A Jumble of Needs: Women's Activism and Neoliberalism in the Colonias of the ...

 By Rebecca Dolhinow

http://books.google.com/books?id=6zCUH2H4RtAC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=ngo+providing+access+in+colonias&source=bl&ots=Aic5-Ux--6&sig=W7EKH3bCGOF2qHANGhFc-xAGjB8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lTgIU9GsH4jhyQHWwoGwDQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=ngo%20providing%20access%20in%20colonias&f=false

The production of colonias as neoliberal spaces

money Infrographics

http://xkcd.com/980/huge/#x=-2122&y=-6188&z=5

TAMU - startup

- workshops to start business
- TAMU


source:
http://tamu.3daystartup.org/

Capacity building model _ Theory of Change

"TOC maps out your initiative through 6 stages:

1. Identifying long-term goals
2. Backwards mapping and connecting the preconditions or requirements necessary to achieve that goal and explaining why these preconditions are necessary and sufficient.
3. Identifying your basic assumptions about the context.
4. Identifying the interventions that your initiative will perform to create your desired change.
5. Developing indicators to measure your outcomes to assess the performance of your initiative.
6. Writing a narrative to explain the logic of your initiative."

source:
http://www.theoryofchange.org/what-is-theory-of-change/how-does-theory-of-change-work/#5

social enterprise websites

How might we make low-income urban areas safer and more empowering for women and girls?

http://www.openideo.com/challenge/womens-safety/brief.html

What Failing Taught Me About Positioning a Social Venture For Long Term Sustainability

http://www.good.is/posts/what-failing-taught-me-about-positioning-a-social-venture-for-long-term-sustainability?utm_source=tdg&utm_medium=email&utm_content=What%2BFailing%2BTaught%2BMe%2BAbout%2BPositioning%2Ba%2BSocial%2BVenture%2BFor%2BLong%2BTerm%2BSustainability&utm_campaign=cta


Social Tech guide
http://socialtech.org.uk/


Guides for startup change-makers
http://www.socialgoodguides.com/

History of the border

interactive timeline

http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/index.html

Texas legislation related to Colonias

a full list of all legislation related to colonias from 1987 to 2005
source:
http://www.sos.state.tx.us/border/colonias/legislation.shtml#70th



Secretary of State's Definitions of colonias:
source:
http://www.sos.state.tx.us/border/colonias/what_colonia.shtml

Latin American Housing Network

full of research


http://www.lahn.utexas.org/cities.html

Allmendinger, Philip: Planning Theory (2nd Ed) 2009 CHAPTER 4

Critical Theory

The essence of critical theory is to change society rather than simply understand and analyze it. (p. 79)
Key proposition: urban areas and planning are linked with society
- help expose planning's  complicity with state, nation, capitalism (p. 90)

David Harvey
- capitalism is tied to location and built environment (p. 86)

"Symbiotic relationship between the urban and capital will have given some strong clues as to why some form of state intervention is land and property is required. Thre are basically two reasons. The first is that capitalism cannot provide all of the conditions that it needs to continue. In particular, infrastructure such as roads, bridges etc. are not commodities like land or labour that can be bought asn dold because they involve a great deal of capital investment with little or no return. Other services and commodities such as parks, refuse collection and low-cost housing also fall into this category." (p.89)

EVERYTHING THAT IS MISSING IN COLONIAS IS WHAT IS MISSING IN CAPITALISM, EVEN THOUGH COLONIAS ARE CUT OF TO SOME EXTENT? HRM

neo-liberalism: capitalism is self-regulating

Allmendinger, Philip: Planning Theory (2nd Ed) 2009 CHAPTER 1

Chapter 1:
- Systems Theory favors the ones in power - planners (p.2)


- Logical positivism has been largely abandoned in social sciences, it continues to have an influence upon social sciences through the focus upon empiricism (p.3)

empiricism, in philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience. This broad definition accords with the derivation of the term empiricism from the ancient Greek word empeiria, “experience.”
source:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186146/empiricism

Social theory, therefore, not only reflects upon society but can also shape it in a way that natural sciences cannot. (p.4)
open system (society)
closed system (natural sciences)

In science, Newton's laws held true til Einstein 
> Popper developed: science based on fallibility. Falsifications sees theories as speculative and provisional truths - til they are disproven. Hypothesis is tested through observations, remains a provisional truth until disproven (p.5)
Criticism: observation statements are themselves fallible. 

