How we design

Again and again I am astonished as to how long it takes for a great idea for a design until it becomes mainstream. I am thinking of things like the EV1, hybrid cars and electric cars, but also great things like CalDAV. It likewise amazes me how we design things on a daily basis, the things that are not the great inventions but just things like buildings and infrastructure. We design roads like all people would continue forever to drive to work or places. We seem to assume that petrol keeps the driving force and everyone would continue to work in a central office. We assume that cities are the sustainable place to be sure to more density and less travel.

Yet the revolution had been happening for some time. The biggest taxi company does not own any taxis, the biggest sellers own no goods, the biggest music stores do not make any music. Some clever companies have hardly any office and their employees work all over the globe wherever and whenever they want. They do not travel, they use the Internet.

Where does the food in a sense city come from?  Where does the water come from, where does the go? Are dense cities really that great when you actually do not travel to work any more, when you might be working in another country? When your food and water and anything else really has to be trucked in and the waste trucked out? Why do we spent billions in roads when they might be empty in a decade? Maybe we should rather invest into a super data highway.

Just my daily musings.

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