"The Ghost Map" Portrays a Triumph of Science over Stubborn Ignorance

 A variant of Dr. Snow's map, showing 1854 cholera cases in London
clustered around the Broad Street pump (click to enlarge)

Steven Johnson's 2006 book, selected for Portland's Everybody Reads 2010 program, is a gripping and rigorous work of historical nonfiction and interdisciplinary analysis.  It shares many urban concepts with Jeb Brugmann's Welcome to the Urban Revolution and David Owen's Green Metropolis, but approaches them differently.  "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World"chronicles the 1854 cholera epidemic that struck London, a vast city  overwhelmed by accumulations of human waste.  City leaders and physicians, deeply convinced of the notion that miasmas, or foul smells, cause cholera despite clear evidence to the contrary,  were ineffective and often counterproductive in combating the disease.   "The Ghost Map" tells the story of physician John Snow and cleric Henry Whitehead, who traced the source of disease to a neighborhood pump contaminated by seepage from an adjacent cesspool.    

Where We're Headed

I have been blogging for about five months now, and my typical end-of-year vacation has given me some time to think about where this blog is headed.  I've decided to focus on helping readers understand and exploit economic, social, environmental and technological developments for the sake of their careers, organizations and communities.

The "Urban Age" is upon us, with more than half of us, since 2008, living in cities or towns (first video). By 2050 nearly 70% of the world's 9 billion people will live in urban areas. Nearly all growth from now until then will occur in poorer countries. By 2050, 90% of the world's 1.2 billion youth (aged 15 to 24) will live in developing countries, and over 80% will live in Africa or Asia. Even these statistics presume increased adoption of family planning in developing countries.

Nine billion of us will have to face the effects of climate change.  It is very likely that increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting largely from human activity will contribute to increased average temperatures and rising sea levels.  These conditions could displace hundreds of millions of  people from their homes and are leading to conflicts as ethnic, religious, and political divisions are exacerbated by contention for agricultural land and water.

On the other hand, computing and communications technologies and the media that exploit them may be able to provide some relief.  For those with access, the Internet of the future will enable virtual experiences, as well as information sharing and recombination (mashups) that we can barely imagine today  (second video).  Increasingly, we are exchanging information remotely in order to operate global value networks that reduce risk and increase efficiency.  Even warfighting is becoming virtual, with drone pilots at a US base flying missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

New York's Manhattan Bridge Shown Bending Under the Weight of Subway Trains

The Manhattan Bridge, which turns 100 on December 31, flexes under the weight of a subway train in a time-lapse video taken in July of this year.  Interestingly, the bridge underwent an 18-year series of repairs ending in 2004, because the subway trains, which use two pairs of tracks on the outside of the lower level of the bridge, made the the structure tilt and sway.  This problem worsened as successive generations of trains got longer and heavier.  The diagram shows

a cross-section of the Manhattan Bridge, which also has pedestrian and bicycle paths as well as seven lanes of roadway on two levels.  Enjoy!

Vessel Tracking Website Beckons Armchair Seafarers

Let's face it:  I'm a transportation geek--if you haven't noticed already!  On my regular walk downtown to work, during inclement weather or when I am running late, I sometimes take the MAX light rail one stop within Portland's Fareless Square.  Earlier this week, I first noticed Tri-Met's Rail System Map, and managed to miss my stop while studying it!      

My interest does not wane at the water's edge.  I have long been fascinated with the newspaper port calendar that describes the local movements and moorings of ships, ocean-going tugs, and barges.  Local editor and writer Brian Doyle, eloquently explained our common interest in an Oregonian essay earlier this year.  But like most paper publications, port calendars now have online, real-time competitors.   Vessel-tracking websites display information transmitted by Automatic Identification System (AIS) radio transponders.  AIS is a short-range, coastal tracking system in which all passenger ships and all but the smallest cargo vessels must participate per international convention.  There are a number of websites that provide AIS-based geographical information systems (GIS),  most of which charge for their most interesting services.

