The Next Smart City Is. . .A Suburb

Two pieces out there on autonomous vehicles and what they mean for suburbs--places like Newark, Ohio--are music to the ears for suburban economic development-minded folks.

Joel Kotkin writes in summation of both pieces: "By one estimate, as much as a trillion dollars of real estate value could swing to locations far from job centers that will become more attractive due to autonomous vehicles."

"Autonomous Cars Are About to Change the Suburbs" is in Forbes.  

Medium.com has a piece titled "~$1 Trillion of Real Estate is On The Move. . .Here's Why."

Must reads.

Driverless Cars Favor Suburban Living

I listened to remarks presented about autonomous vehicles yesterday and how one urban planner organization views economic development in the future where these cars are prevalent.

It wasn't presented as a biased presentation, but it was.  The planners took an urban view, even though they didn't confess it.

The real debate is which density of living does the driverless car audience of the future favor.  

Many wish for urban.  I say it's suburban.

Suburban vs. Urban is a legitimate debate. Slate wrote a good piece presenting multiple viewpoints and helped to show where bias of some lies.

The issue is this:

Will I still want to own my own car?

Will I still want street parking and wide streets in front of my suburban-style house?

Will I still need to park my car at work?

The answer is "yes" in all three cases for me and, I contend, the vast majority of the general public. Thus, the nationally-favored choice of suburban living won't change.

The planners assume that Generation X and older generations won't matter in this choice.  They're wrong there too.

Yes, there is a growing audience who, in their early adult and childless years, prefer not owning a car, living in a dense neighborhood without streets, and who won't need to park a car at work.

That early adult audience grows up, though, and lives longer than previous generations.

Policy makers need to be aware when and where bias is entering.  Some are already being paid as consultants to try to steer policy.  The policy debate has already begun.

Can the 3D-Printed, Driverless Car Be Upon Us?

I love it when my issues converge like they sort of did recently.




This is Strati, a car printed live at the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago last week. In 44 hours, this car was printed using a carbon fiber reinforced plastic material.

It was drivable at the IMTS show too. The Washington Post has an online report on it.

Amazing.

It makes you wonder, how long before 3D printers can spit out easy-to-assemble cars? How long, also, before that technology converges with driverless car technology? They really do make sense together--lightweight, easy-to-assemble, driverless cars.

I've written at length about 3D printing and, even, went about bringing it to Licking County for all to see at our science museum.

Our Port Authority sold a site that attracted a company, xperion, that engages in use of carbon fiber for lightweight manufacturing.

Lastly, I've pondered driverless cars and Ohio's capabilities in that arena.

Could Ohio be where all these technology advances converge? Stay tuned.

More on the Driverless Car

I was behind 1.3 million people to see this YouTube update from Google on the driverless car.  Nonetheless, it's worth a look.

Notice they call it the self-driving car now.

Notice the car has advanced beyond mere data-driven to actually gaining real-time data to make driving decisions.

Google also got coverage for its future car that comes out in prototype form later this year.  I need the seven-passenger version, though.

With a marriage of aerospace saavy and automotive manufacturing, Ohio has a future in this industry.  See my take on this issue over the years.

How About the Driverless Flying Car?

Told that the driverless car will be commonplace in my lifetime and being impatient, I find myself looking for what's out there.

That brought me to this video. It's a concept for the driverless/pilotless, flying car.

Suggestions for JobsOhio

I was sought out by a management consulting firm hired by JobsOhio to comment on the impact of JobsOhio and the regional groups it has partnered with to deliver Ohio's economic development services.  I consider myself fortunate to get to respond and the bulk of my comments were positive. 

I focused my half hour of input on how to make the economic development of our great state better.  I don't think it's fair I share everything I said, but I did have three key points.

1. Increase the focus on manufacturing.  Too little staffing of this new statewide program is focused on manufacturing.  The next hire JobsOhio makes should be someone with a true manufacturing background to help give the agency a perspective on the industry and align themselves more with that industry.