Kuhn: 
Science works with paradigms or views of reality that encapsulate current knowledge of a subject (p.7)
Example of Copernicus x Bible < Galileo < heliocentric view accepted 200 years after Copernicus

> turn to subjective > relativism in science (criteria for judging the merits of theories will depend on the values and interests of the individual or community entertaining them. (p.8)

Competing world views appeal to different legitimacies. 
in planning: relativism is characteristic of postmodernism, postmodern planning, advocacy
If one theory is chosen over another (all logically consistent with the same data), the choice has less to do with objective science and more to do with social factors (p.9) 

Planning involves aspects of both natural science and social science. (p.10) 

Normative theory
- how the world ought to be, and how to achieve that
- theories of planning 
- Marxist, liberal, communicative, collaborative planning approaches

Perspective theories
- How to go about things, concerned with best means of achieving a desired condition
- theories in planning
- cost-benefit analysis, mixed scanning etc. 

Empirical theory
- explains and interprets reality
- focus on causal relationships, in/dependent variables, Hypothesis to be tested

Models
- simplified representations and pictures of reality
- do not always include hypotheses, but are testable

Conceptual frameworks or perspectives
- linguistic analysis
- ways of looking at or conceiving an object of study
- some Marxist perspectives fall here

Theorizing
- catch-all category
- thinking about some aspect of a phenomenon

"..there is no 'planning'. Rather, there is a diversity of practices in planning (as there is everywhere), and different kinds of planners in different contexts should (and do) enact different models or theories of planning (Alexander, 2003, p. 181)" (p.12)

Theory of discourse (p. 12)
- Theories are socially constructed between power and discourse
- rejects 'Truth', absolute, objective concept
- normative

normative (ˈnɔːmətɪv)

adj

1. implying, creating, or prescribing a norm or standard, as in language: normative grammar.

2. expressing value judgments or prescriptions as contrasted with stating facts: normative economics.

3. of, relating to, or based on norms

source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/normative

Example: 
often: Scientific progress > industrial and commercial growth
Marx: Science ought to serve the liberation of humanity from exploitation

Theory can be seen as discourse and a mask for power and politics (p. 17)
inputs: normative elements (social, individual), discursive elements - both influenced by power

 in planning: 
plan reflection of 
- desires and needs of local area
- central government and economic forces

in planning theory: 
- structure - agency relationship 
(use of theory limited by structure, theories of planning ignore the relationship (making them less useful) 

structuralism (~marxism) - emphasizes the role of structure in dictating actions and events
- criticized for ignoring actors

intentionalism
- focuses on individual action
- Public Choice Theory 
- criticism: people sometimes behave 'illogically' 

fuse of structuralism and intentionalism:
- Giddens: Structuration
To recognize the duality of structure an agency
- Bhaskar: Critical Realism

Actor Network Theory - social relations and power of agency

Post-structuralist argue that we cannot distinguish between structure and agency

Communicative Planning Theory - dominant paradigm in planning theory

can see as: 
theory - planners
agency - practitioners

Planners are influenced by structure as well as create structure

"Instead of asking whether a theory "works", we should be asking questions about why this particular theory was used, who is using it and for what purpose. The answer to these questions will tell us as much (if not more) of importance as whether the theory corresponds to reality." (p. 29)

Ethnographic research

Long-term engagement in the field setting or place where the ethnography takes place, is called participant observation.  This is perhaps the primary source of ethnographic data. The term represents the dual role of the ethnographer. To develop an understanding of what it is like to live in a setting, the researcher must both become a participant in the life of the setting while also maintaining the stance of an observer, someone who can describes the experience with a measure of what we might call "detachment." Note that this does not mean that ethnographers cannot also become advocates for the people they study. Typically ethnographers spend many months or even years in the places where they conduct their research often forming lasting bonds with people. 

Interviews provide for what might be called "targeted" data collection by asking specific but open-ended questions. There is a great variety of interview styles. Each ethnographer brings his or her own unique approach to the process. Regardless, the emphasis is on allowing the person or persons being interviewed to answer without being limited by pre-defined choices -- something which clearly differentiates qualitative from more quantitative or demographic approaches. In most cases, an ethnographic interview looks and feels little different than an everyday conversation and indeed in the course of long-term participant-observation, most conversations are in fact purely spontaneous and without any specific agenda.