"The New World of Wireless": Mobile Communication Everywhere, All the Time

What will the world be like when almost everyone -- and everything -- can interact over a wireless web? The New World of Wireless: How to Compete in the 4G Revolution by Scott Snyder helps business planners ask the right questions and choose the right answers. Snyder portrays a world in which all of us and many of our possessions join a "Digital Swarm" of people and devices that interact continuously and richly.

"The Box" and "The Colombo Bay" Offer Complementary Perspectives on Containerized Shipping

Among the many life-changing twentieth-century inventions, one of the simplest is often overlooked: the shipment of freight in metal containers with standard dimensions and attachment mechanisms. Before trucking entrepreneur Malcom McLean conceived of containerized shipping, it had certainly been tried in different forms.  McLean's innovation, however, was an intermodal system of ships, trains and trucks, all of which could handle containers that remained intact for their entire journey.  In 1955, McLean sold his trucking company and used the proceeds to purchase a steamship line and a terminal company in order to establish the first containerized shipping service.  On April 26, 1956, a converted World War II tanker sailed from Newark, NJ for Houston carrying 58 containers along with its standard liquid cargo.  

San Franciscan Praises Portland's Green Streets

Matthew Roth profiles Portland, Oregon's atreet designs that combine stormwater treatment with safety and convenience for cyclists and pedestrians on sf.streetsblog.org,   Like many cities with older sewer systems, Portland is subject to combined sewer overflow (CSO), in which precipitation combines with sewage to overwhelm the sewage treatment system, resulting in unsanitary discharges into the Willamette River and the Columbia Slough.  Portland is addressing this problem through a twenty-year program to construct tunnels and pipes  which will transport stormwater to wastewater treatment facilities, eliminating the vast majority of CSO volume.  Interested readers can follow Rosie the Tunnel-Boring Machine on Twitter!

In addition to these massive investments, Portland places swales, planters and rain gardens on streets to absorb and filter stormwater before it reaches storm sewers.

For bicyclists, Portland provides bike lanes and bike boxes, which help prevent collisions, particularly between cyclists going straight and motorists turning right.  Portland's first bike track on SW Broadway gives cyclists an entire car-width lane that is separated from the motorized traffic by a line of parked cars.  For pedestrians, there are sidewalks and bulbouts, which extend curbs to calm traffic and improve visibility for both pedestrians and drivers.

All in all, Portland has much to be proud of in its efforts to make streets safe, accessible and sustainable.  What do you think?  What else could Portland be doing to improve its streets?

Visualizing Cloud Computing

Cloud computing serves customers that need not be familiar with the technology underlying the services.

Cloud computing provides virtualized and highly scalable services.  Virtualization is a form of simulation. For example, a cloud service could provide a highly scalable simulated computer, or virtual machine with a processing capacity that increased or decreased as needed.  The actual computing could use varying portions of one or more computers behind the scenes.   By facilitating the sharing of equipment, utilities and skilled technical support, cloud services can be more cost-efficient than dedicated hardware, and can be designed to be more reliable at lower cost than comparable dedicated environments.

Cloud computing takes several often overlapping forms:

• Infrastructure-as-a-service provides basic computing building blocks, like virtual machines, firewalls, and storage
• Platform-as-a-service provides infrastructure plus additional software such as databases and web servers that facilitate efficient delivery of other services, such as websites
• Software-as-a-service provides platforms with software that is immediately useful without programming, like the blogging software I am using right now
• Communications-as-a-service can provide everything from email and chat to voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP), well as integrated multi-modal  unified communications (UC).

For a great visualization of cloud computing, see Life in the Cloud on the blog of Mozy, a cloud-based data backup service. For more information, see the Wikipedia article Everything as a Service.

Cloud services often add value to widely-used infrastructure like public transit.  For example, Portland's regional transit agency TriMet makes its real-time schedule and route data available free-of-charge. Software developers have used these cloud services to create a variety of PC and mobile applications .

Think about all the government services we receive.  How could cloud services be used to further enhance infrastructure in Portland?

