The New York Times asks, "What's up with all the UNESCO sites?" A good introduction to the problems of WHL listing.
“The dark side, of course, is consumption,” said Francesco Bandarin, assistant director-general of Unesco and head of its World Heritage Center, speaking of the consumerism that so often surrounds heritage sites. “And consumption and preservation do not go together.” If a site is “within an hour of a harbor,” he added, “it becomes inundated by a flood of tourism and geysers of money.”The post-eviction archaeology of Zuccotti Park (OWS-Archaeology). Some objects are now curated at the Columbia archaeology lab!
The first thing I noticed was change. Lots and lots of change: pennies and nickles mostly. Going through the gutters taking pictures of objects in situ before picking them up attracted attention and as I got to talk with a number of people I learned that earlier that morning (I arrived around 8:30am) people had already been seen picking up change. This would explain the lack of quarters and dimes.How to downsize a transportation network: the Chinese wheelbarrow (Low Tech Magazine, h/t Exiled). Invented 1000 years before the European model, still more efficient. This 'European technological superiority' thing is a historical blip.
Fascinating historical research on the relationship between education and industrialization (VoxEU)
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