Researchers collect other sources of data which depend on the specific nature of the field setting. This may take the form of representative artifacts that embody characteristics of the topic of interest, government reports, and newspaper and magazine articles. Although often not tied to the site of study, secondary academic sources are utilized to "locate" the specific study within an existing body of literature.

source: 
http://www.brianhoey.com/General%20Site/general_defn-ethnography.htm

calculator for 'green' home improvements

http://www.lahn.utexas.org/cbhit/CBHIT.html

© is held by the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin.

Any reference or publication reference to the model should be as follows: 

LBJ School of Public Affairs. 2012 Cost-Benefit Home Intervention Tool or C-BHIT at www.utexas.lahn.org

brochure made without electricity

http://www.yatzer.com/brochure-made-entirely-without-energy

Alex F. Schwartz: Housing Policy in the United States, 2010: Chapter 3

Chapter 3
"Because housing is so expensive, its development and acquisition almost always depend on borrowed money. 
...
The housing finance system has been structured to a large degree by the federal government, often in response to crisis. Many of the most enduring institutions and elements, including fixed-rate, self-amortizing mortgages, mortgage insurance, and a secondary mortgage market, stem from the Roosevelt administration's interventions in response to the Great Depression. (Schwartz 2010, 51)

The Home Owner's Loan Act of June 13, 1933 sought to "pull people out of foreclosure" (Immergluck 2004). It created the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) to purchase and refinance mortgage loans in default. It used long-term federal bonds to acquire mortgages in default and then rewrote these mortgages on much more affordable terms. It extended the terms of the mortgages to 15 years, thereby reducing monthly payments.  (Schwartz 2010, 53)

The Roosevelt administration and Congress created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) 1 year and 2 weeks after launching HOLC. ... Through the FHA, the federal government insured mortgages issued by qualified lenders. With FHA insurance, mortgage lenders were protected from default; if borrowers failed to keep up with their mortgage payments, the FHA would cover the unpaid balance of the loan. (Schwartz 2010, 53)

Put bluntly, the FHA deemed properties located in predominantly Black neighborhoods too risky to warrant mortgage insurance. (Ibid, 55)

Although the FHA readily insured mortgages for housing in suburban communities, urban neighborhoods received much less insurance. ... 'FHA was helping to denude St. Luis of its middle class residents' (Jackson 1985: 209). ... FHA had not insured a single mortgage in the declining industrial cities of Camden and Paterson, New Jersey ... In addition to its incorporation of racial criteria in allocating mortgage insurance, FHA also contributed to the decline of urban areas by favoring single-family over multifamily construction, as well as construction of new homes over rehabilitations of existing structures.    ...  (Ibid, 56)

Thrifts were the single largest source of mortgage loans from the later 1930s through the 1970s.
..
Whereas thrifts financed home mortgages out of their deposits, FHA mortgages were financed mostly by nondepository institutions.  (Ibid, 57)

Thrifts came under still more severe stress by late 1970

Shannon: Housing subsidy

In our class Housing and the Community, Shannon - our professor, mentioned that the biggest subsidy to the housing market is not to the poor, which is how most of us perceive subsidy: Public/social/affordable housing for the poor, who get 'massive' discounts on their living expenses. Most of the times the US provides vouchers to poor renters to pay for the remainder of cost over 30% of the renter's income. 30% of income is the 'affordable' price for housing. 

Contrary to this belief that most housing subsidy goes to the impoverished population, Shannon informed us that the mortgage repayment tax breaks for home-buyers are by far the biggest federal housing subsidy. It makes sense if the majority of the population in the United States lives in single family housing and they get a mortgage to buy it, they will get an income tax break for that mortgage. 

Maquilladoras, Mexico

"Most worked eight to twelve hour days, doing difficult or dangerous manual labor, and still find it a great hardship to afford the tuition, uniforms, and supplies their children needed to go to school.  The women estimated that only twenty percent of the children in their settlement finish high school, most choosing instead to go to work.  Many deal every day with chemicals or dangerous machinery, and are provided little to no protective gear."

