A friend, living in Iran, paints a vivid picture of Iran's school system.
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I was at a gas station here in New Jersey. Started talking to the guy about the thing on the gas pump that lets you keep pumping without hands. Hands free!
"You mean the hold-open clip for the nozzle?"
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An idea whose time has come, in light of all the paranoia and ill will that continues to surround foreign relations in this region.
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Stumbled on the concept of Anarchic Geography.
The map is a device of power. What happens when this device is purposely redirected, hacked mischievously or stolen outright?
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The June 12 Election has sparked a crisis in our country. As events unfold, one thing is certain: No one knows how this will actually play itself out. There are too many variables and too many unknowns. There will be speculation, rumor, and assertion about what happened, what is happening, and what will happen. Like everyone else, I'm trying to make sense of unpredictable and inexplicable realities. But everything I think appears in my head surrounded by a host of disclaimers, skepticism, anxiety, righteousness.
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Applyabroad.org is a great resource for Iranian students who want to study abroad. Persian language.
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Applyabroad.org مجموعهای شامل اطلاعات متنوع در زمینه گرفتن پذیرش از دانشگاههای خارج از ایران و همچنین مراحل و اطلاعات لازم جهت دریافت ویزای تحصیلی است و با هدف کمک به دانشجویان ایرانی برای ادامه تحصیل در خارج از کشور ایجاد شده است.
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"The Pirate Party" of Sweden is growing in popularity. Its platform: "to reform copyright law, abolish the patent system, and strengthen the right to privacy."
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A new trend:
Geen burials in which "A crane lowers a 400-pound memorial
reef ball containing cremated remains into place 30 feet below to the bottom of the [sea]"
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Is there more polygamy in the USA or in Iran?
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Here's a whirlwind tour of "
Greater Iran" - regions that have significant Iranian cultural influence.
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This video shows the world's air traffic over the course of a day. See North America, Europe and Asia light up much more than the rest of the world. Air traffic activity is a good economic indicator. If you've got people moving to and fro in airplanes, there must be a lot of economic activity to support it.
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This gapminder graph illustrates the correlation between improved health (as measured by greater life expectancy) and Income Per Person (gross domestic product per capita) of a country. Of interest in this graph: In general, first, health improves, then wealth:
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Iran, as a country, does not appear to be innovative or inventive. Let's not even compare it to America or Japan. Let's compare it to Uganda. Using "patent applications" as a measure of innovation, and using
UN data current through 2002, we see that Iran, a middle income country with a population of almost 70 million, had, in 2001, applied for 993 patents (their maximum, by that date), while Uganda, a poor country with a population of 24 million, applied for 150,408 patents. Big difference.
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The recent media storm over the sentencing of
Roxana Saberi to 8 years in prison draws our attention to the plight of prisoners world wide, and to planning issues related to justice systems and prisoners.
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The BBC reports the
world's major rivers are drying up.
On their
world map of future water stress, we see that most of Iran is facing "extreme stress", and the rest is either "high stress" or unknown.
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The concept of "government failure" arose in the 1980s. It is not concerned with criticism of government regulations. Rather, it seeks to describe "government failure" along similar lines as the idea of "market failure."
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It's not how much rent you pay for your apartment. Rent-seeking, in the words of The "
Economist" is:
Cutting yourself a bigger slice of the cake rather than making the cake bigger. Trying to make more money without producing more for customers.
"The Cake", here, of course, refers to collective resources or benefits.
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In
Public Finance, we read that
Views of how government should function in the economic sphere are influenced by ideological views concerning the relationship between the individual and the state. Political philosophers have distinguished two major approaches [Organic and Mechanistic].
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Any statement that begins with "Iranians..." is going to be a generalization, and therefore, not true. "Iranians like poetry." "Iranians don't like to wait in lines." "Iranians are devious." And so forth. These statements can't be true, because you will always find some Iranians who don't fit the statement. Some Iranians don't like poetry, some love lines, some are guileless, and so forth. We're all individuals.
Despite this logic, the "Iranians..." conversations won't stop. Do we have these conversations because we actually think we know
all Iranians based on our limited encounters with our family, friends and neighbors? Do we really
want to know what "Iranians" are like? Or do we want to create a model of what they should be like?
