#Linkages/122411
The Folly of Corporate Relocation Incentives “’”It’s economically moronic, even though it tracks a nationwide trend of Big Government handing over money to selected big businesses,’ writes Thomas Patterson, chairman of the Goldwater Institute. ‘The subsidies are touted as necessary for job growth, to stimulate depressed regions and promote economic development. Unfortunately, they just don’t work.’” (via Atlantic Cities)
Michael Reynolds’ Beer Can Houses “Unskilled labor and the cheapness of materials will allow the structure to be built as much as 20% less than conventional housing.” (via Root Simple)
A Happy, Flourishing City With No Advertising “Within months, city authorities had removed tens of thousands of ads both big and small—much to the dismay of business owners, who said the ban would surely ruin them. Five years later, have all the businesses in São Paulo gone under? Hardly. In fact, most citizens and some advertising entities report being quite pleased with the now billboard-less city. A survey this year found that a 70 percent of residents say the Clean City Law has been ‘beneficial.’” (via GOOD)
You Create Bluebrain’s Landscape Soundtracks “Leveraging the global positioning system (GPS) technology of smartphones, Bluebrain serves up hours of music based on the physical location of listeners. As listeners move through these landscapes, they enter different zones, each with different electronic yet soulful song. For the National Mall app alone, there are some 264 zones. Staying put will turn the song into a loop: a two-to-eight minute segment will simply repeat. Ryan Holliday said: “It’s like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ of an album.” (via The Dirt)
Painting Mountains White to Fool Them into Painting Themselves with Snow? “Eduardo Gold had a harebrained theory, or at least one that some called overly simplistic: If dark buildings create a “heat island” in cities, might the same thing be happening in the mountains? And, if you can paint the dark rock of a denuded, once glacial mountain white, would it cool enough to bring back snow?” (via Adventure Journal)