" The Maquiladoras in Mexico are taking part in what has become a common practice among transnational corporations around the world: the global assembly line.  This is the concept that regardless of where a company is rooted, it will move its production to the country with the cheapest labor and the most relaxed environmental laws.  If the wages are raised or the environmental standards begin to rise to expensive levels, they will just pick up and leave.  This makes the raising of wages very difficult.  These companies give a little bit of work to a desperate country, but the jobs they give do not lead to promotions as jobs in the U.S. do.  They are not stepping stones.  The poor are staying poor no matter how hard they work, which means that they have no money to put into the economy, and no way to build a middle class.  If the Maquiladora workers fight for wage increases are successful, it may mean the retreating of these companies from Mexico.  But if they do not demand a living wage now, where will their children find themselves?"

source:
Amanda Flore
April, 2010
amandafiore.com/articles

maquilladoras

The presentation at University of Toronto talks about the rise and fall of Maquilladoras on the Mexican side of the U.S. - Mexico border twin cities. The Maquilladoras are a result of NAFTA agreement. US and European companies essentially exploit the cheap labor in Mexico similarly to FDI (foreign direct investment) strategies. The only value added on the price of the products assembled in Mexico is the labor cost. In early 2000s the Maquilladoras could not compete with even cheaper labor in Asia and companies relocated their assemblies there. These days the presentation says we are seeing a reversal of the trend with higher shipping prices.
Hallelujah.
zero oil will save us one day.
 


source:
Juan Robles
http://infranetlab.org/blog/border-economies-maquiladora-export-landscape

"The 1982 peso devaluation crippled the Valley economy. By contrast, the 1994 devaluation barely slowed economic growth. The reason was a more diversified economy. Tourism, manufacturing, supply manufacturing and health care now complement agriculture. Retail sales in Texas cities bounced back strongly from the peso collapse, rising by $300m in 1996 to $5.5 billion. "Everyone's got a theme park. We ain't got a theme park," explained one Valley politician; "Mexico's our theme park.""

"Since the coming of NAFTA, foreign companies including BMW, Sony and Matsushita have set up maquiladoras in Reynosa and Matamoros. In turn, smaller supply companies have grown up in McAllen and Harlingen, where land is cheaper."

"McAllen (slogan: "It's Naftastic!") is the third-fastest-growing city in the United States and one of the cheapest in which to do business. Despite a 7% job-growth rate, unemployment runs at 16%. The city has concentrated on education and infrastructure to improve its prospects. The South Texas Community College has grown from 600 to 6,000 students in three years, and the city offers to train employees for companies coming in. The Texas State Technical College in Harlingen serves a similar purpose. The University of Texas Pan-Am in Edinburg ("Taco-Tech"), has seen enrolment grow by 400% since 1987. The region's cities on the American side are fiercely competitive for federal dollars; there are, for example, five international airports in a 50-mile radius. But they are trying to work together. Recently, they have combined to try to attract major-league baseball clubs for spring training. Officials are co-operating to bring I-69, the proposed Montreal-Mexico City freeway, through the Valley, a case strengthened by the fact that the region remains the largest urban area in the United States without an interstate highway. There is talk of consolidating cities on both sides into a single metropolitan sprawl known as "Borderplex"."

source:
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w188/articles/txmx.htm
1997 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All Rights Reserved

Maquilladoras

"Over 11,500 Maquiladoras, Spanish for U.S.-owned and -operated assembly factories in Mexico, are located along the 2,100 mile border with the United States. Tijuana, at the western end of the U.S.-Mexican border, alone has 4,000Maquiladoras, employing nearly 1 million workers and producing goods whose value-added was over $7 billion a year in 1998. The importance of these products  -- almost half consisted of textiles and consumer electronics -- were only second to oil in the Mexican economy."

"Many factories (over 300 in just two years, 2002-2003) that located in Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s for low wages are in 2003 relocating to Asia. An entry-level machine operator in Juarez makes $8 a day while the same job in a Chinese factory fetches only $2. And in China there are no unions, whereas there are in Mexico. The World Trade Organization regulates global trade but only as it affects the interests of investors and manufactures, not of workers and the environment."


source:
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w188/border/maquil.htm

" Another factor that resulted in increased Mexican immigration was the maquiladora. A 
maquiladora is a “Mexican manufacturing or assembly plant owned or sponsored by a foreign 
country” (Williams, 2002). Under the maquiladora program, materials and equipment are 
imported duty-free for assembly or manufacturing provided that they are re-exported. The 
receiving company then pays a small value-added tariff equivalent to the computed value of the 
work done in the maquiladora (Williams, 2002). Given the low wages paid in Mexican factories, 
this arrangement proved to be quite profitable for American companies. The maquiladora 
program also proved beneficial to Mexico and her citizens as it created millions of jobs (source: 

http://www.maquilaportal.com). "


