Bristol in the UK seems pretty amazing

Park and Slide Bristol [OFFICIAL VIDEO] from Cinematica Media on Vimeo.

Luke Jerram's "Park and Slide" was a project at Bristol's Make Sunday Special Day in May. According to the website: 96,573 people signed up for their chance to get a 'ticket to slide,' while 360 people were selected to participate. More than 65,000 people came to watch. While the City Council was first leery about the idea, they came back to Jerram and asked him to proceed.

-- Bristol Festival of Ideas

-- Bristol Legible City;-- it turns out to be the template for wayfinding systems in London and New York City, but the program is much more than a wayfinding system, especially as it develops over the course of the program, which started in 1994.

-- The lead firms involved in the project is called City_ID.  Check out the firm's page of selected publications.  Holy s***!  Mike Rawlinson, a principal with the firm, was a presenter at the

-- Making the City Playable conference

-- Make Sunday Special (an open streets project)

-- Bristol Art Weekender

-- the Watershed Media Center is a creative economy and culture ideas generation and incubation organization, which sponsors and helps to create various events

-- a Mayor and City Council committed to innovation -- I missed most of the presentation by George Ferguson, the Mayor of Bristol, but one of the things he said was very telling, about changing the mode of government and the citizens being focused on fearing change as opposed to the opportunities and hope that change can also present.

-- Bristol is one of the cities that went all in on the creation of local currency, in response to the European Depression, which I wrote about in 2012

-- the city was a site, announced in 2008, for the UK Cycling Cities demonstration program under the previous Labour Government (article)

-- and next year Bristol will be the designated European Green Capital, as part of that EU program

Paving stone in Bristol, UK.