Remember the Town Disney Built? -- 50% of the homes in Celebration, Florida are up for sale. A failure of corporate-owned and -planned Community™? or just a fallout of the bursting of the housing bubble? And whither New Urbanism? [more inside]
posted by amberglow on Oct 4, 2007 - 66 comments

How does your country measure up as a place to raise kids? It turns out that growing up in the UK is a bleaker experience than in any other wealthy country. UNICEF studied all the wealthiest nations (full report PDF here), and the US and UK came in at the bottom on almost all indicators (material wellbeing, health and safety, education, family and peer relationships, behaviours and risks, and the subjective feelings of kids and teens themselves ). Doing best for kids were the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. It turns out that GDP and material wealth alone does not ensure healthier or happier or more well-educated kids--the Czech Republic scored very well despite being one of the poorest nations surveyed.
posted by amberglow on Feb 15, 2007 - 113 comments

Hansdehar - rural life in India.
posted by tellurian on Dec 11, 2006 - 10 comments

UK politics filter: WriteToThem.com tells you who your MP, MEPs, MSPs, and Welsh and London Assembly members are, and will send letters to them on your behalf. All you need is your postcode. It's a service of MySociety.org, the charity behind PledgeBank, where you can promise to do something worthwhile if other people join in (last seen here in June — please sign up to save Christopher Robbin). The charity's latest project, HearFromYourMP.com, lobbies MPs to provide regular email updates to their constituents, like this one.
posted by londonmark on Dec 15, 2005 - 10 comments

Do the Right Thing
posted by Gyan on Sep 14, 2005 - 63 comments

Are you "e-fluential"? It's possible you are without even knowing it--you never know who might be listening in. While I don't find all gadget/soft drink/product discussions insidious, it does seem like they pop up pretty regularly. Has anyone here been contacted? Or are these companies (and others like them) just targeting product-oriented boards?
posted by _sirmissalot_ on Oct 30, 2002 - 35 comments