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It's been raining in Shiraz! Is it enough to turn Shiraz into a lush paradise? To stave off drought and destruction?
You may ask "
How much rain has fallen?", but the more important question is: "What happens to the rain
after it falls?"
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Peter Carlson of
The Washington Post writes about "
Local Man". What is the Persian newspaper equivalent of "Local Man"? What has he been up to?
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This website was initiated and set up by me, Rezwan Razani.
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The Principles by which Planiran.com operates are:
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This website explores and creates a grand vision for iran. It also develops actual plans for Iran to turn this vision into a reality. How do we do this?
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این وب سایت به دنبال کشف چشم اندازی وسیع برای ایران است. و همچنین برای تحقق و دسترسی به این چشم انداز طرحهایی عینی ارائه میدهد. چگونه؟
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Happy Nowruz to all!
Nowruz celebrates the first day of Spring, the change of season, the new year.
Every nowruz, each Iranian household sets their
haft-sin table, complete with a plate of grass (sabzi).
Compare this to the tradition of people in Christian countries who celebrate their seasonal holiday by
cutting down an entire tree.
The major environmental differences between east and west are embodied in these two traditions.
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Nowruz 2009, US President
Barak Obama wished Iranians a happy Now Ruz.
He also gave Iranian leaders some "choices". A move that will, no doubt, inspire an immediate "Tu quoque" reflex and be dismissed.
What is "tu quoque", how does it kill conversation, and how might a Foreign Policy Museum on the Washington Mall change that? Let's explore.
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My Mom sent me a link to this website featuring
historic postcards from America. "Take a look at the
aftermath of the Collinwood school fire (March 4, 1908)," she said. "We were just talking about it."
This website triggers a few planning issues:
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In his book, "
Seeing like a State", James C. Scott describes the mechanism at the heart of a state's (government's) tendency to sedenterize (settle) nomads as "the state's attempt to make a society legible." He further develops the thesis that
legibility is "a central problem of statecraft."
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For those of you interested in studying planning in the US or Canada, Planetizen has compiled a helpful
directory of Urban Planning programs.
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Note: The following is only slightly modified from
timethoughts.com and can be considered a pared down quote.
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Here is a draft
vision statement for a hypothetical good government. It is cobbled together from other vision statements out there:
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Here is a draft
vision statement for "Institutional Frameworks":
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The Shiraz University Planning Department calls itself the Department of Urbanism. What do they mean by this? Well, let's look at "New Urbanism". A movement with some supporters, a
congress ("CNU") and a
charter. How is the "New Urbanism" different from "Urbanism"? How do the principles of the charter fit with the issues facing Iran, and specifically, our home city, Shiraz?
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َAt last! A translation of
Kent Keith's "Paradoxical Commandments" in Persian! Translated with the collaboration of Dr. Razani and Ms. Javadpour.
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آدمیزاد غیر منطقی، دلیل گریز و خود محورند - به هر حال دوستشان بدار
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If you take a look around Iran these days, much of it is badly desertified. You may attribute this to climate change or overgrazing, but the
"holistic resource management" (HRM) model offers an alternative view. How valid is this view? How can it be tested? The great thing about HRM is that it suggests a solution to the problem that shimmers with possibility and validates the nomadic lifestyle. For this reason alone, it bears investigating.
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A vision statement is a vivid idealized description of a desired outcome that inspires, energizes and helps you create a mental picture of your target. It could be a vision of a part of your life, or the outcome of a project or goal.
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چشم انداز یک رویای مشترک است - رویای ما.
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ٌThis is what I experience from the rooftop in Shiraz, any given morning.
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Some interior design inspiration.
Interieur 08 is an event that takes place every two years.
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We have translated the first 2 pages of the book "
Property Rights, Planning and Markets" by Chris Webster and Lawrence Wai-Chung Lai into Persian (used by kind permission from the author, all rights reserved). It is posted here to introduce the concepts, stimulate discussion and as a sample of translated academic writing for Persian students of the English language class. Thanks to M. Jahangiri for excellence in translation.
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Taking stock of your present reality...