SF Bay Bridge Closed Again after Earlier Repair Failed

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has been closed indefinitely after a three-foot crossbeam and twenty feet of tie rods fell into traffic Tuesday.  According to SFGate.com, the failures were part of a repair to the eastern section completed over the Labor Day weekend.  The debris damaged three cars but injured only one driver.  The closure dramatically impacted this morning's Bay Area commute, causing BART to run extra trains and commuters to seek alternate routes.

According to a 2007 report by the Congressional Research Service, of 600,000 US public road bridges in 12% or 74,000, are classified as structurally deficient.  2007 rates of investment would roughly halve the backlog of deficient bridges  by 2024; reducing it to near zero would require an estimated annual spending rate of $12.4 billion at all levels of government in 2004 dollars, according to the CRS. 

According to the National Priorities Project, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have cost us $925 billion since 2001.   What do you think should be done about the condition of our national infrastructure?  Where should the money come from?

Civic Group Intends to Turn New York's 42nd Street into a Pedestrian Mall with Light Rail

New York's 42nd Street may be closed off to cars and served by light rail if a local organization realizes its vision. The group projects that a light rail line stopping at intersections would traverse the heart of midtown Manhattan from the East River to the Hudson in about twenty minutes, half the time it takes buses today, with much less pollution.

A 42nd Street light-rail corridor would connect a wide range of New York attractions and transit hubs, including, from West to East, the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, The Circle Line pier, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Times Square, the Theater District, Bryant Park, the New York Public Library Main Branch, Grand Central Terminal and the United Nations.

The New York Times quotes vision42 co-chairman George Haikalis citing Portland, Oregon along with Dallas and Jersey City as places where light-rail has stimulated development. The Times also reports that an economic study commissioned by vision42 projected that about 398 office properties along 42nd Street would have an average increase in lot value of 4% or $188 due to the time light rail passengers would save.

When my family and I have visited New York and transitioned between activities on or near 42nd Street, we have often resorted to taxis because some of us were tired of walking. I also think that the traffic on that street is noisy, smelly, and overwhelming. So my initial reaction is positive, provided adequate provisions are made for truck traffic to service businesses in the area. What do you think? Post a comment or vote in the poll to the right (Facebook readers click on View Original Post below to visit my blog DigitalMillwright.com).

Vivid California High-Speed Rail Authority Website Worth a Visit

California voters' passage of Proposition 1A in November, 2008, authorized the state to issue $9.95 billion in bonds to begin to fund a $40 billion, 800-mile high-speed rail system, with $950 million set aside for improvements to existing railroads that will link to the new system.  The California High-Speed Rail Authority website features an interactive route map where you can set your origin and destination and see visualizations of points along the way.  An impressive collection of videos is also available in the Gallery, including the worldwide overview embedded below.


Clearly, the US has a lot of catching up to do relative to so many other countries, but there is no time like the present to start.

Field Guide to the Unnatural Captivates and Educates

Ever look at a construction site, a chemical plant, a railroad yard or a quarry and wonder how everything worked?  Or does someone in your household peer at the cables and boxes on utility poles, wondering what each one is for?   If so, here is a book for you. Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape by Brian Hayes adopts the point of view of a naturalist observing and explaining an unnatural landscape.

The book is full of revealing--and often beautiful--photographs of ubiquitous but often mysterious features of our industrial landscape.   The text provides thorough, readable explanations about how natural resources become products and services that we rely on daily; how our wastes are processed; how roads and buildings are constructed; and how railroads operate.  Each chapter stands on its own, so readers can pick the topics that interest them most.  There are lists of references for both children and adult infrastructure enthusiasts.

This is a book about infrastructure, not sustainability.  It evokes a sense of wonder about the technologies that underpin our civilization, but does not talk much about the problems that they can cause when unsustainably managed.  However, this book provides a solid introduction for those interested in evaluating or improving the sustainability of our critical industries.

Missouri DOT Video Illustrates How Highways Deteriorate Over Time

Damage from heavy traffic, trucks and water seepage lead to a
huge reconstruction cost, despite repeated resurfacing.
Video illustrates fifty years of wear in just two minutes.