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Flexible Cities

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Predictions of the future are often tricky. It requires an extrapolation of a trend from today to some kind of logical conclusion, taking into account how the object changing connects to the rest of the world. There’s a real showmanship to it all, too, when you start from the logical conclusion and then explain yourself backwards.

Cities will be radically different by 2050, with zoning codes and concepts that are more flexible and the corresponding buildings will have many uses on top of each other. Suburbs, as we know them now, will require extensive rehabilitation that will work well in some places but create wastelands in others.

See how it works? This is simply the logical conclusion of a flexible workforce and a fast-paced economy with people changing careers often. Should all that come to pass, our cities will have to have more flexible structures and more agile concepts of zoning. We can easily imagine how that might look because that is what cities were like before zoning came along about 100 years ago.

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The Industrial Arts

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A bizzy weekend of Robotics makes it a good night for a repeat, this from 2014.  With the Democratic Debate in Michigan the topic is very timely, too – Michigan has more FIRST Robotics teams per capita than any state and is clearly pushing this as a way to encourage a good future.  Industrial Arts?  The past and the future of Michigan, for sure.

If you have any fear for the future of America, visit a FIRST Robotics League competition. Your worries will simply melt away.

Three days with my son’s team (2491 No Mythic) at the Northstar Regionals, where we were knocked out in the Finals, constantly percolated with passion, grace, and ingenuity. The 800 plus high-schoolers in Mariucci Arena, and another 800 next door in Williams Arena, redefined competition beyond the unique sport that is something like hockey with robots. These kids make things happen and realize their visions together. As enthusiastically as they learned by doing, however, their drive showed that something might be missing from their school experience.

Call it shop class, call it “technical education”, use whatever words you want. These are the citizens that will make the world of tomorrow in their image, if only they have the tools to do it. That cries out for a revival and resuscitation of the Industrial Arts in a way that I have never seen contemplated before.

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The Only Thing We Have to Fear

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By the time you read this … Barataria says that far too often. Given the publication schedule at the start of each MWF, at midnight UTC, this blog often comes out before the news hits. The Employment Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will be out in just a few hours and it will be important.

This is, after all, an election year that has opened with a strong downturn in the stock market and a general feeling of panic. Money and politics have intersected in at least one critical way – people feel lousy about the future of both. But should they? And will they keep feeling lousy through November.

Our standing prediction is that sometime in July the economic future will look a lot better – which is to say just about convention time. And that better feeling may start with the BLS jobs report tomorrow – if only because it’s starting to look like the stock market is ready to believe good news.

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Is it Over? (It’s Never Over)

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Hillary Clinton came to Minnesota on Tuesday, ahead of Caucus Night. It was a good move, given that most of the states involved in Super Tuesday are primaries. As an evening caucus Minnesota was one of the few states not already voting but up for grabs. Coming here gave her something to do that was productive at the last minute. So why not?

Then again, Minnesota is strangely a key state at this point.

On a night where about 1/3 of the delegates are at stake it looks very bad for Sanders. Of the 12 states contested he is only sure of winning his home turf of Vermont. Key battlegrounds include Massachusetts, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Minnesota – all of which are places where Sanders has been putting newly received treasure into at an incredible rate. It may not be enough as polls in all of them save the Star of the North show Sanders behind.

This could be the last stop for the Sanders campaign – and the start of the long healing process ahead of the convention on 25 July.

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Scary ol’ Populism

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The intersection of politics and business is rarely good for anyone. Too much money corrupts governing and too much governing can get awfully expensive – as can haphazard, capricious, and ego-driven governing.

Which is why the question has to be raised now that a certain person appears to be cruising to the Republican nomination – and his name ain’t Cruz. We have a policy at Barataria of never mentioning his name, something like Voldemort, as he gets enough oxygen for being obnoxious (noxygen?) already.

But is his rise part of the reason why markets have been somewhat panicked? It’s hard to tell, but there is reason to believe that markets in general, as well as faith in the US of A from abroad, are starting to react badly to the rising prospects of the greatest nation ever being run as the largest and most powerful ever set for a reality show.

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