Manufacturing has been part of our past, is part of our present, and is a huge part of our future in Ohio if we act strategically to seek it out.

I complemented Columbus2020 for bringing prospects to visit our sites in Heath.  That's something no predecessor regional group had ever, ever done.

2. Set up systems to overcome tunnel vision on urban areas versus suburban.  JobsOhio has insulated itself from the suburbs by partnering with regional groups that are, but for one, headquartered in large, urban centers.  Though the propping up of regions by JobsOhio has given them new reasons to be truly regional and, at least in Central Ohio, that has worked, there need to be systems of accountability in place to ensure that all of Ohio's places with the sites, buildings, and workforce get a level playing field. 

It's not about fairness.  That's not the point.  It's about winning more deals, more investment, and more jobs.

As I've written before, it was Ohio's suburbs that saw 93% in 2012 and 94% in 2011 of the state's manufacturing projects reported to Site Selection magazine for the prestigious Governor's Cup.  Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati combined to achieve $0 of the largest projects in 2012.  There's a mismatch between JobsOhio contact with where the vast majority of the deals that are best for Ohio are actually happening.

When the boards and investors are made-up of people who don't know manufacturing and don't know someone who knows manufacturing, they, naturally, can get tunnel vision.  Yet, the majority of prospects and the majority of future, worthwhile state projects are going to come from manufacturers.  Of that, there can be little doubt.

The state needs to be demanding that regional groups that are getting state funding are truly regional in there approach with Board representation from a true, regional cross section.  They need to set up metrics that show people are physically visiting the regional counties that they claim to represent.  They need to monitor to make sure regional groups are equipped to be responsive to manufacturers as manufacturing makes up of most of Ohio's economic development leads.  These are just a few examples.

3. Give statewide attention to emerging industries.  There appears to be a pattern to pick winners and losers, by region, for emerging industries.  That gives away the statewide perspective that a statewide group like JobsOhio can enjoy.

In the past couple of years, I worked with a prospect company which indicated they saw three different regions in Ohio able to supply what was needed to make a potential emerging industry project work.  Instead, the state-subsidized regions went about trying to show the company how they alone in their region could win the whole deal.  The deal was lost.

Another example:  I'm a believer in Ohio's ability to marry its aerospace and automotive prowess to be the leader in the driverless car of the future.  Ohio has the potential to be a leader, but we are lagging in legislation, policy, and coalition-building to realize that potential.  The assets for that capability are not found in any single region of the state so it can't be merely turned over to someone else to do.  A statewide approach is called for in this case for sure.

This is true of many emerging industries--UAV's, fuel cells, nanomaterial, biomedical, etc.  Ohio has vast resources and capabilities, but they often aren't inherit in only one region in Ohio.  The state needs to be there to make sure a whole-state perspective is taken on going after emerging industries instead of just leaving it to one region to the take the lead at the expense of telling the complete story to a prospect.

The bottom line:  It's all about growing the pie so everyone gets a bigger piece instead of letting regions fight for their piece of a shrinking pie.

Driverless Car In Your Lifetime? Yes

In "10 Million Self-Driving Cars to Arrive By 2032," The Morning Journal equates the driverless car to the car in the old t.v. show Knight Rider.  The goofiness aside, it predicts the cars appearing by 2020 and widely adopted by 2032.

I'm not sure I agree that rises in carpooling and reductions in car ownership are coupled with the predictions of self-driving cars mentioned in the piece, but the rest is just fine.

Yes, Virginia, there will be a driverless car in your lifetime.

Red Tape, Harder Than Asphalt

This was a little sad to read, but it might be true.

Forbes' columnist Tim Worstall wrote a piece today that pointed out the progress that is being made, notably by Google, with driverless car technology in the United States.  He bemoaned the reasons that it still may be a while before we all get to ride in one had more to do with red tape than with technology or asphalt.

