My latest: Move over bat tunnel, here’s the wild story of how HS2 were forced to build a multi-million pound bridge for a road that… doesn’t actually exist.

I can’t stress this enough: you cannot understand politics without reading this paragraph about why there’s no such thing as a 1/3rd pound hamburger

🔔We are pleased to announce the release of Volume 9, Issue 3 (2025)! tandfonline.com/toc/rcah20/c... This new #ThematicIssue: Policy and practice includes 19 articles. Enjoy reading! #UrbanHealth #HealthyCities #Cities4Health #BuiltEnvironment #CitiesxHealth

How many projectors does Amazon think I need!? Six projectors is too many projectors.

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

The IPBES #NexusAssessment Report finds that using a ‘nexus’ approach to address intertwined environmental, social and economic crises is more effective than a siloed approach. Read more: https://www.ipbes.net/nexus/media-release

We have a new paper in Cities: "Health consideration in UK urban development: Systems mapping insights for interventions" It details systems mapping that informed the design & implementation of 7 joined-up interventions to improve the consideration of health in urban development decision making.

UK gov's 10 year health plan sets out a focus on prevention to improve health. New research in @springernature.com Health Research Policy and Systems by @geoffbates.bsky.social demonstrates how to integrate health into urban policy decision making. Research conducted through TRUUD truud.ac.uk.

This post and the replies are great. It would make a good topic for a ‘true or false’ pub quiz round… …Could Charlie Chaplin have watched Eraserhead? …Could Olivia de Havilland have had a TikTok account?

If #health is everyone’s responsibility in #urban development...why is it often nobody’s priority? We mapped the system using interviews with 132 decision-makers. It shows - Where health slips through the cracks - How 7 interventions could shift the whole system doi.org/10.1016/j.ci...

Some crazy thunder in Bristol right now.

The design of your city can help make you healthier, study finds. “A new study in Nature found when people moved from less walkable U.S. cities to more walkable ones, they increased their levels of physical activity and saw health benefits.”

Think I'll read this once a week forever. Patricia Routledge, I love you.

Weird bit of serendipity. I watched Sunset Boulevard for the first time last night, obviously staring Swanson and von Stroheim. I looked up the old silent film they are watching in it and find this article published today about it finally being completed.

"When you become less polite, the alteration in your conduct can make you less happy, more depressed, and angrier about life.... Being impolite is more like scratching at your poison-ivy rash. Giving in to the urge makes things worse." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Totally agree, like Andy Warhol said: “… you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.”

IMPORTANT: Study finds electrifying SUVs/pick-ups could actually INCREASE emissions by using up scarce battery material that could otherwise be used to electrify a lot MORE smaller cars (and e-bikes). Via @sciencedirect.bsky.social SUVs are too big. #CarBloat www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

TRUUD researchers and guests discuss some of the sticky issues around creating healthier urban places with @andrewkelly.bsky.social. Listen to their new podcast series here: truud.ac.uk/podcasts/

Preparations are underway for today’s TRUUD project event at the MShed in Bristol.

Interesting how this stuff gets reported & interpreted. There’s often focus on technical faults immediately preceding the event, framed as the “root cause”, with the lesson to prevent that type of failure. But the NESO report is clear the underlying issue is a system that allowed it to happen.

Moviedrome showing Ed Wood on 25th April 1999 (the Mark Cousins years) is one of those key formative memories for me.

If you came to the #CivilEngineering session at the @bristoluni.bsky.social open day you will have heard me talking about this amazing project seismically testing 3D printed structures, great to see this update: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I saw Brian Wilson perform several years ago and I remember a reviewer described the concert as the pop equivalent of watching Shakespeare read his Sonnets. It was magical.

