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John Munro
John Munro
@johnmunro.bsky.social
Pedestrian Historian. Imperialism Syllabus: http://tinyurl.com/ev4psh98 The Anticolonial Front: http://tinyurl.com/33d3exca. Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/ykp7r5a9.
2.4K followers367 following4K posts
This entire fiasco is so revealing of the ways the UK media landscape so consistently centers the perspective of those with relatively more power on just about any issue. This segment would make for an excellent source in a media studies class.
Good Morning Britain had a live segment in Birmingham in Highgate. Near to where a 45-year-old father was killed in 2023 and down the road from where toddler Mayar Yahia was killed walking home with her mum on Eid.
"The inverted crisis is a driving force in the rise of fossil fascism today." - @zetkincollective.bsky.social Not too surprising to see GMB playing a facilitating role here....
Having watched with dismay - but not surprise - the poorly researched, badly constructed, and shoddily delivered segment on Good Morning Britain, I am glad to see a robust and coherent response from @adamtranter.bsky.social @betterstreetsforbirmingham.org road.cc/blog/this-br...
Just look at the design of this junction and the size of that parking lot. Is the NHS trying to increase patient numbers with this?
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My new book, A History of Terrorism in Canada, is officially published by McGill-Queen's University Press today: www.mqup.ca/Books/A/A-Hi...
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Exactly this. And there's a lot of responsibility to go around across our media landscape for normalizing racists.
I’m seeing people reacting by pointing out that he’s obviously wrong. I appreciate that, but it’s also a pointless exercise. The problem isn’t that he’s wrong. The problem is that this is normal in American politics — and it’s been normal for a while.
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Slowly - too slowly - but surely, the tide is turning. #UKCarCulture is entering its terminal phase.
IMPORTANT EDITORIAL: “The Guardian view on Oxford Street’s pedestrianisation: cities should be designed around people, not cars.” “The transformation of Europe’s busiest shopping street should be a case study in making cities greener, less congested & more inviting places to live.” @theguardian.com
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Imagine a city with infrastructure that allows businesses-by-bike to thrive.
Meet Will, the Cambridge plumber who gets to many of his jobs by e-cargo bike. Will founded Veloplumb in 2023, with a simple idea: many plumbing jobs don’t need a van full of equipment. 'I really believe in it, it boosts mental health to be outdoors, exercising and of course doing some plumbing!
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Yeah, yeah, but it's the pensioners holding signs opposing genocide that I worry about.
You have to laugh at the sheer insanity of Turning Point UK being found to be organising literal contract killings and paid agitation at protests up and down the country and it barely even raises a flicker across the press. If that isn't 'terrorism' on some level I don't really know what is
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It will be a shock to noone that the campaigns against Professor Jason Arday - that continue even after they hounded him to death - are financed by far right-inclined millionaires who also finance far right think tanks, media, academic racists and Neo Nazis. bylinetimes.com/2026/10/21/j...
As @shivajishivalaw.bsky.social has pointed out, this is just like much of the official view of the canals of Birmingham, UK.... Cyclists can just ride there, so the roads should be reserved for cars to drive on (and sidewalks for them to be parked on).
Unserious person who doesn't understand cycling as transportation
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Chris Wickham, remembered fondly, appreciated finely.
One more post about this to try to get it out there. I still can't tell if the dots I'm trying to connect here also connect for others or only do so in my own head....
In which I argue that Mike Davis’s *City of Quartz,* Leslie Marmon Silko's *Almanac of the Dead,* and Octavia Butler's *Parable of the Sower* should be read together, not least because doing so can help us better understand the end of the cold war idea.
True. And also true, I think, for "public consultations." They sound participatory and as though they might further discussion of a given issue, but generally just further entrench existing inequalities.
it's understandable to think of constructive debate as an ideal and then to figure that *any* debate is therefore a step towards political values and virtues. but I think most debates, particularly in the social media age, make conversations and outlooks worse than where they started
No city can enforce its way to these results. Mobility justice is a matter of the equitable redistribution of public space.
Since 2016, London’s cycling network has grown fivefold, from 90 to 450 kilometres. The results? 1.5 million daily cycle journeys—a 43% increase since 2019—twice as many bikes as cars on City of London streets during the day, and motor traffic in steady decline—having fallen 25% in the same period.
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For a minute there I thought these people were going to start holding up signs opposing genocide. What a relief.
"They can start cutting people's faces up. They can stab someone. They can shoot someone." EXCLUSIVE: Our hidden cameras capture the leader of Turning Point UK organising a fake rally for a foreign government and helping arrange a murder-for-hire with loyalist paramilitaries.
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Time will tell whether we will see more and more pedestrian trip hazards courtesy of EV owners, but this person is right about one thing: the new regs are indeed meant to encourage car ownership.
The new regs just make it cheaper and easier, and greener (fewer front gardens destroyed, less hard standing concrete) to own an electric car. Trip hazard, fuck sake 😂🙄
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This is the part we don’t talk about enough. The reversal of good placemaking—from literally ripping up bike lanes to reducing library hours to scraping public transit projects—creates cynicism. Someone should calculate both the social and economic cost of this issue.
When it comes to actually achieving better cities, here’s something we’re not talking about nearly enough— we’ve moved from eras where it’s hard to get good things done, into an era where even if we manage to get good things done, there’s a real risk it will just be reversed after the next election.
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This is fucking insane. It reads like a bad spy novel. The corruption is almost cartoonish at this point. www.vanityfair.com/story/jared-...
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Interesting to see what one person with the help of their community can do to make a road safer. follow the link below to see what Majid Cheway did. If you want to find out how to make birmingham safer like Majid then join our mailing list & whattsapp group! www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY4g...
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University of Nottingham, right now, is cutting 560 jobs. Do we need to rebrand universities as very large, very clean, land-based oil rigs to get government support?
From the govt's press release: "The developer estimates that Jackdaw will create 27 new direct jobs and safeguard 273 existing jobs that would otherwise be lost." Odd that so much is made about this being good for jobs. Your nearest out-of-town supermarket likely generates more jobs.
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Now that "Life After Cars" is one year old and our book tour is winding down — after a whopping 38 cities! — we want to keep the momentum and the movement going. Here's how you can help spread the word. Thanks to everyone for all the support over this past year! www.lifeaftercars.com
Our meritocracy.
Just been such a revolution in my worldview to realise that people like Musk actually believe this, this isn't just the nonsense they feed the rubes so they can do coldly rational mercantile calculations in smokey rooms among themselves. No. It's rubes all the way down, they're that stupid.
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Government gives green light to owners of expensive cars to set up pedestrian trip wires. #UKCarCulture
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Replying to @cmonstah.bsky.social
Mike Davis's "City of Quartz," specifically for the chapter on Fortress LA — aka Bunker Hill. bookshop.org/p/books/city...
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NEW EPISODE: "Doug Ford Versus Toronto's Bike Lanes." The Ontario Premier is making good on his threats to rip out Toronto's cycling infrastructure. But people aren't taking it lying down. @cycletoronto.bsky.social @ecojusticecanada.bsky.social join us to discuss. podcasts.apple.com/lu/podcast/d...
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It's Tuesday so that means @activetravelcaf.bsky.social at 5pm (BST), contact www.activetravelcafe.org.uk to get the Zoom link. Tonight with @cb123456.bsky.social sharing her approach to comms & stakeholder engagement, drawn from her experience on projects such as #ULEZ, #OxfordStreet and elsewhere.