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For those who have read Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Power Broker, most of this article tells history you already know. After that part, it'
by spodek 8y ago
For those who have read Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Power Broker, most of this article tells history you already know.
After that part, it's about applying her principles to today's issues beyond cities to entrepreneurship versus large corporations and red tape and how to serve people and their lives.
The article didn't apply her principles to the environment, where I find a relevant parallel: people in traffic jams felt, "if only this road had another lane, then I wouldn't have to endure this traffic jam" so we built more lanes and roads. After generations, people learned that empty roads helped only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more traffic than before the expansion.
The parallel is that people see pollution today and think, "if only a new technology reduced this pollution, I wouldn't have to breathe this polluted air / endure sea levels rising / etc" so we develop new technologies. We haven't yet learned the parallel with roads that more technologies help only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more pollution.
I've overstated things to simplify, but there are shades of gray. We need some roads, but more isn't necessarily better and short-term solutions often worsen the situation. Same with technology, as Jevon's paradox, among other effects, illustrates.
In complex systems, if you don't address the leverage point of the beliefs and goals of the system, changing elements in it rarely changes the system, no matter how wonderful the new technology seems, be it LED lighting, nuclear power, carbon sequestration, space travel, and so on. In a system based on beliefs that we can expand out of any problem, they'll make the system expand faster. In a system designed to serve people, new technologies would help serve people better, but we don't live in such a system yet.
We could use an environmental Jane Jacobs.
- cirgue 8y ago> We haven't yet learned the parallel with roads that more technologies help only temporarily, eventually leading people to use them and create more pollution. This is a false equivalency. Traffic is very much the limiting factor in the use of roads. Pollution is absolutely not the limiting factor in the use of technology. The volume of pollution produced does not expand to some magical limit in response to changes in process in the same way that traffic expands to fill roadways in response to road expansion.
- maxsilver 8y ago> Pollution is absolutely not the limiting factor in the use of technology. The volume of pollution produced does not expand to some magical limit in response to changes in process in the same way that traffic expands to fill roadways in response to road expansion. Yep, and this is a false equivalency too. Traffic does not "expand to fill roadways" in that way, we are just so under-provisioned on transit infrastructure that it gives the artificial appearance of this. By this flawed logic, we should never build Hospitals (because it would 'make more' sick people, they would 'expand to fill hospitals'). Or we should never build schools (because that would 'make more' uneducated people). This isn't new, grossly misunderstanding induced demand is par for the course in that field. But it's worth mentioning every time this comes up.
- cirgue 8y agoIn already-populated areas, expansion of transit capacity increases local economic activity and thefore throughput. This is an observable phenomenon. Municipalities even occasionally plan for it. Property investors certainly do.
- mapleoin 8y agoYes, traffic does expand to fill roadways if all you do is build roadways and population and car-ownership increases. One solution to traffic congestion is, yes to provision more transit infrastructure, but that usually means subways and cycling paths in a city, a better train system in the countryside. Another solution is to redesign the city so that people don't need to move as much. Build vertically, encourage varied local businesses where people live, rather than in a mall outside town and relocate things that you don't need in a city centre (i.e. industry).
- closeparen 8y agoSatisfying more people’s desire for transportation is a good thing. Roads can be an inefficient way to do that, but it’s baffling how people talk about “extra” traffic like there’s no public value in enabling it.
- Barrin92 8y agoAnother great introductory book addressing these issues within dynamic systems is Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows