Tag: Cities

Can Uber Take Responsibility For Its Own Shift?

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The NewCo Daily: Today’s Top Stories

Screen capture from Bloomberg video

It’s hard to believe things could get even worse for Uber after the past week’s gender discrimination allegations, lawsuits, and resignations. But get worse they did. Yesterday Bloomberg published a video, secretly captured by a dashcam, in which CEO Travis Kalanick gets into an argument with his Uber driver, Fawzi Kamel. Kamel complains that Uber’s price drops have bankrupted him; Kalanick responds, “Some people don’t like to take responsibility for their own shit.”

Being CEO of a billion-dollar company is kind of like being president: You’d better assume you’re always on camera. Kalanick issued what he called “a profound apology” in an email to his company, writing, “I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up. This is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.” (Paging Jerry Colonna.)

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Can Uber Tame Its Brutal Soul?

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The NewCo Daily: Today’s Top Stories

Ivan Gushchin | Flickr

Engineer Susan Fowler set off a firestorm last week with a post describing her experiences during a year’s employment at Uber. It was hard to tell which was worse to read about — the incidents of sexual harassment she described, or the inadequate (or nonexistent) response to her treatment by the firm’s management and human-resources team.

Uber, of course, has always been known for a brash, bare-knuckles culture. But Fowler’s account somehow broke through the industry’s indifference with telling, all-too-credible detail. Maybe it was the immunity seemingly granted “high performing” managers to hit on, condescend to, and discriminate against female colleagues; maybe it was the petty stuff, like the time everyone on the engineering team got status-conferring leather jackets, except the women, because theirs would cost a little more.

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A First-Timer’s Picks for NewCo’s Bay Area Festival

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I joined NewCo a little under a year ago to help tell the story of capitalism at a crossroads. The role of business in society is being redefined by innovative, missi0n-driven companies that are measuring their success by more than just profit. We think this is the biggest shift in business and culture since the Industrial Revolution, and we connect and celebrate these purpose-led companies through both our media and our festivals across the world.

Next week, we’re hosting our largest event yet: the Bay Area Festival, from Feb 6th to 9th. I’m really exited to actually experience the story myself for the first time, and visit the companies on the front lines of this shift towards purpose-driven business. There couldn’t be a better moment: businesses are transforming faster than ever before, industries are being reshaped, and we’re all trying to stay ahead of the curve and chart a better course forward. Our festival offers the one-of-a-kind event that lets attendees personalize their experience and visit the companies they’re most inspired by. Here are companies on my list:

Monday, February 6 — Masterclasses at the St. Regis in San Francisco

10:00 AM: Twitter for Executives

KF
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Lynchburg, Virginia: The Most Typical City in America

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Creating Context for Cities

Data is nothing without context. How can we understand a city without first understanding the characteristics of a normal or typical city? I crunched the numbers on eight measures of 917 cities to learn what constitutes a typical city in America. Here’s what I found.


Population; population density; median age; median income; poverty rate; commuting by car; high school graduates; postgraduate degrees. Of course, this is something of an arbitrary selection of metrics. The American Community Survey (the source of this data, vintage 2015) provides over 1,200 tables of measures of cities alone. Each table has one to dozens of different measures. Consider, too, the hundreds, if not thousands of other data sources, public and private, that could provide data germane to understanding a “typical” city. Let’s accept that, while we could spend a lifetime investigating the makeup of a typical city, these eight measures are, at the very least, a good start.

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Baby Come Back: Images of an American Shopping Mall Before Its Death

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The empty western anchor where Sears closed in 2014, now flanked by two large fake trees.

