Jen Nelles
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jen-nelles.bsky.social
Jen Nelles
@jen-nelles.bsky.social

Prof Systems and Spatial Analysis

metro regions | infrastructure | skills | productivity | innovation | systems | governance | bacon | proud Canadian | 50,000 unstoppable watts

Innovation & Research Caucus -Oxford Brookes Business School
.. more

Political science 62%
Business 15%
Pinned
Lots of new people here so it's time for a thread about #research I have been working on for the past couple of years.

I do a lot of different things! So if the most recent post is not what you follow me for that topic should come up soon :)

#geosky #geoinno

Haha except most of those forms of sliding are fast as hell and could easily get you killed. So a bit more badass than most summer Olympics sports 😂

🙄😭
‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery. On a quiz that covered concepts they’d used just a few minutes before, participants in the AI group scored 17% lower than those who coded by hand’

Blog on Anthropic’s site
www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
www.anthropic.com

This tunnel cannot catch a break! www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/n...
Work Will Stop on Critical Tunnel Project Unless Trump Restores Funding
www.nytimes.com

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.
It’s not quite as cold as MN right now, but NYC just turned out a massive protest in solidarity in plunging temps, heading up 6th ave.

Great!!! I’ll get registered and spread the word :)

If this was recorded I’d love to catch it. But a bit early from EST.
“Our overall conclusion is that congestion pricing in New York, like many other cities in the world that have implemented it, helped not only improve traffic, but also reduce air pollutant concentration, improve air quality and should be good for public health.”

news.cornell.edu/stories/2025...
Congestion pricing improved air quality in NYC and suburbs | Cornell Chronicle
Cornell researchers tallied the environmental benefits of New York City’s congestion pricing program and found air pollution dropped by 22% in Manhattan, with additional declines across the city’s fiv...
news.cornell.edu
‘Nostalgia is not a strategy’: Mark Carney is emerging as the unflinching realist ready to tackle Trump
‘Nostalgia is not a strategy’: Mark Carney is emerging as the unflinching realist ready to tackle Trump
In a speech at Davos, written by Carney himself, the Canadian prime minister laid out his doctrine for a world of fractured international norms
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Jen Nelles

I don't think I've ever listened to/read a full Davos WEF speech before but this speech by PMMC is something else. The discussion afterwards is good too. You should find some time to read/listen.

Text: paulwells.substack.com/p/the-carney...
YT: www.youtube.com/live/dE981Z_...
Davos LIVE: Canadian PM Mark Carney speaks at World Economic Forum
YouTube video by Associated Press
www.youtube.com

Reposted by Jen Nelles

I've finally put my "Find Your Organizing Home in NYC" zine online in readable form with clickable links - check it out and GET HOOKED UP and ORGANIZED, friends!

gregpak.net/2026/01/17/f...

Reposted by Jen Nelles

#Innovation doesn’t just thrive in #urban centres. It also emerges on the margins. In Industrial & Corporate Change, @glueckler.bsky.social & @yaneck.bsky.social show how "institutional slack" and distance from the core create pockets where controversial #ideas can take root.
doi.org/10.1093/icc/...
Controversial innovation and spatial pockets of peripheral opportunity
Abstract. Innovation is often paradoxical: it is both demanded and resisted. This article theorizes the process of controversial innovation (CI) as coevolv
doi.org
While there is so much that is disturbing about this case study in the destruction of academic freedom, one high point is the refusal of the targeted professor to submit

Trick question. That is obviously the best. Second is Gimme Some Money though.

Reposted by Jen Nelles

I went and volunteered at a food bank just a few days ago. it was good! there are more effective ways to feed people, sure, but it's still good! we fed lots of people. the org overall fed more. we'd all be better off if even more orgs and more people spent time and money doing stuff like that.

I second this! Am in the middle of it now and loving it.

Reposted by Jen Nelles

Loved teaching @thebartlettucl.bsky.social students this term, and have blogged about my seminar series, Planetary Infrastructures, here samgrinsell.hcommons.org/2025/12/10/p... #history #ArchitecturalHistory #infrastructure #geography #anthropology #EnvHums #teaching #environment
Planetary Infrastructures – Sam Grinsell
samgrinsell.hcommons.org

New report from the IRC: "Lessons from the History of Technology Adoption and Diffusion" where we dive into the diffusion stories of three technology families and propose a framework to help shape policy strategy around the adoption of technologies of the future.

ircaucus.ac.uk/publications...
Lessons from the History of Technology Adoption and Diffusion - Innovation Research Caucus
ircaucus.ac.uk
Particulate pollution in the air down a whopping 22% in NYC’s congestion pricing zone.

Not only are the streets less congested, but so are our lungs.

e360.yale.edu/digest/new-y...
In New York City, Congestion Pricing Leads to Marked Drop in Pollution
e360.yale.edu

Reposted by Jen Nelles

States can abide by original recs. New York has that policy in place and Illinois just passed legislation to allow that. See about getting similar plans in place in your state. #MedSky 🩺 www.nprillinois.org/health-harve...
1/Quick thoughts of implications of US National Security Strategy for Europe -- weaponized interdependence meets nationalist international. The US will use its tools (economic, technology, and financial dominance) to press for far right agenda.
www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
www.whitehouse.gov

Reposted by Jen Nelles

@philiprocco.bsky.social (Marquette University), Jay Rickabaugh (North Carolina State), and @jen-nelles.bsky.social (Oxford Brookes School) discuss state and national partnerships during an atypical federal office in this @washingtonmonthly.com op-ed.

Read the piece. ⤵️
Trump’s Washington Is Ghosting States and Cities
States and cities are being abandoned by DC. Here’s how local leaders are building new alliances to survive Trump’s unpredictable federalism.
washingtonmonthly.com

Reposted by Jen Nelles

Iran's president is reviving plans to move the capital amid a severe water crisis. But Iranian water policy experts say relocating government offices won't solve the core problem: decades of treating finite water resources as unlimited. buff.ly/p7loved
Iran’s president calls for moving its drought-stricken capital amid a worsening water crisis – how Tehran got into water bankruptcy
Iran’s sprawling cities and irrigated agriculture, along with tight market controls, have left the country vulnerable to drought. There are steps that would help.
theconversation.com

Op ed published today on shifting mindsets about what #states and #cities can do to mitigate their increasingly uncertain relationship with the US federal government. In @washingtonmonthly.com with @philiprocco.bsky.social and Jay Rickabaugh washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/27/t...
Trump’s Washington Is Ghosting States and Cities
States and cities are being abandoned by DC. Here’s how local leaders are building new alliances to survive Trump’s unpredictable federalism.
washingtonmonthly.com

Reposted by Jen Nelles

We could have this in NYC! Support the SUNNY Act! www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/pre...

Farewell and good luck to Rick Cotton as he moves on from the Port Authority. As my coauthor says, he was a steadying hand and innovator at the authority during his tenure.

www.nj.com/news/2025/11...
Port Authority boss who rebuilt agency after Bridgegate to retire in 2026
Rick Cotton who led the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for almost 9 years will retire after building massive projects in both states.
www.nj.com

New paper on the ‘commercialization’ of arts, humanities & soc sci research; why that’s the wrong lens; and analysis showing that these fields have greater economic impact than assumed.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reimagining mechanisms of economic impact for knowledge valorisation of the arts, humanities & social science
Drawing on a comprehensive analysis of 105 Impact Case Studies from the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, this paper challenges the prevailing narrative that knowledge valorisation should b...
www.tandfonline.com