By Stephen C. Rose
Barack Obama put all the pieces of the new economy together two years ago but it is/was obviously a mite too radical to get the John McCain's of the world aboard.
He knew, for example, that, by making a contemporary high speed grid, geography would change entirely because it really would make no difference where you lived. We could build new settlements on cheap land, less prone to flood, fire and other sorts of mayhem.
He also knew that by bringing total transparency to governance, he would create an environment where "reporting" could be done by all of us dolts out here. The result would be a quantum leap in ... knowing what is happening. Maybe he also knew newspapers would be dying.
He knew, also, that the world of metrosprawl and everyone owning a cardboard cutout house and one or two newish cars was/is precarious, especially when built on a jail society that is not beyond re-explosion if things get really bad. We need ways to reclaim our public life and make being in public fun and safe.
Above all he knew that ingenuity (a favorite Presidential word) would be required to solve these and other real and implied problems.
Are we failing to catch on?
Ingenuity to me would involve building new communities that have all features needed for living within walking distance or a short ride away. But I have not heard an echo of this.
Ingenuity would mean the proliferation of new or changed or expanded professions -- and when will we start calling skilled workers professionals?
Among these -- teachers. Many teachers should man (or woman) "remote" teaching nodes that operate nearly 24/7 to bring learning within walking distance (or a short ride).
Drivers -- another professional class. The thing lacking in the reconstruction of the auto industry is what they will make. The answer is, not so many cars, not so many single passenger or single family vehicles.
We need to go limo. We need all manner of decent-sized, multi-passenger vehicles. And to work toward free advertiser-supported public transit on OUR roads. A total new generation of larger vehicles could come out sounding good in Obama speech.
We beat back oil dependence and enhanced the longevity of people's pocketbooks.
Advertiser-supported? Absolutely.
Why would advertisers not fight for the right to have their free transit wrapped with their appropriate message. I just came home on Wendy's.
We have an aging global population of billions who will eventually become unable to control cars on the nightmare emulation of highway culture that is being built worldwide. When we wake up and start getting ingenious about THAT, we will move a giant step toward some serious retooling of the auto industry.
We have a need to reduce vehicles while adding to their capacity.
We need to de-clog our arteries. The roads after all belong to us. We should be ingenious about how to make them useful in the future.
Please see my profile for a plethora of similarly utopian screeds and other widely ignored offerings. Cheers.
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