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IBM Plays SimCity With Portland, Oregon
Hugh Pickens writes "Portland, Oregon will be the first city to use IBM's new software called Systems Dynamics for Smarter Cities, containing 3,000 equations which collectively seek to model cities' emergent behavior and help them figure out how policy can affect the lives of their citizens. The program seeks to quantify the cause-and-effect relationships between seemingly uncorrelated urban phenomena. 'What's the connection, for example, between ... obesity rates and carbon emissions?' writes Greg Lindsay. 'To find out, simply round up experts to hash out the linkages, translate them into algorithms, and upload enough historical data to populate the model. Then turn the knobs to see what happens when you nudge the city in one direction.' One of the drivers of the 'Portland Plan' is the city's commitment to a 40 percent decrease in carbon emissions by 2030, which necessitates less driving and more walking and biking. After running the model, planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option. But as the field of urban systems gathers steam, it's important to remember that IBM and its fellow technology companies aren't the first to offer a quantitative toolkit to cities. In the 1970s, RAND built models they thought could predict fire patterns in New York, and then used them to justify closing fire stations in NYC's poorest sections in the name of efficiency, a decision that would ultimately displace 600,000 people as their neighborhoods burned."
Tear up all the roads. Replace with rail.
Just make sure they disable disasters before they play. An alien monster destroying the power plant wouldn't be nice.
Apparenty they found a computer model that infuses people with a desire to walk and bike:
After running the model, planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option.
I find it very hard to believe that this feedback loop exists in real life to any significant degree. If it really was true, the professional sports athletes would prefer walking and biking over driving their cars, and the sport stars seem to be preferring their luxury sports cars today.
IBM's model must be missing one or more important variables to why people choose cars over walking.
Tell your friends about xenu.net
People put so much stake in computer models anymore that when they don't match up with reality, reality is blamed for the error.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
In the 1970s, RAND built models they thought could predict fire patterns in New York, and then used them to justify closing fire stations in NYC's poorest sections in the name of efficiency, a decision that would ultimately displace 600,000 people as their neighborhoods burned.
So the source is a wikipedia page, which cites this book, which is a dead end for now.
Are the authors talking about this study?
If anyone's got a source that actually backs up the notion that RAND explicitly recommended closing down fire stations in poor areas, or the actual claims that "they're just committing arson anyway", I'm very curious, as that's a pretty wild claim. I've emailed them for comment.
While I think that your dismissal of models is a bit excessive(in a sense, all of mathematics doesn't tell you anything you didn't assume in your axioms: it just so happens that there is a lot of interesting stuff that you didn't know you were assuming...); but one should certainly be cautious about them.
Both an accurate model and a shitty model are, in the hands of a suitably skilled consultant's graphic design team, essentially identical in their ability to provide a dense veneer of scientific rationality, 3D-rendered near-future utopias attractively large-format-printed on posters suitable for display at planning meetings, and other charming props to hang on your existing plans and prejudices...
Things can get particularly ugly if there are large fudge factors in your initial dataset: modeling material stresses, or aerodynamics or such is hard because it is easy to be wrong about difficult stuff, and easy for slight mistakes to cascade(at least, though, there are correct answers that you can hopefully find, even if you don't know them just yet); doing societal cost/benefit analysis is hard because there are lots of factors that don't have quantified costs or benefits, so you can shove the model around just by slapping different price tags on unquantified things.
In vernacular usage SC2000, one of the brave exceptions to the law that the sequel is always shit compared to the original, is sufficiently canonical that it may be referred to simply as 'SimCity'. The same is not generally true of the subsequent sequels.
Apparenty they found a computer model that infuses people with a desire to walk and bike:
After running the model, planners discovered a positive feedback loop: More walking and biking would lead to lower obesity rates for Portlanders. In turn, a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option.
I find it very hard to believe that this feedback loop exists in real life to any significant degree. If it really was true, the professional sports athletes would prefer walking and biking over driving their cars, and the sport stars seem to be preferring their luxury sports cars today.
IBM's model must be missing one or more important variables to why people choose cars over walking.
You're misinterpreting that. It said that a fitter population would find walking and biking a more attractive option. Meaning more attractive than an unfit population would.
It's not that most fit people would choose walking over cars, especially not in all situations. It's that a higher percentage of fit people would choose walking or biking than unfit people would. Which makes perfect sense. If I'm going 3 blocks and I'm in good shape, that's not much of a walk. Especially if it's in decent weather. So I may walk it so that I don't have to deal with getting into my car, parking, etc. But if I'm 350 lbs., then that's a difficult walk, so I'm going to take my car.
If I'm going 10 miles or the weather is bad, then I'm driving no matter how fit I am.
I am sure a lot of us will prefer to bike and walk to work...
But the problem is Work is in the City and Home is in Rural/Suburban areas.
We move to these Rural/Suburban areas because of less crime and in general people just not caring about anyone else property. I use to live in the City I couldn't even keep flowers planted in front of my house, or garbage can lids on my garbage cans, any attempts to make my area of my community a nicer place to live came with people who tried to make sure it went further down to a ghetto. When I moved in it was a nice area, Then it just got worse and worse over the years. Then I moved to the country, Sure I need to drive 20 miles to work but life is much safer and nicer.
I am well aware I am part of the problem of increasing global warming, and by escaping the city I am adding to suburban sprawl, and also the city looses an other person who tried to make their community a little bit nicer. But I have the means for a better life and I chose it.
The choice wasn't pro or against environmental concerns, I am actually looking to get a more fuel efficient cart and my current car is also really good too. Even when I lived in the City I need to Drive to work and back not because the Car was much faster but the car acts as a Tank, as the City wasn't very safe to ride you bike. And 80% of the police force (as stated from a police officer from that city) is corrupt and lazy.
Most cities are not New York City, or LA they are much smaller and don't have the resources that is needed for a good life.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
and help them figure out how policy can affect the lives of their citizens.
You mean that until now, the people who are paid to take decisions for us have absolutely no idea of the potential outcomes of these decisions? That would explain a lot.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I'm sorry if I sounded dismissive. Computer models are very good for developing plans involving things with a lot of complex interactions (like designing airplanes or more fuel efficient cars). The problem is this, if you don't know how to create the design or plan without a computer model, you will not be able to design a computer model that will let you create the design or plan. I can drive a nail through a board to hold that board to another one with a rock, but using a hammer will make it much easier and will likely allow me to hammer the nail in so that it holds the board tighter. But if the nail isn't long enough to go all the through the board and into the one I am trying to attach it to, it doesn't matter if I use a stone or a hammer.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
It's true that people would want to walk/bike more if they're fit, just to keep them fit and feeling good, and to save money. I enjoy an occasional walk home from work, since it only takes an hour. Most of the time I use the bus though.
BUT. For a large number of people walking and biking will be infeasible simply due to the distances involved, and the extra time taken. This could result in people being more careful about where they live and work, but I think the ideal would be electric vehicles plus people being better educated about nutrition and exercise (which sounds pretty damn boring, but once you experience the benefits for yourself, you will wish you did it all sooner!).
I live in quite a small city though, so it only takes a couple of hours tops to walk anywhere really. Strangely I started feeling like I had more time when I started walking places more often, but I think that was probably a result of 1) being more organised and 2) being less stressed.
which is totally what she said
Actually, setting a hard drive the has had a bloatware deleted from it next to a HD with bloatware to get rid of bloatware would be the Homeopathic approach. You're approach actually does something.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on