Month: February 2012

The equilibrium trap

the quality of governance in the US tends to be low precisely because of a continuing tradition of Jacksonian populism. Americans with their democratic roots generally do not trust elite bureaucrats to the extent that the French, Germans, British, or Japanese have in years past. This distrust leads to micromanagement by Congress through proliferating rules and complex, self-contradictory legislative mandates which make poor quality governance a self-fulfilling prophecy. The US is thus caught in a low-level equilibrium trap, in which a hobbled bureaucracy validates everyone’s view that the government can’t do anything competently.

Governors Island future?

i have always wondered about governors island. this is an intriguing speculation

Vishaan Chakrabarti unveiled a radical proposal to connect the Financial District to Governors Island through a land bridge made of landfill, replete with a new mixed-use, high-rise, green infrastructure community. The setting for his presentation was a conference called “Zoning the City”, convened by New York City’s Department of City Planning and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and Chakrabarti’s premise was how to zone for a modern Central Business District, for affordability, for livability, for energy and waste, and finally for resilience. He armed his argument with planning instruments and infrastructure developments, such as the transfer of air rights and the provision of waste-to-energy facilities, and he closed with a bold vision to create a projected “8 km2 of development and generate $16.7B in revenue for the city” in a neighborhood that is currently harbor.

Recycling 2b jobs

he is a bit too optimistic about 3d printing, but pretty much on the mark otherwise.

In these 5 industries alone there will be 100Ms of jobs disappearing. But many other sectors will also be affected. Certainly there’s a downside to all this. The more technology we rely on, the more breaking points we’ll have in our lives. Driverless drones can deliver people. These people can deliver bombs or illicit drugs as easily as pizza. Robots that can build building can also destroy buildings.