Worstall opines, "It’s a common enough theme around here (Forbes) that regulation is the major brake on economic development at present."

Red Tape.  Harder than asphalt.

Seeing a Driverless Car. . .

 . . . is off my bucket list (if I had such a list) as of a week ago.

That's because I got to see Ohio State University's version of the driverless car last Tuesday.

It was parked and not running so seeing a running driverless car and riding in one remain very high on my list.

I'm still digesting what I saw from the engineers at OSU's Center for Automotive Research and I'm being careful to not reveal things they told me that may be trade secrets.

For driverless cars to be commonplace on the roadway, it's going to take a convergence of policy, industry development, and university research.  Auto manufacturers are already on board with the concept.  The "auto pilot" users--namely aerospace--are the next group to get on board.

Suffice to say that OSU is, indeed, ahead of most when it comes to development and testing of autonomous vehicles.  They can boast a 30-year track record and have retained a solid 17 straight years of research devoted to producing a commercially-viable driverless car.  Ohio is a leading state because of OSU and because of our ability to marry automotive prowess with tangent technologies of aerospace.

Stay tuned.

Our Future's So Bright. . .

. . .And we get to see how bright when we get a chance to talk to and listen to the next generation.

It’s my pleasure this afternoon to again judge the work of the Licking Valley High School students’ globalization class.  I was mightily impressed a couple of years ago to even find out such a class existed in the first place.  I expect to be impressed again this year with the quality of our youth.

They usually give me a chance to talk to the students after I’ve heard their presentations and judged them.  These are the four points I’ll try to make today:

What’s Changing?

The students read the book The World is Flat to form the basis for their class.  Though a good one to read, I’m also suggesting Joel Kotkin’s The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050.  Kotkin’s look at global and domestic demographics provides the basis for predicting a brighter, global picture for the U.S. and the Midwest in particular.  Since he wrote it three years ago, some of his futuristic predictions have already started to formulate.  The rebirth of manufacturing in the Midwest is one such example.

What’s Coming Up?

The Licking Valley computer classroom project is one sign of a changing World. There's more. These students can fully expect to ride in a driverlesscar.  Google has one that has already logged more than 300,000 miles without causing an accident.  There are already “3D printers” able to make usable products out of plastic, metal, and, even, edible materials.  You can buy one on e-Bay today.  Our manufacturing future is bright for our country. 

How Licking County Is Ready

While many were selling the idea that we would be a service economy, Licking County never stopped being totally focused on serving the needs of the manufacturing industry.  We’ve invested in highway capacity, rail lines, and preparing industrial sites. That rail line that runs through the Licking Valley is part of that equation too.  It’s those investments, even during lean years that we’ve had for most of the past dozen years in Ohio, that will pay off in the next 30. 

Diamond in Your Own Backyard

If those students are anything like most of their fellow students, they are already thinking about how fast can they get out of town.  That’s normal and not just in Ohio.  Though many may want to spend time convincing them to never leave, I’ll, instead, tell them that when they discover the diamond they were always looking for was in their own backyard all along that we welcome them back.  Homesick Ohioans outnumber the people who leave every day.  The welcome mat is always out to bring your talents back home.

More Driverless Car Q&A Thoughts

Business Week weighed in on the driverless car issue yesterday too.  It raised more questions, and answered them.  Reading it, caused me to add three more questions to the Q&A my column had yesterday.

Q:  Cisco published a survey and their prime question was would you want a driverless car?
A:  My answer is, indeed, "yes."  Apparently 60% of Americans agree with me.

Q: Isn't driverless more like autopilot?
A: I think the answer is, "Yes."  Clearly there's some predictions that driverless truly means driverless, but the concept is more likely going to start out with cars that can drive themselves in certain settings, but require people to take the wheel in other settings.