" Ward et al. (2004) have investigated the relationship between land and housing market performance and lot title regularization in several colonias outside Rio Grande City, Starr County, Texas. Specifically, these researchers investigated the effect on land prices of a title regularization initiative to clear property titles of very poor households as an intervention implemented by the Community Resources Group (CRG) Receivership Program. The CRG is a non-governmental organization commissioned by the State of Texas to undertake title regularization in 15 colonias outside Rio Grande City. For their study, the authors formed two sample groups. A “study group” which consisted of those families who had no titles or who had experienced major difficulties associated with their titles or residence and who ultimately received titles as a result of the CRG intervention. Also, the researchers formed a “control group” consisting of resident households who had not experienced serious title problems and, therefore, were not affected by the CRG intervention. The researchers found that the provision of formal property titles as part of a policy to regularize land titles appears to have an insignificant influence upon market performance or upon land prices. Instead, it is sweat equity (sweat equity is the contribution made to a project by people who contribute their time and effort), resulting in housing improvement, that raises the property value and which gives rise to some equity creation and to potential wealth creation for the lot purchaser. "

source: 

FRANK MARTINEZ III, M.A.

Las colonias de la frontera: A study of substandard housing settlements along the Texas-Mexico border

Dissertation describes the history of Mexican immigration from the 19th century through to the Bracero program, the differences between colonias in the states that border Mexico and the history of policies that shaped the proliferation of colonias. 

Migration and Development Within and Across Borders: Research and Policy Perspectives on Internal and International Migration

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ssrc-cdn1/crmuploads/new_publication_3/%7BBA021F89-2446-DE11-AFAC-001CC477EC70%7D.pdf

Hans Rosling: TED 2006, data visualisation

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Q Ideas for the common good

http://www.qideas.org/cities/

similar to TED Ideas worth spreading

Smartphone controlled paper air plane

http://mashable.com/2013/11/30/paper-airplane-smartphone/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

Algae

http://www.algalturfscrubber.com/

Tiny house, US

http://www.viralnova.com/tiny-house/

Light pollution in the US

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/let-there-be-night/278070/

20 dollars air conditioner

http://www.thestar.com/news/2013/07/16/the_20_air_conditioner.html

City plot - city gardens in NY

http://cityplot.org/apply-now-for-funded-cityplot-workshops-and-trainings/

Poem on immigration maths in the UK

http://www.upworthy.com/next-time-someone-tells-you-that-immigrants-are-destroying-our-country-show-them-this?g=2

Suburbia by CASS student

http://www.thecass.com/news-events/2013/december/riba-presidents-medals-cass

Jostein Gaarder: Sophie's World

a novel covering history of philosophy from Socrates to Sartre on a background of a story of a 14 year old girl.
Philosophy for general public kind of book.

Vunka said I must read.

COOPERATIVES promoted by USDA

http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/SupportDocuments/rdRuralCoop_Sept_Oct13Vr_Web.pdf

newsletter of US Department of Agriculture summarising progress of agricultural cooperatives in 2013 in rural America.

Cooperatives might just be the way to go forward in rural colonias.

alternative energy

http://mashable.com/2013/12/10/alternative-energy-products/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#gallery/gadgets-powered-by-unusual-means/52a6e715b589e42bf5002074

Peter Lang in Barbican

http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/whats-on.asp?t=future

PC from scratch

http://mashable.com/2013/11/24/kano-computer-kit/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

Shermeen's blog

http://yousifshermeen.blogspot.com/

Wei Yan's class:
http://faculty.arch.tamu.edu/wyan/ARCH689/students.html

Richard Feynman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9tanx_0pqQ

lean construction - games

Zofia Rybkowski described that as part of lean construction course she runs an assignment to create a game. As an example she mentioned one of the students' designed games:
Everyone gets given a letter size piece of paper and is told to make a paper plane in three minutes. Follows a competition and which plane flies the furthest is the winner. The winner then teaches everyone how s/he built her/his plane and round two of building/testing is on. Then the best few get to share their techniques. The cycle goes on.
The result is that everyone in the group progresses, everyone becomes quite confident and no-one in the team/company gets fired.

This is such a clever idea.
I like it so much better than just pure capitalist competition.

I do wonder whether this can work in the colonias and how.

Housing and the Democratic Ideal: The Life and Thought of Charles Abrams

A. Scott Henderson

Housing and the Democratic Ideal is the only comprehensive work on Charles Abrams to date. Though structured as a narrative biography, this book also uses Abrams's experiences as a lens through which we can better understand the development of American social policy and state expansion during the twentieth century. In his left-leaning critique of centrist liberalism, Abrams took aim at the use of fiscal and monetary policies to achieve social objectives—a practice that allowed business interests to maximize private profits at the expense of public benefits. His growing concern over racial discrimination prefigured its emergence as a highly contested aspect of the American state.

