Thursday, September 29, 2016
Thinking Broadly Abound our Techie Car Future
It's back to the suburbs in a tech-rich age. Tyler Cowen bids farewell to city revival. https://t.co/jsNjiz60em via @BV— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) September 29, 2016
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Mastering the Resilient / Sustainable / Smart Business Model
Water utilities are facing a highly complex future. Strategic challenges can best be viewed as
the effective management of the resilient / sustainable / smart utility
triangle. These new challenges call for
a completely different set of metrics, mindsets, and leadership
approaches. Future decision-making by
water utility leaders will require an integrated approach linking the
capabilities of resiliency in an increasingly risky world, with the economic,
environment, and social justice considerations of sustainability, with the
technological opportunities embedded in a smart and data-driven operating
environment.
One side of the triangle represents the ideas of shock and
stress recovery. Utility operational
resiliency is fundamentally the desire to develop capabilities such that you
can bounce back more quickly and effectively after an unexpected event. Texas water utilities face a future dominated
by the uncertainties associated with weather and climate change; the risks of
cyber-crime and terrorism; increasing public and social-media driven awareness
regarding water quality; and the financial constraints of investing in and
rehabilitation of a high-fixed cost operating environment. Organizational and system resiliency will
matter this century. Texas has highly
concentrated urban and metropolitan areas that are wonderful places to live,
yet their growing populations and increased density make them vulnerable to
disruptions, crisis, and disaster in many new ways. A key component of the triangle will be
ensuring water utilities have the governance structures in place that allows
them to be strong in a world where things go wrong.
The second side to the triangle incorporates the ideas of
sustainability into the operational and planning ecosystem of a water
utility. Developing policy initiatives
that address the goals of environmental stewardships, long-term economic
viability, and community sustainability will also be critical this
century. Optimization across the
complete horizontal space of sustainability will be critical given the
increasingly constrained outlook of water resources in Texas. Cautious balancing between the urgency of
resiliency and the importance of sustainability will require greater strategic
thought and planning. The desire for
greater resiliency has the potential to constrain sustainability policies and
goals, while focusing solely on sustainability might produce less resilient
water utilities in Texas.
The final side of the triangle incorporates the disruptive
influences of technology on strategic utility management. This moves beyond the in vogue procurement of
smart water meters, to a fuller understanding of what it means to be a technology
and data-centric organization.
Increasing digitalization, enhanced machine learning, the exponential
growth of sensor infrastructure, and the networked organization will become
important tools in the context of how water utilities define and measure
customer and citizen value. The smart
utility will have the technological links that connects the goals of resiliency
and sustainability more effectively.
The Wall is About Economics and Not Civil Engineering
From the Marginal Revolution ten years ago - -
"To keep out Mexicans, that is.
For purposes of argument, let us say you are anti-immigration. And let us say the fence would cost nothing to build and maintain. You still might not want one.
Mexicans illegals enter the U.S. through two major channels. They run (or swim) across the border, or they buy illegal papers. Usually the papers cost more than the hiring the crossing guide. The papers make for an easier and safer journey, for obvious reasons. Mexican women, I might add, are more likely to use false papers, given their (their father’s?) greater aversion to the physical strain of four days in the desert.
If you shut off the desert walks (assume the fence is impregnable, ha!), more Mexicans will use illegal papers.
Did I add I would expect the cost of the papers to fall, not rise? Many Mexicans don’t trust the purchase of papers, as opposed to the desert walk. If the walk were impossible, networks for manufacture and sale of the papers would become much better developed. The illegal papers would become much cheaper and much more widely used.
In other words, more young women will come. Many of the Mexican men will have wives here, not back home. Many more young Mexicans will be born on U.S. soil.
Get the picture? Hispanamerica is coming, like it or not. Let’s deal with it constructively."
"To keep out Mexicans, that is.
For purposes of argument, let us say you are anti-immigration. And let us say the fence would cost nothing to build and maintain. You still might not want one.
Mexicans illegals enter the U.S. through two major channels. They run (or swim) across the border, or they buy illegal papers. Usually the papers cost more than the hiring the crossing guide. The papers make for an easier and safer journey, for obvious reasons. Mexican women, I might add, are more likely to use false papers, given their (their father’s?) greater aversion to the physical strain of four days in the desert.
If you shut off the desert walks (assume the fence is impregnable, ha!), more Mexicans will use illegal papers.
Did I add I would expect the cost of the papers to fall, not rise? Many Mexicans don’t trust the purchase of papers, as opposed to the desert walk. If the walk were impossible, networks for manufacture and sale of the papers would become much better developed. The illegal papers would become much cheaper and much more widely used.
In other words, more young women will come. Many of the Mexican men will have wives here, not back home. Many more young Mexicans will be born on U.S. soil.
Get the picture? Hispanamerica is coming, like it or not. Let’s deal with it constructively."
Monday, September 26, 2016
Texas Urbanism - An Inventory of the Possible
Urbanism, Texas-Style https://t.co/QteaJt96om via @sharethis— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) September 26, 2016
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