The Real Planning Need: Development of New Technologies

VOICES-(Re CityWatch column ‘The Seven Most Urgent Issues’) The Mobility Element (vaguely written and clearly opens the door to city council interpretation to support any current whim) needs to incorporate real planning that investigates and develops new technologies. 

PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) for example is a mass transit system that is 1/10th the cost, non-polluting and can be insta  lled at the rate of 1 miler per day (FixLATraffic.com) - we could actually see it in our lifetimes. 

Monitoring: There really is no valuable monitoring system currently in place. We get a hodge podge of badly written circumspect documentation that is so over bloated and confusing that it quickly smells inefficient and laden with special interest conclusions. 

It's also becomes irrelevant quickly since it takes a year or more to produce and cannot keep up with the changing infrastructure, or lack thereof. 

CIM City has it right. A game that asks you to build an monitor a city that the user builds. This is a program which a 13 year old child can INSTANTLY monitor the condition of the infrastructure, citizenry and city resources. 

I would advocate that a gaming company, such as they, develop and implement a monitoring system for our city. It could provide real-time data and give guidance on potential solutions.

 

(Scott McNeely lives in Los Angeles.)

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 99

Pub: Dec 9, 2014