In London today for the TRUUD project’s Creating Healthy Urban Places Using Systems Thinking event

Incredible findings on impact of LEZ & ULEZ ⬇️ significantly reduced PM10 & NO2 levels ⬇️ sick leave reduced by 18.5% ⬆️ improved general health ⬇️ reduced incidence of long-term health conditions and respiratory issues ⬆️ mental well-being & happiness 💷 est. savings exceeding £37 million per year

Our work with Dr H Beshir now published www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... finding productivity and well-being improvements from the introduction of low emission zones in Greater London. See also PR from University of Bath www.bath.ac.uk/announcement...

🌳 My first solo article is out! Check out "Models vs infrastructures? On the role of digital twins’ hype in anticipating the governance of the UK energy industry", now out in Environmental Science and Policy doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Join us in Bristol this summer for the Environmental Humanities Summer School! You will be taught be leading experts at the University's world-renowned Centre for Environmental Humanities (1/3)

A lovely day to be back on a #surveying field trip with the first year #CivilEngineering students

🚨🆕 New paper published online today 🆕🚨 'How Democratically Elected mayors can achieve mission-oriented policies in turbulent times' Published OPEN ACCESS in @regionalstudies.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... @sarahayres.bsky.social @marksandford.bsky.social @geoffbates.bsky.social

"When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order." Iya Prigogine, Noble prize-winning chemist

The UK #Eurovision song has a section in at that I’m sure they engineered in a lab to be snipped and used as a meme on TikTok

“Loneliness and isolation can lead to: 29% increased risk of heart disease; 32% increased risk of stroke; 50% increased risk of developing dementia among older adults; and 60% increased risk of premature death.” Surgeon General recommends designing cities to create more connections. #WalkableCities

So often when students are stumped with research papers, their impulse is to zoom in and learn more detail about their topics. They never believe me when I suggest zooming *out* to theory, to understand why their question matters. But I don't blame then, since it took me decades to learn this.

Little urban fox fella on the scrap of land near the old Grosvenor Hotel in Bristol

The latest UCAS data (applications by the January 'equal consideration' deadline) suggest a 14% increase in applications to Engineering & Technology courses. It's the second double-digit surge in two years. Good news, right? Sadly, it's mostly not. Buckle in: 🧵1/27 www.ucas.com/undergraduat...

Er, a concerning report from the UK's Institution of Civil Engineers just dropped. "critical parts of the road network, particularly bridges, are 'perhaps not as safe as the public thinks, while some structures should have usage restrictions but don’t'." 😳 www.ice.org.uk/about-us/our...

This whole thread is beautiful, life affirming stuff. Go to the start and read, then take a few mins to consider.

Oh no. From Eraserhead to The Return…pure art. What a loss, but what a body of work to leave behind.

Figure/Finding Explainer: I love the figure from our chapter that made it into the Summary for Policymakers of the IPBES #transformativechange assessment. It was a group effort that captures our entire chapter in a single image. Let me talk you through it: 🧵 SPM: ipbes.canto.de/pdfviewer/vi...

Never forget, if you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan cities for people and places, you get people and places. Plan for the city you want. HT Fred Kent

‘Chaos, absolute chaos’ www.essexlive.news/news/essex-n...

New blog from me on seven tests for the integrated national transport strategy. The strategy could demonstrate joined up thinking by government and drive tangible improvements in communities across England before the next election. What do we need to see for it to live up to its potential?

I cannot wait to watch this! Fantastic that this is got a blu-ray release by the always brilliant BFI Flipside.

Traffic from Bluesky's @bsky.app to @theguardian.com is already 2x that of Threads In its first week on the platform & with 300k followers, Bluesky traffic from @theguardian.com posts is already higher than it was from TwX in any week in 2024, where the account had 10.8m followers, but🧵

The TRUUD research project is taking a holistic, transdisciplinary approach to 'Tackling the Root Causes Upstream of Unhealth Urban Development'. It's not on Bluesky yet so I thought I would write a quick thread to highlight some of the wide ranging work of my colleagues...

Happy Delia Derbyshire Day! (diorama kits from heykidsrocknroll.etsy.com)