The Life-Sized City Blog

83 year-old woman outraced the tsunami on her bicycle. Amazing. Via @pickledtreat s on Twitter.

At the core of everything we do here at Copenhagenize lies a simple celebration of the bicycle in every form. Of the bicycle as a liberating transport form for broken cities. Of the bicycle as the most effective form of indepedent mobility. Of the bicycle's historical role as liberator of the working classes and of women. Of the bicycle's role in impoverished nations in Africa and beyond. Everything we do here on the blog and, more specifically, at our company is geared towards bringing the celebratory, liberating qualities of the bicycle to societies that once knew them but that have lost touch with them. We love the bicycle, we love the bicycle squeaking cheerfully under the asses of Citizen Cyclists everywhere and we salute the bicycle's role in the development of our societies for the past 125 odd years. We embrace it. We celebrate it. This is a man carrying goods on a bicycle after the Americans bombed Nagasaki with an atomic bomb in 1945. As ever, the bicycle ...

Already one of the world's great bicycle nation, Japan is seeing a bicycle boom in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami. Here are some photos featuring bicycles in the ravaged tsunami zone.

Since the Second World War we've been coining new words at a faster point than at any time in the history of homo sapiens. Advances in technology is the main reason, of course. Once in a while a new word pops up that tickles my fancy. Demotorization. A propos the earlier blog about the Audi car advert featuring a bike , Todd sent me a link to this article: Japanese Auto Sales Decline as Youth Lose Interest " A lifestyle choice automakers are calling "demotorization," many Japanese youth feel owning a car in a congested and expensive city such as Tokyo is more trouble than its worth, and choose public transportation instead. TOKYO — In a special report from the Associated Press (AP), AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama notes that many twenty-somethings in Japan aren't interested in owning a car today. A lifestyle choice automakers are calling "demotorization," many Japanese youth feel owning a car in a congested and expensive city such as Tokyo is more trou...

Japan has a bicycle culture that the UK and US, among others, drool over. I love seeing the bikes and the overwhelming bicycle culture whenever I'm in Tokyo. So very cool and inspiring. The backbone of the bike culture are the young mothers of the nation. They practice the tradition of 'sannin-nori' - or three-on-a-bike - whenever they have to transport their kids. Most kindergartens in Japan ban mothers from dropping off their kids by car, so these sturdy 'mama-chariots' are an integral part of daily life. One kid up front, another on the back and the mum in the middle. It's a sight you see often in Copenhagen, but in Japan these mothers form a formidable army of toddler transport. When the Government's new cycling laws - a giant leap backwards by all accounts - banned the sannin-nori culture, the mothers of Japan got cross. Their initial protests were heard and it was quickly suggested that they could continue riding with two kids if they rode trikes...