A crowd of pedestrian dynamics – the perspective of physics.

Walking is the most basic form of transportation. A good understanding of pedestrian’s dynamics is essential in meeting the mobility and accessibility needs of people by providing a safe and quick walking flow. Advances in the dynamics of pedestrians in crowds are of great theoretical and practical interest, as they lead to new insights regarding the planning of pedestrian facilities, crowd management, or evacuation analysis. As a physicist, I would like to put forward some additional theoretical and practical contributions that could be interesting to explore, regarding the perspective of physics on about human crowd dynamics (panic as a specific form of behavior excluded).

Economics for Substantive Democracy

In this paper, I sustain that the discourse of economics has become one of the most substantial contributors to the erosion of the democratic ideal. The first argument used in this case against economics concerns its attempt to be considered a neo- naturalistic science; the second, the fact that economics considers democracy contradictory to the expression of its scientific rationality and; the third, the fact that economics crowds out people from decision-making processes by pushing them into the hands of experts. Because partisan political programmes have essentially become economic programmes, economics should contribute to substantive democracy. In order to do so, an alternative discourse to mainstream economics must be proposed. An economics favourable to substantive democracy should, thereby, be political rather than naturalistic, pluralist rather than monist and, instead of crowding out people from decisions processes, should aim at the co-production of economic knowledge with those concerned by the outcome of economic decisions.