Architecture / Photo Essay

Built in the early 1970s, a decaying Midwestern relic of throw-away consumer architecture will be torn down and developed into an updated outdoor shopping space. What is lost in the process?

by Tag Hartman-Simkins

An era is coming to its end in a mid-size Illinois city few Americans might recognize. Sandburg Mall, the four-anchor shopping arena constructed in 1974 on the northwest corner of Galesburg, is finally being torn down after decades of decline. Located near the intersection of Henderson street and Carl Sandburg Drive, just off the US-34 exit, the shopping center was built during Galesburg’s population apex — nearly 38,000 citizens were registered in 1960 census, dropping only about 1,000 by 1970. Per the city’s most recent census report, that number has dropped to just above 32,000.

The Sandburg Mall Cinema entrance, which closed in 2003.
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Mayors Must Join Forces to Tackle Climate Change and Rising Inequalities Simultaneously

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©Alamy

By Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director, Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Local Development and Tourism, OECD, and Mark Watts, Executive Director, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group

Cities around the world are taking impressive initiatives to tackle climate change and reduce inequalities, but more can be achieved by aligning these policy agendas in mutually beneficial ways.

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This Is The Most Popular Vehicle In The World

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Monday Motorbikes Plans to Reinvent the Moped

Often ignored by established companies, electric vehicles have been embraced by various start ups that aim to change the way we move. After early setbacks, EVs have experienced a renaissance. Of course Tesla has found success in the high-end electric car market, positioning itself as a challenger to legacy gas-engine car manufactures when it releases is lower-end model in 2018. But other companies are finding niches in all corners of the market. Zero Motorcycles have become very popular with the environmental conscious motorcyclist, and Faraday Bikes has encouraged people to ride their bicycles more often.

https://mondaymotorbikes.com

And then there’s Monday Motorbikes, a small company located in Brisbane, Calif. that aims for the market right between short-range bicycles and high-powered motorcycles Its fully electric moped may sound too niche for some, but these medium-range gas powered vehicles are the most popular vehicles in the world. In fact, the biggest selling vehicle of all time is the Honda Super Cub, which is in the same vehicle category as Monday Motorbike’s M1. The Honda Super Cub alone has sold more than 87 million units since its production started in 1958. Mopeds continue to be the preferred mode of transportation in Asia and Africa, due to their price range and fuel economy.

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The End of Parking Will Reshape Cities

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Alden Jewell | Flickr

The rise of the self-driving car will free up huge chunks of downtown real estate now dedicated to parking for other, better uses: parks and green belts, housing and shops. Clive Thompson paints this future portrait in Mother Jones.

Millennials love downtowns and don’t love cars nearly as much as previous generations. As autonomous vehicle tech matures, we’re going to need a lot fewer cars, we’re going to use them more efficiently, and we’re going to need a lot less room to park. A full switch to self-driving vehicles could reduce urban parking needs by 90 percent.

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Can Cities Go It Alone?

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In Today’s NewCo Daily

PLOS One

Here’s a round up of the top stories in the NewCo world today, from the NewCo Daily newsletter:

Right now, the urban/rural divide that fractures U.S. politics looks awfully clear and simple. But the deeper you look into it, the more complex it gets. While race, gender, and other factors also play big roles, the country-city split that dates back to the nation’s founding may still be the most powerful axis on which our government, economy, and culture all revolve. Here are three illuminating new angles on this division.

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DIY Self-Driving Cars Go Open Source

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Techcrunch | Flickr

Comma.ai is a startup that set out to build autonomous driving tech for hackers and hobbyists. In October, when regulators sent stern warnings to founder George Hotz — known for his exploits cracking iPhones and PlayStations — he shut down the announced product. But now he’s reviving it as an open-source effort (The Verge).

Yesterday, the code for self-driving software called Open Pilot, along with plans for complementary hardware called Comma Neo, went up on Github. Like so many open source projects, this one doesn’t provide a finished product; it’s more a framework for makers to build on. Right now, Comma’s tech works only with selected models of Acura and Honda vehicles — and only at certain speeds. At the start, at least, it will take a special kind of open-source true believer to turn the wheel over to collaboratively developed software. But longer term, Hotz says he’s laying the foundation for a kind of Android for self-driving cars.

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