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-11950-4/

immigration hackathon

I wonder whether a hackathon in Las Lomas with planners, transport engineers, construction scientists,
urban designers, lawyers, etc. would be just the thing to do.
Or perhaps do hackathons work when there is a specific issue - like immigration and a specific tool - online/tech and the convergence of what the two have to offer is the most fruitful.

people with first hand experience on one side - people with skills to create apps and websites on the other.
So the hackers provide a public space where the 'clients' can make themselves visible and support their cause by lobbying the right people.

Does this encourage illegal immigration? When the invitees were undocumented immigrants?
Are the state boundaries essentially illegal?

This is an event organized by private firm.
How will the government respond? Can it 'regulate' events like this?

Would this be handy for colonias?





http://mashable.com/2013/11/22/hackathon-for-immigration-reform/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

It is hour 22 of a 24-hour hackathon, where coders join together to build new products and programs from scratch in a short amount of time. The scene is not uncommon in Silicon Valley. Every startup and tech company worth its weight in code has hosted at least one internal hackathon. (LinkedIn, for example, has a company-wide one every month.)

But the scene in building No. 3 is different. Many of the coders are undocumented immigrants, and the projects they are working on could very well change their lives.

LinkedIn played host to the first known DREAMer Hackathon on Thursday, bringing together 20 to 25 undocumented immigrants to join Silicon Valley tech veterans in a quest to further immigration reform. The teams created projects like websites and apps, some meant to educate citizens about immigration issues, others meant to connect constituents with the congressional leaders who represent them. (A few actually do both.)

Roaming the Boundaries: The Less Explored Roles of Architects in the Low-Income Settlements of Texas.

CARLOS A. REIMERS

The Catholic University of America

Roaming the Boundaries: The Less Explored Roles of Architects in the Low-Income Settlements of Texas.

- colonias are periurban settlements

- extra legal development

- architecture and low-income housing - in US: contemporary efforts date back to work of 

Charles Abrams: 

1. Legendary urban planner, policy maker
2. A. Scott Henderson: Housing and the Democratic Ideal: The Life and Thought of Charles Abrams
3. http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-11950-4/
4. book on social policy and state expansion in the early 20th Century U.S. 

Oil production in America - example of brilliant infographic

http://www.oilposter.org/images/oil-age-2010-ve-xlg-outlined.jpg

Urban observatory

http://www.urbanobservatory.org/compare/index.html

comparison of cities' maps including land-use, transport, and other indicators.

d3 infographics

https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Gallery

a gallery of open source codes for animated, interactive data visualisation tools and graphs.

Houston Endowement

http://www.houstonendowment.org/GrantGuidelines/ApplicationTypes.aspx

Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

Carl Sagan - podcasts of American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History holds a series of podcasts about science. 

http://www.amnh.org/podcast/snc/

The particular podcast I listened to was 1hr and 22 minutes long and was about the approach of Peter Sagan to science and religion and the overlaps, differences and Carl's overall opinions on the topic of god, God and science. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan

It is a fascinating, gentle and calm discussion of Carl's former colleague, wife and the moderator. They manage to portray Carl's own position, the way he argued for it and the way he would answer to classic rebuttals. His thesis was that intelligent design (new name for creationism) is not correct, however that the science itself - in its mere 4000 years of studying the Earth - is perhaps as close to some Truth about the cosmos as is religion. The difference is that science does not claim it knows the unknown, where else most religions do.

Microcredit for Americans

Microcredit for Americans

New York Times

By SHAILA DEWAN

Published: October 28, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/business/microcredit-for-americans.html?pagewanted=1&pagewanted=all&utm_source=General+Database&utm_campaign=3eb82292d9-NY_Times_Exclusive_110_29_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4656e16a9-3eb82292d9-50745533&_r=0

Colonias program promotoras help Socorro flooding victims

Colonias program promotoras help Socorro flooding victims

The Texas A&M Colonias Program came to the aid of flood-stricken West Texans last September when heavy rain and rising water drove many colonia residents in Socorro, a suburb of El Paso, from their homes.

The local community center, operated by the Colonias Program and the city of Socorro, was transformed into an emergency operations center, and the program’s community workers, known as promotoras, were dispersed around the community to check on residents threatened by the floodwaters. 

http://one.arch.tamu.edu/news/2013/10/29/colonias-program-promotoras-help-socorro-flooding-victims/