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A 4 month ordeal results in a driver's license that needs to be renewed in a year. Why?
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چهار ماه طول میکشه که یک گواهینامه یک ساله گیرت آید. چرا؟
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A new "Demotivator" from
despair.com says "If you expect to score points by whining, join a European soccer team." There's also a video showing the Italian team practicing how to fake injuries.
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Urban entertainment in the form of Mahdi's birthday, a lunar eclipse, and strange text messages converge on a rooftop in Shiraz.
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I have here a letter from my American grandmother, dated 28 years ago. In it, she writes about the birds she saw when she visited Shiraz. Many of these birds still grace the skies, trees and rooftops of Shiraz today.
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"
It's all good," they say. All. Good. TYPO!
The letter "F" needs to assume it's proper place in this sentence. To chew up the "g" and spit it out.
"It's all good." »
Fgood. » "
It's all FOOD."
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A study used personal cell phone signals to track the movements of 100,000 Europeans. ُAmong the findings: most people rarely leave the vicinity of their home or office, remain within a 20 mile radius, visit the same places, and are usually found in the same spot at the same time.
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Here's a draft of a safety
vision statement for Iran.
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ُ
Thanks to Shideh and Shawhin and their
Tehran Shake website, for pointing out this sobering video. (Trouble viewing it here? Try this
direct link to the video). The video raises many issues.
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"Market failure" is commonly used as the basis for government intervention. However, the mechanisms of "market failure" are not well understood, leading to counter-productive policies. What IS Market Failure?
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Skies are hazy and there's a surreal glow around the city. Why?
A massive dust storm blew through Iraq and over the Persian Gulf on July 1, 2008. A NASA satellite captured
this image the same day. July 2,
the storm continues.. ُ
What causes these dust storms? How do they affect Iran and the region? What measures can be taken to mitigate their damage?
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ُThe building permit process can affect the development of a community, city, country. It is a key interface between the plans made for the community as a whole, and the implementation of those plans on a project by project basis. It is our intention to clarify the permit process in Iran, to study the process in other areas, to identify innovative best practices to recommend to our nation's municipal leaders.
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For planners interested in educational facilities, the
NCEF website is an excellent resource.
Created in 1997 by the U.S. Department of Education, the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF) provides information on planning, designing, funding, building, improving, and maintaining safe, healthy, high performance schools.
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ٍٍٍٍThe California Governor’s
Office of Planning and Research has developed a set of comprehensive guidelines to assist local governments in the preparation and content of general plans. By law, each city and county in California "must prepare a comprehensive, long term general plan to guide its future." These guidelines are designed around California law. Nevertheless, they are a great resource that can be adapted to other regions. It is the goal of this site to translate and modify the guidelines for use in Iran. Download the guidelines here:
General_Plan_Guidelines_2003.pdf.
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A metaphor and a wish.
Have you ever tried to play guitar and found it too difficult?
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گیتار زدن سخت است.
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ّSUMMARY
maybe if I keep it short?
But what if I add a few lines? Will h1 choke?
و یک کمی فارسی هم داخل کنم.
و یک کمی فارسی هم داخل کنم.
و حالا آن خط با فونت بزرگ »
SUMMARY IN PERSIAN:
First , we write a line in English.
بعد، یک خط به فارسی.
و حالا آن خط با فونت بزرگ
? That didn't work!
OK, from right to left, it's hard to format.
>big< سلام >/big<
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Our goal is to make this website fully bilingual. It can thus be a Persian-English
rosetta stone for planning, a bridge for two languages and for many concepts.
But how will we get to a fully bi-lingual site?
We need a plan of course!
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I think it was Rumi (and correct me here!) who said:
گاو در بغداد آيد يك زمان
او رود از اين كران تا آن كران
از همه عيش و خوشيها و مزه
او نبيند جز دو پوست خربزه
Which means, of course: A cow came to Baghdad for a time. It went from one (riparian?) coast to the other. From all the luxuries, delights and tastes to be had, it saw naught but two melon rinds.
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In which some intrepid Iranian tourists cross the border in their attempt to "plant the banner of [tourism] a few furlongs further into chaos."
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