ana016: The Future of Cities

In a rare in-person episode, Tim and Joe speculate about how technological trends will shape the future of cities.

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View full show notes at anarchitecturepodcast.com/ana016.

Intro

FINALLY WE CAN TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT FLYING CARS

Discussion

Joe's report from the future: Living in Australia is like living 15 years ago in the US

Actually, Amazon Australia Launched 3 weeks after we recorded this episode. WE MAKE THE FUTURE HAPPEN

Australia's NBN: National Boondoggle Network

By the time it's installed, it's obsolete

Crowding out private investment

A perfect example of why governments shouldn't build infrastructure

Status quo thinking

Grandiose infrastructure projects vs. necessary maintenance

The Strong Towns approach

Smart Cities

Sensors and centralized management

Algorithms and AI

Informing future development

Roads and complexity - Can AI optimize traffic?

Smart grids - balancing demand

Hayekian knowledge problem

How useful is all of this information?

What's the real benefit?

Incremental development vs. political grandstanding

Joe's market solution for traffic light priority

To optimize road systems, privatize them

Automated Vehicles

A giant leap, or incremental adoption?

Communication, reaction time, and automatic re-routing

Vast improvements in vehicle safety

Induced demand

Expanding the suburban catchment area: an exponential relationship

Urbanization, Suburbanization and Exurbanization

Telecommuting

Robots building robots to build other things

Benefits of face to face meetings

Milton Keynes - No relation to defunct economists

Patrik Schumacher's EXTREME view: a 15 minute commute is too far

Economies of agglomeration

"Cities are the brains that direct the rural muscle"

Ed Glaeser - Triumph of the City

Skyscrapers and Universities

"We could be the new Pittsburgh!"

Another Adelaide boondoggle - the new medical precinct

Adelaide's coming rental market crash

Foreign buyers will lose their shirts

A paucity of safe investment opportunities - because CENTRAL BANKS

Job opportunities draw people to cities

Slums and favelas - a symptom of opportunity

Resourcefulness of slum dwellers to compensate for lack of capital

Property rights for slums

The Long Now Foundation

Demographics - Human population as an "S" curve

Feeding the Cities

Vertical Farms - might make sense if they're horizontal

A long way from crowding out the land

Permaculture - pigs are high tech

Monoculture - the result of subsidies

Logistics

Automated Delivery

Online grocery shopping - more energy efficient

Night time deliveries

Fedex's parking ticket manager

Automated Vehicles, Congestion, and Parking

Drop you off, go park itself

Changing multimodal transit

Dynamic routes - adapting to needs in real time

Doubling peak hour congestion?

Eliminating on street parking?

Induced demand strikes again

FLYING CARS - THE REAL SOLUTION

Peter Thiel - "We wanted flying cars, and we got 140 characters"

Jetsons? Rin tin tin? Flubber? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

Automated vehicles are a necessary prerequisite to flying cars

Flipping the city upside down

Streets become streets again - more public spaces

Don't park - Hover!

Helicopter taxis in Sao Paulo

Energy density is essential

Micro nukes flying around the city driven by self-aware AI's - what could possibly go

wrong?

Other Advances in Energy

Thorium reactors

Virtual power plants - aggregating decentralized power sources

"Behind the meter" schemes

Solar farm shares rather than roof-mounted

Photovoltaic roof shingles

Solar roads - a non-starter

Batteries

Your car can power your house

Quick charging stations

WE NEED THE ENERGON

Construction Industry Technology

Modular construction

Bricklaying robots

Tim loves watching masons work

3D printed buildings

Drone cranes - what could possibly go wrong?

Japanese demolition - No more working at heights

VR Drone site visits

Holographic design

Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality

Will we still build real places?

Authenticity matters

Cities provide authentic experiences

VR allows people to live where they want

Virtual 20th High School Reunion is better than the real thing

Are haptic hugs creepy?

The Future of Politics

A path to privatization?

The trend towards decentralization favors free markets and deregulation

Technology - tool for liberation or control?

Liberty Minecraft - The Virtual Built Environment of a Stateless Society

Two trends: individualization and voluntary socialization

Two more trends: Technology disrupting jobs and technology creating ultra-abundance

Low skilled workers becoming more entrepreneurial

Passive income opportunities

Reason to be optimistic

Links/Resources

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says NBN was a mistake and it may never make money

Strong Towns

Waze

Traffic Jam Experiment (Video)

Automated Cars in Intersections - Pretty sure this is faked, but illustrates the idea.

Induced demand

Ed Glaeser - Triumph of the City

The Long Now Foundation

Seminars About Long Term Thinking (SALT)

Clock of the Long Now (Danny Hillis SALT Talk)

Stewart Brand on Cities and Demographics (SALT Talk)

Vertical Farming

Permaculture:

Permies

Drew Sample - Urban Permaculture

Peter Thiel's Manifesto About Flying Cars (and some other stuff). TL;DR

Thorium Reactors

Virtual Power Plants

Blockchain based "Behind the Meter" Scheme in Australia

Tesla's Photovoltaic Roof Shingles

Transformers Energon

China: 57-Story Skyscraper built in 19 Days

Japanese Building Demolition

Google Earth - Kennedy Space Center

Liberty Minecraft