Stephen M. Walt (Foreign Policy):

I wonder what Americans would think if every single one of them could travel to Paris or London, go through the airport and ride the public transportation system, and spend a week seeing how well some public institutions (though of course not all) actually work. I somehow suspect a lot of them would come home and ask themselves why Americans don’t have the same thing. This effect would be compounded if they all re-entered the United States at Logan Airport or La Guardia.

Paul Krugman (New York Times):

Europe is often held up as a cautionary tale, a demonstration that if you try to make the economy less brutal, to take better care of your fellow citizens when they’re down on their luck, you end up killing economic progress. But what European experience actually demonstrates is the opposite: social justice and progress can go hand in hand.

My personal 10 survival tips after having lived in Brussels for 100 days:

1. Do complain. Always. Sometimes it helps calming down.

2. Do not plan anything on a Saturday due to the rather inconvenient opening hours of nearly all shops and services during weekdays. Unfortunately, you will not be the only one with that idea on any given Saturday.

3. If you really want to have a free Saturday use your lunch-breaks.

4. Everything that involves the infamous Belgian administration is rather slow (sometimes also la poste & STIB, depending on your problem). But the lunch-break won’t do: Better take half a day off! One example: Do not expect to get your residence permit in the first three months after your application. It also involves the police checking if you put your name next to the doorbell.

5. If you buy a ticket for the cinema don’t expect numbered seats. So, better be there early!

6. It takes you 1 hour to open a simple bank account.

7. Judging on the design and the functionality, it seems that online banking has only been introduced recently with a fresh 1990s-look.

8. If you don’t want to spend money for a taxi, try to catch the last metro around midnight. Exception: On Fridays there is one (!) night bus service!

9. Rubbish bags are an important design feature in the streets of Brussels.

10. Enjoy strolling through the European district with its unique atmosphere: enjoyable city spaces with numerous green islands, modern and beautiful architecture: all in all a convincing urban planning scheme.

Green Horizon, the quarterly magazine of the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) in Budapest runs an interesting story about the revival of public transport in Eastern Europe:

“In Bucharest, for example, the city’s bus operator, RATB, has begun implementing sophisticated global positioning system (GPS) technology to enable more efficient and consistently scheduled service. The city also hopes to effect an integrated ticketing system between RATB and the separate company that runs Bucharest’s metro service.”

What a wonderful idea. Unfortunately it is doubtful that this will have any impact in a city that lacks the minimum of public transport structure such as timetables, recognizable bus stops, friendly drivers or a coherent metro map, let alone ticket machines or a user-friendly website.