Q: Would you let your kids ride in the driverless car?
A: The Cisco survey asked that question too.  In the U.S., 48% of us said, "Yes" to that question.  I'd be a yes too as long as the car had bucket seats to keep the boys from fighting.

Time for Driverless Cars in Ohio?

Google the phrase "driverless car Ohio" and the results put my blog high on the list. 

There's a method to my madness.  Now, I'm no expert on autonomous vehicles.  I am pretty good, though, at pulling coalitions and networks together to get moving on something.  And it's time for Ohio to step things up.

I truly hope the result of my stirring up this issue is less about ranking on Google and more about Ohio moving forward on the driverless car.

I'm finding myself talking about this topic even off-blog (as in real life).  That generates questions.

Here's how I have answered questions I've been asked about driverless cars:

Q: Why Ohio?
A:  Ohio has a great convergence of industry and research capabilities that position it, already, to be a leader in the autonomous vehicle industry.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  We do have a little catch-up to play, though.

Q: Won't it put truck drivers and others who drive for a living out of work?
A: I've done ancestry research, and it shows I had a lot of relatives who made a living making harnesses and equipment for buggies. Four generations after the automobile, my family is still finding work, though not in that field for sure.

Besides, my grandma never learned to drive in her lifetime.  I think she would have liked the driverless car.

Q: Where will people prefer to live?
A:  Where one lives will depend less on where the government chose to put a train station or a highway and more about people choosing where they live of their own accord.  There's a lot of reason to be hopeful for the future if you live in a suburb or exurb and the driverless car becomes commonplace in our lifetimes. 

Cities shouldn't fear the future though either.  It will be just as easy to live in the core of a metro area and commute out to work in the suburbs.  It will be more about personal choice of where to live rather than one influenced by policymakers and fights over subsidies.

Q: What about poor people who still depend on mass transit?
A: For one, cars could become more affordable as they can be smaller and remain safe.  The less chance for crashes means they can be made to be lighter and more fuel efficient too.  It's hard to imagine mass transit going away altogether either.

Q: So when does this happen?
A: My quicker answer: In my lifetime. Which if finddata.org's life expectancy chart is to be believed, would mean before 2046.

"Who knows?" is the honest answer.  However, few people are aware that Google has a driverless car that it claims has driven over 300,000 miles in California.  California and Nevada have laws permitting researchers' use of such vehicles on the roadways.  Michigan is working on a law too. 

Ohio State has had research on this for thirty years.  They have a video showing three autonomous cars navigating the OSU campus.  Ohio could be a leader.

Note, though, that other countries are, potentially, ahead of the U.S. in adapting policy to match the emerging research too.  This is going to happen regardless of the U.S. moving on it or not.

Ohio's Driverless Car Story Can Be Strong

Ohio has a strong story to tell on the driverless car.  It really does.  It's time to start telling it.

Ohio is strong in automotive.  In fact, we are number two in the nation.  The "Big 3" remain headquartered in Michigan, but many of their plants are in Ohio.  Honda buys over $9 billion in Ohio goods and services to make cars.  The automotive industry is in every county in Ohio in some form or another.

 

Ohio is strong in aerospace-related industries with capabilities that mirror many that the autonomous car would require.  Not only is Ohio the #1 supplier state to Boeing, it also is to Airbus.  Aerospace has deployed many of the driverless car similiar technologies for decades.  Autopilot isn't theoretical anymore.

 

Ohio is strong in industry and university research.  Ohio University has worked on the NextGen FAA systems replacing current radar.  Ohio State is working on a driverless car.  That $100MM+ in Third Frontier money has got to be going somewhere!  I hope anyway.

 

Ohio has a legacy in sensors, GPS, MEMS, inertial guidance, metrology, and radar.  I don't have to look far out the window of my office to see that.  The customers at the Port Authority's Aerospace Center campus touch every one of those industry subsegments.  Our Port Authority owns not one, but two anechoic chambers for calibrating and testing radar.

