Introducing the Fully-Automated 24-Hour City Fifteen years ago I found myself stranded in the small town of Faith, South Dakota. It was 3:00 am in the morning and my car was out of gas. To give you a better idea of my predicament, this tiny town of 400 people was located 100 miles away from any significant cities. With my kids sleeping in the front and back seats, my only option was to pull up in front of one of the two gas stations in town and wait until they opened at 6:00 am to continue my journey. Later I found out that people in this situation were supposed to call the police department and a local cop would help them fill their tank. Today, most gas stations are equipped with credit card readers and no attendant is necessary for them to operate 24 hours a day. As we continue down the path of automation, virtually every city will have 24-hour convenience stores, 24-hour libraries, 24-hour banks, 24-hour churches, 24-hour schools, 24-hour movie theaters, 24-hour bars and restaurants, and even 24-hour shopping centers.
Digital Cities: 'sense-able' urban design This article was taken from the November issue of Wired UK magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online The full Digital Cities package: - Networked information will reshape our cities - London after the great 2047 flu outbreak - Your neighbourhood is now Facebook Live - The transport of tomorrow is already here Scholars back in 1995 speculated about the impact of the ongoing digital revolution on the viability of cities. In fact, cities have never prospered as much as they have over the past couple of decades. The digital revolution did not end up killing our cities, but neither did it leave them unaffected. Most noticeable is the explosion in mobile-phone use around the globe. One consequence of this process is particularly important: cities can start to work as real-time control systems, regulated by a number of feedback loops. Picon's view is heretical.
Examining Intelligent Vehicles and Urban Design Kaid Benfield, Director, Sustainable Communities, Washington, DC (Today's article is co-authored with my friend and frequent collaborator, Lee Epstein. Lee is an attorney and land use planner working for sustainability in the mid-Atlantic region.) The promise of a fully automated highway network has captivated the imaginations of futurists and aspirational engineers for several generations. In these visions there is a wide range of so-called “intelligent vehicle systems” or “automated vehicles” – from private vehicles that continuously “talk” to one another while keeping some level of human control, to fully automated networks that entirely take over one’s vehicle, using embedded GPS and other technologies to get one to a desired location without a human driver touching the wheel or the pedal. The optimistic goal seems to be to achieve just the right travel distance to maintain high speeds, more efficiently manage travel volumes, and avoid accidents. Don’t get us wrong. Related posts: