This is a great summary of the current conflict between TfL and Uber, exploring the background of Uber itself. It does come off a little bit too much on the side of TfL - accepting all of its allegations without question, for example - but it's nonetheless a well-written piece.
The map is a little misleading, only in the sense that people care a ton about the difference from 0-1 hour, but no one commutes 5 hours. So we get a map that gives a ton visual weight to "commutes" more than two hours. I know I'm the one making this about commutes, but they are concerned with rush hour, so I don't feel like I'm out of bounds.
The fact that all the cities look the same speaks to this fact. The only restriction seems to be geography/geology.
Of course they have. They are a business based in Moscow. I would be surprised if they hadn't. They are just too attractive a target for the Kremlin not to try to co-opt. No idea how any US corporate security team could justify working with them, quite honestly.
Anyone agreeing with this should read The Next Revolution by ya boy Murray Bookchin. Libertarian Municipalism has the members of democratic citizen's assemblies of a town or city creating laws directly, and the representatives form a completely administrative role. By separating legislation and representation he even suggests that randomly selecting the delegates is completely reasonable.
Thanks for sharing this article. It was an interesting read about the progression of the idea into the tool available. I'm going to try out the software when I get a chance.