 

We're behind on the organizing side, though, I tend to think.  It's not too late though. 

Stuck Behind the Driverless Car?

Could Ohio be getting behind on the driverless car?

A headline out of the University of Michigan (gasp!) could be a wake up call:  "Michigan Could Lead in Autonomous Vehicles."

At best, Michigan is trying to psych out the competition.  Ohio State is doing research too after all.

However, the article goes further than just playing boastful mind games.  There's substance.  The news piece says, "Michigan is one of several states considering legislation to license automated vehicles on public roads--a step considered important for advancing research."  The Governor of Michigan is telling industry to expect it to pass soon.

Ohio has a story to tell with a strong auto industry; strong crossover into aerospace-like capabilities; strong industry and university research; and a legacy in inertial guidance systems, radar, and sensors.

I'm not sure we're telling our story, though.  We should fix that.  Otherwise, we could get stuck behind the driverless car.

The Chicken or The Egg Debate: Electric Cars or Driverless Cars?

Which will come first, the electric car or the driverless car?

A piece at The Energy Collective both sparks the debate and answers it too.  The article "Driverless Cars Before Electric Ones" has John DeCicco pretty effectively making the case for the driverless one.  Hands down.

There's much to ponder here.  DeCicco has thought this through.  Here's some tidbits:

"Certainly the electric car has its passionate believers who are jazzed about the technology. . .But private passion does not justify public subsidy." DeCicco makes the case for a market-driven approach that sees subsidized eletrification of cars, should it go that way, being quickly made obsolete by the driverless car.

"Like the automobile a century ago, the driverless car must evolve; it cannot be centrally planned, at least not in a western democracy such as the United States."  He's right.  Government must be the quiet facilitator, not the loud dictator in this evolution.

His central point is a topic in its own right:  "The policy emphasis on electrifying transportation sooner rather than later is just the latest act in the long-running, politically scripted circus known as the alternative fuel follies. It's time to turn on to the promise of truly tuned-in mobility and drop out of the premature promotion of plug-in cars today."

I put myself there.  As I've written before, I'm getting more and more convinced that the driverless car will be here in my lifetime.  What can be do to make sure that remains on track?  I don't plan to live much past 110 years old so the clock is ticking.

More on the Driverless Car

Joel Kotkin's NewGeography.com did it again.  Yesterday, Jeff Khau published "Will Driverless Cars Help us Drive Less?" to give urban planners nightmares.

NewGeography.com bloggers have done this before.  They are looking ahead at how technology could thwart some anti-suburban policy efforts.

The latest is a look at how the driverless car technology is going to make mass transit less necessary and make the individual car a permanent fixture.

I can't say I don't revel in the consternation they are causing the Smart Growthers.  Plus, it's pretty exciting stuff. 

The driverless car is not far off.  I'm growing more and more convinced.

I didn't know that legislative changes in California mean that "at any given moment, a dozen driverless cars are operating somewhere in California."  That's right now.

This paragraph was my favorite:

"Google, along with GM, Ford, and Daimler are now designing cars that drive themselves, making private vehicles more efficient, flexible, and thereby more irreplaceable. The US is not alone. Manufacturers in Japan and Germany are coordinating with their national governments to launch their autonomous cars within the next decade. IEEE, a group of technology professionals, says that self-driving vehicles would comprise 75 percent of the global traffic stream by 2040."

That's before I turn 75.  That's in my statistically-predictable lifetime.

Cool.

I Love it When Topics Converge

A Forbes column by contributor Adam Ozimek gives a rare chance to converge some of my favorite topics.  The column is titled "Who Wins More From The Google Car?  Cities or Suburbs."

First, I've written about the Google car before.  See Google Driverless Car Crash?, Driverless Cars in My Lifetime?, and My Grandma Dena, On the Driverless Car.

I've written ad naseum on smart growth and suburbs.  I've really written a ton about it lately too.  Just click on the keywords at right.

