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Any specific suggestions for how technology can cut municipal costs? Most of the fat in municipal spending tends to be political (pork) or criminal (public cor

Any specific suggestions for how technology can cut municipal costs? Most of the fat in municipal spending tends to be political (pork) or criminal (public corruption and/or organized crime), rather than due to process inefficiencies that could be remedied through better use of technology. Municipal spending tends to be dominated by the kinds of inherently labor-intensive services that can't readily be automated. Automation isn't going to have much of an impact in the number of people needed for firefighting, garbage collection, or to run and maintain urban water, sewer, electrical, and road networks anytime soon. Automation in policing is another huge civil liberties problem best left untouched. Urban government costs money and municipal tax grab attempts like this are either evidence of greed (and/or corruption) or inadequate funding models. These are political, rather than technological, problems.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago
But so much can be automated to a point. For example, garbage collection: Cities have already been saving money by putting in 'smart' cans/compactors (that are solar powered). No one needs to check every can, they just go along and get the ones that are full enough. Cities have also done things like standardize trash can so the machine takes care of the dumping. So many places now only have 2 people per truck instead of the 3 when I was younger. We use sensors for water treatment plants (and possibly for water delivery), software for some public transport when they do such a thing, devices to measure road traffic, and machines that automate much of road building. I'm going to guess that there are lots of these sorts of small things these. You can also simply start doing more of it as a city instead of contracting it out, but I suppose this isn't really technological.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago

But so much can be automated to a point. For example, garbage collection: Cities have already been saving money by putting in 'smart' cans/compactors (that are solar powered). No one needs to check every can, they just go along and get the ones that are full enough. Cities have also done things like standardize trash can so the machine takes care of the dumping. So many places now only have 2 people per truck instead of the 3 when I was younger. We use sensors for water treatment plants (and possibly for water delivery), software for some public transport when they do such a thing, devices to measure road traffic, and machines that automate much of road building. I'm going to guess that there are lots of these sorts of small things these. You can also simply start doing more of it as a city instead of contracting it out, but I suppose this isn't really technological.