Development and Growth and will shortly put up the one for Metropolitan Tokyo.) Continue reading
Syllabus Politics of the Global Economy
Another syllabus of one of the classes I taught at TUJ after the jump, this time for a course called Politics of the Global Economy. This was a more or less straightforward undergraduate IPE class following a standard textbook. Do get in touch if you need any of the lecture materials or want to hear more about the course. Continue reading
Syllabus Economics of Development and Growth
This is the first of four posts showcasing the syllabi of the courses I taught at Temple University Japan (TUJ) over the past three or so years. The first one is on Economics of Development and Growth, a development economics class I taught to third and final-year students. Continue reading
Urban governance
One of the chapters of my PhD deals with urban governance in postwar Tokyo. I argue that the intermediate layer of government, Tokyo Metropolitan Government, was an effective arbiter of the “developmental city”. A Guardian article from 2015 caught my eye.
Polk, Squire & Yangon
I was in Yangon in November 2019 to present on modern architecture in post-independence Yangon. In what is the first post in ages to grace this neglected blog, you can find details and a link to download the presentation after the jump.
Tinkering on the margins
The Greens are known to come up with what many perceive as draconian regulations to protect the environment. They even went as far as suggesting a “veggie Friday”, in meat-loving Germany!
Now they have suggested to ban private fireworks, put a small deposit on coffee cups and prohibit gravel pit as a surface cover in cities. They’re flying high on their recent electoral successes and can seriously contemplate becoming the strongest party in Germany if elections were called later this year.
I don’t think anyone has any problem with their ideas and understands their rationale. It’s just the scale and lack of boldness in them that I find striking, coming from a Green party that was once known to be a hotbed of radicalism but has long lost its zeal. My friend Gareth calls them “neoliberals with wind farms”.
You can’t pile dozens of regulations on your population to nudge consumption patterns, while the elephant in the room, the current economic system and its reliance on hydrocarbons, remains untouched. The Greens’ ideas to avert climate change are not going to bring about the rapid change needed to avert climate catastrophe. The “Fridays for the Future” campaign has rightly called them out on it.
Some other climate-related thoughts have come out of reading a few Jacobin stories on top of the one linked above recently, including on “why it’s OK to have children”, “in defense of air conditioning” and on the “green new deal” by Thiti Bhattacharya.