Then, I see this Twitter message from the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, that's @NCMSMFG for the Twitter crowd. 

The contributor debates whether cities, suburbs, or exurbs will benefit more from driverless cars in the future.  It's a read-worthy debate.

Ozamek's premise is, in part, based on the concept that cities lost their manufacturing bases because they lost the transportation costs advantages they once were thought to have enjoyed.

Check it out.

For the record, I think there's no doubt.  The answer is suburbs.

Google Driverless Car Crash?

Google's driverless car is on my mind again. I wrote about it twice in October--once when word first came out and again the next day pondering the World with such a thing as a driverless car. I remain totally intrigued by the thing.

A recent crash made me think of the driverless car.  Recently, on Aerospace Center property, the Port Authority saw skid marks across a curb, a tree that had been run over in the same path, and tire tracks leading up to a creek on the north side of the campus.  Ironically, the vehicle that took this path followed the route that Google maps showed for getting from James Parkway to Irving Wick Drive West in Heath.

It wasn't long after the crash, as a matter of fact, that the Google map was updated to show the correct route.

Coincidence?  Or did the Google mappers send out their driverless car for a visit to Ohio?  I don't, often, believe in coincidence.

My Grandma Dena, On the Driverless Car

Thinking of the automatic car unveiled by Google made me think of my Grandma Dena.

She never got her driver's license and, all her life, was driven everywhere she went by someone else.  Yet, she had some distinct thoughts about cars and drivers.

Would she have gone for a driverless car?  Maybe.

She had a habit of sitting in the back seat of the car behind the driver's seat and barking out orders.  "Dickie!  Dickie!  The light's yellow!" she would shout to my grandfather.  She was the original back seat driver.

No driver?  No one to shout at.

When we turned 16 and got our license, she bought us grandkids memberships in a club that gave you a Jesus-heart to put in the car to protect you.  I'm religious, but I really didn't think Jesus required $10 from my grandma for me to be protected in the car. 

No driver?  No one for the Jesus-heart club to protect.

Grandma Dena was a huge advocate for seat belts.  I'm told she was writing to Congress and making a campaign of requiring seat belts before such belts were required in cars.  She got her wish about those being in cars, but she didn't live long enough for laws that required people to actually wear them.  She would have gone for that too.

No driver? Still need belts.

My guess is I think she would have gone for driverless cars.  After all, she always trusted someone else to drive her.  This technology leap would be shorter for her than for the control freak drivers among us.

Driverless Cars in My Lifetime?

A few months back a Vistage speaker said I'd see driverless cars in my lifetime.  I wanted to believe that, but I remained a bit of a skeptic.

Then, I saw this TechCrunch article claiming that Google has automatic cars that, combined, have already logged 140,000+ miles.  The article reports the cars have crossed the Golden Gate bridge, among other landmarks.  I believed it when I read it directly on the Official Google Blog.

We've had planes with autopilot for decades.  UAV's have been deployed in the military for years now.  Even one local manufacturer here in Licking County, Screen Machine Industries, already sells heavy screening and rock crushing machines that are unmanned.  Look ma, no crew cab.

Driverless cars in my lifetime, though?  Maybe so.

I can also see a Licking County future in there. The Google car uses sensors and radar, the sorts that Boeing and Goodrich are familiar with in Heath. The kind of precision instrumentation a highway full of such cars would require can best be found at Bionetics and Boeing where they already measure tolerances to the arcsecond (one one millionth of an inch).

Maybe there's a future for such cars and, just as excitedly, a future for manufacturing such cars and their components in Licking County, Ohio.

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Take Action:  Mark your calendar early. In four months, on Sunday, February 13, 2011 from Noon to 4 p.m., STEMFest will be held at The Works. The event puts the best of the local use of science, technology, engineering, and math on display for parents and their kids to see.

By the way, one of those Screen Machine Industries unmanned, wirelessly-controlled machines is expected to be there too.