Monthly Archives: April 2014

The Internet-of-Things Steamroller and the Economic Competitiveness of Cities

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by James A. Bacon

Well, I’m a steamroller, baby, I’m bound to roll all over you.
Yes, I’m a steamroller now, baby, I’m bound to roll all over you. …
 – James Taylor “Steamroller

The words to James Taylor’s blues classic “Steamroller” have been churning through my mind during the 2014 Niagara Summit hosted by Richmond-based Tridium as I learn more about the constellation of technologies known as the Internet of Things — the ubiquity of sensors, the falling cost of wireless and data-storage technologies, the rise of “big data” and the emergence of incredibly sophisticated algorithms — and the impact they will have on the business landscape and society at large.

The Internet of Things (IoT), to borrow Taylor’s imagery, is a steamroller, a demolition derby, a napalm bomb. It will flatten — or, to borrow the tech buzz word du jour, totally “disrupt” — the business landscape. Most Americans have yet to hear of the Internet of Things. But as the next wave of the ongoing IT revolution that has transformed the world since the 1980s, it is as momentous as the rise of the PC, the Internet and mobile computing. Admittedly, the IT industry thrives on hype and the search for the Next Big Thing. But there is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind at Tridium or among the industry illuminati speaking here that the IoT is for real. IBM, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Intel and other industry giants are all piling into the IoT. Google recently paid $3.2 billion dollars for Nest Labs, a company founded in 2010, that manufactures smart home thermostats! Continue reading →

The Memphis Conversation

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memphisby Charles Marohn

Last week at the Memphis Boot Camp and the various activities associated with it I was repeatedly confronted with an issue that I’m not familiar with and far from an expert on and, for those reasons, actually rather uncomfortable talking about. That issue is equity, specifically racial equity. It is a really important topic and I’m going to share with you my limited thoughts and hopefully, in doing so, open up this conversation so that you can teach me something.

Where I live, we have a lot of diversity. We have people of Norwegian descent, Swedish descent and Finnish descent. We also have some Germans and my family even has a Russian patriarch (although I believe that is Russian via Prussia, which is actually more German than Russian). My jest here is to point out that, while I’m aware of race and equity issues, particularly in a place like Memphis, they are not a present force actively shaping my daily life. So I’m approaching these issues from my brain and my heart in ways different than many other Strong Towns advocates.

In fact, the handful of minorities that have been part of my community over the years have tended to be rather affluent and, in most ways, indiscernible from most everyone else in the community. I know this creates a gap in my understanding, but it has also meant that I’ve tended to understand – right or wrong – issues of equity more in terms of poverty than race. I’m not insensitive to race, but I’m also not intuitively understanding of racial issues the way that I am other things I have more directly experienced.

So with that as a backdrop, I’m going to share with you something I have shared with many audiences around the country but have not written about before; namely, my greatest fear in regards to the economic transition underway. Continue reading →

Should Students Be Zoned Out?

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Dormsby Michael Lewyn

In Long Island where I teach, colleges and universities are engaged in a dorm-building boom—partially to attract out-of-town students, but partially because zoning rules often prevent student-oriented off-campus housing such as apartments and group houses.

The Supreme Court has upheld such zoning ordinances; in a 1974 decision upholding one Long Island suburb’s right to exclude group houses, Justice Douglas wrote:

A quiet place where yards are wide, people few, and motor vehicles restricted are legitimate guidelines in a land-use project addressed to family needs…It is ample to lay out zones where family values, youth values, and the blessings of quiet seclusion and clean air make the area a sanctuary for people.

Justice Douglas’s decision to use “youth values” as a reason to exclude college students seems a bit bizarre to me. Nevertheless, such restrictive zoning is understandable; I suspect that the middle-aged suburban homeowners believe that college-age students are far too likely to get drunk, drive recklessly, or have noisy parties (or worse still, do all three at the same time). Moreover, high car insurance premiums for college-age drivers suggest that this prejudice is rooted in empirical reality. Continue reading →

The Memphis Pyramid

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by Charles Marohn

Tuesday night we had a public symposium where I delivered a Memphis version of the Strong Towns Curbside Chat. We’re going to have clips and audio from the talk online soon. The talk lasted around ninety minutes and then there was some really good question and answers following. It was a serious conversation with people who are serious about Memphis.

The morning after the conversation, a report appeared in the Commercial Appeal – a local newspaper – that framed the event within their lead in these terms.

A leading thinker on the development of cities had both harsh and gushing things to say about Memphis during his “Curbside Chat” with an audience of 100 in Downtown Tuesday night. Continue reading →

The Simple Ingredients of a Good Public Space

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nyc_streetWhat makes a good urban public space? It takes more than an open plaza, which can be barren, inhospitable and desolate. The fountains, as shown here on Park Ave. in New York, are a definite bonus. But the critical ingredient is having somewhere to sit, even if it’s as simple as a set of shallow steps. I offer this example not because it is extraordinary in any way but because it is so totally ordinary. Cities and towns don’t have to spend millions of dollars on public art and landscaping. All they need is a vibrant street with lots of foot traffic and a place to eat lunch outside on a sunny spring day.

– JAB

(Cross posted from Bacon’s Rebellion.)

Feet-to-the-Fire Time for Layne, Kilpatrick

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kilpatrick_layne

Virginia Highway Commissioner Charlie Kilpatrick and Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne. Photo credit: Times-Dispatch

by James A. Bacon

Virginia taxpayers will have to suck up a $400 million to $500 million loss if the U.S. 460 upgrade between Petersburg and Suffolk never gets built, Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne told the House Appropriations Committee yesterday. “If everything totally went south, we … may end up with $500 [million] left of the $1.4 billion set aside,” he said, as quoted by the Times-Dispatch.

The fate of the mega-project is up in the air because the McDonnell administration signed a design-build contract with U.S. 460 Mobility Partners before obtaining all necessary environmental permits. At issue is the fate of an estimated 480 acres of wetlands along the proposed route of the interstate-quality highway. VDOT proposed to purchase wetlands credits from private mitigation banks to offset the wetlands destroyed by the project but the Corps has not yet determined whether that would be deemed an acceptable offset.

The hearings yesterday surfaced a lot of valuable information but missed perhaps the most critical issue of all: Members of the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) approved crucial financing for the project in October 2012 without ever being informed that wetlands mitigation was an issue.

I attended that meeting of the CTB and wrote a lengthy story about it. Board members expressed reservations about borrowing so much money to fund the project and sought assurances that the state’s exposure was limited. As I summed up the discussion at the time: “Administration officials insisted that the deal posed little risk of exposure to the state over its already-significant contribution.” Continue reading →