Nat M. Zorach, Author at The Handbuilt City

Mobility Energy

The “Mobility” Council’s Report: Buy A Car, Peasants

February 26, 2021February 26, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments alisyn malek, big gretch, bob babik, borgwarner, canals, cavnue, CFME, cory connolly, council on future mobility and electrification, electrification, electrified vehicles, emily frascaroli, energy innovation business council, Ford, ford motor company, general motors, google, governor whitmer, Gretchen Whitmer, infrastructure, international trade, leland stanford, liberapay, london crossrail, luo yang, mark de la vergne, mdot, MEDC, mobility initiatives, mongol invasion of japan, monumental infrastructure, moon landing, moon landing hoax, NASA, panama canal, patreon, paul ajegba, sidewalk infrastructure partners, sidewalk labs, siege of constantinople, siege of tyre, supercruise, trade, transcontinental railroad, tremaine phillips, trevor pawl, tupac shakur, wsp

The Michigan Council on Future Mobility and Electrification said that Google’s Cavnue project is “one of the most ambitious mobility initiatives in history.” We looked through the history books and picked our top four competitors.

Public transit Cities & Urban Planning

Why Do Airports Not Want Us To Have Nice Things?

February 25, 2021February 25, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments accessibility, accessible transit, airport parking, airport revenue, airports, autonomous vehicles, big blue deck, buses, Detroit, detroit airport parking, detroit metro airport, detroit michigan, detroit wayne airport, disruptive innovation, donald shoup, DTW, DTW ground transportation, DTW transit options, DTW transportation, high cost of free parking, litigation, louis armstrong airport, MSY, new orleans, new orleans airport, parking and the city, parking revenue, public transit to detroit airport, self-driving cars, signage, tampa, tampa airport, tampa florida, TPA, transit, transit accessibility, transit to DTW, wayne county

Detroit’s airport has historically had some problems with accessibility, especially to transit. This is a problem, because of the airport’s reliance on parking revenues. But there are some options!

Politics Public Safety Law

Taxpayers Spend Hundreds of Millions Per Year On Police Brutality Settlements. That Money Could Be Better Spent.

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments 538, 911, 911 calls, amelia thomson-deveaux, black lives matter, corktown, damini sharma, Detroit, detroit will breathe, detroit will breathe lawsuit, fivethirtyeight, hulk hogan gawker lawsuit, hulk hogan lawsuit, laura bronner, lawsuit, lawsuits, litigation, nate silver, new york city, nonviolent crimes, police abolition, police brutality, police brutality lawsuits, police lawsuits, police reform, police violence, police violence lawsuits, settlement, settlements, springfield mass, violent crimes

A new article from FiveThirtyEight looks at the staggering sums of money taxpayers are liable for in police brutality lawsuit settlement in 31 American cities. The data are unsurprisingly incomplete, and unsurprisingly appalling.

Business & Economics Public transit Transit infrastructure Government

Cato Needs To Re-Toole Their Bad Takes On Infrastructure

February 17, 2021February 17, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments alstom, amtrak, amtrak capex, Amtrak NEC, bad ideas, batman, batman meme, capital expenditures, cato institute, farebox recovery ratio, federal spending, freight, FRR, government bad, government spending, gridlock, high-speed rail, inflation, intermodal, intermodal transit, libertarian, libertarianism, manufacturing, milkshakes, moore's law, multimodal, northeast corridor, northeast corridor tunnel, public transit, randal o'toole, randall o'toole, real clear policy, small government, train, trains, transit

The Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole has a really terrible take on transportation investment that grossly misrepresents how money and economic efficiency work.

Energy Efficiency Sustainability Energy Housing

In Search Of Cheap, Scalable Solutions For Grid Resiliency

February 16, 2021February 16, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments AGM battery, air conditioning, air source heat pump, battery storage, carnot cycle, electric reliability council of texas, elon musk, energy efficiency, ERCOT, ERCOT texas, heat pump, home battery storage, li-ion battery, lithium-ion battery, lone star, market transformation, mini-split, mitsubishi, mr. slim, off-grid, power grid, powerwall, reduce energy bills, save money on energy, sorcery, split system heat pump, Tesla, tesla powerwall, texas, texas interconnection, texas power grid, texas storm, texas winter storm, thermodynamics

The extreme weather event affecting about two thirds of the United States right now suggests the need for small-scale interventions that can be scaled over an entire market.

Energy Efficiency Energy

This Doesn’t Happen In A Normal Climate– Or Power Grid

February 15, 2021February 18, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments coal, coal power, dallas, electric reliability council of texas, electrical generation, electricity, ERCOT, galveston, gas, gas-fired, gas-fired turbine, generation mix, gulf coast, houston, load following, microgrid, mid-merit, NERC, peaker, peaker plant, PJM, power generation, power grid, power grids, power plant, texas interconnection, texas power grid, texas storm, texas storms, texas winter storm

An unusual winter storm in the Lone Star State is prompting the grid operator to orchestrate voluntary blackouts– asking people to shut off power voluntarily. Climate change, power reliability, and the state of infrastructure in the United States in 2021.

Business & Economics Book Reviews

Book Review – Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley, by Emily Chang

February 13, 2021February 13, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments apple, big tech, bloomberg, bloomberg technology, breaking up the boys' club of silicon valley, brotopia, california, childcare, dot-com, dot-com bubble, drugs, emily chang, emily chang bloomberg, employer-provided childcare, fairchild semiconductor, google, heteropatriarchy, intel, misogyny, monogamy, patriarchy, robert noyce, rock and roll, sex, sexism, silicon valley, trilogy, Uber

A few weeks ago, I finished Emily Chang’s Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley, which came out

Man and the Motor Car: A Historical Glance

February 11, 2021February 10, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments

I took a virtual road trip with Man and the Motor Car, a spectacularly awful volume published in 1959 by

Mobility Energy

ACEEE Scorecard: Michigan is Behind The Times? Again!?

February 4, 2021February 4, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments electric vehicles, electric vehicles by state, electrification, EV, EV adoption, EVs

ACEEE scored 30 states based on a variety of metrics around electric vehicle adoption and electrification. Michigan is again behind the times.

Urban Planning Mobility

Book Review – Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car

February 4, 2021February 3, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amazon, anthony townsend, ArgoAI, artificial intelligence, Autonomous, autonomous vehicles, AV, AV tech, AVs, BRT, car culture, cars, connected cities, connected vehicles, cruise automation, distribution, driving, Ford, fulfillment, fulfillment centers, GM, infrastructure, infrastructure deficit, infrastructure spending, integrated, jeff bezos, jeff bezos skull keg party, lidar, machine learning, microsprawl, public transit, self-driving, self-driving car, self-driving cars, smart cities, smart city, tech bro, tech bros, transit, trucks

Can autonomous cars save us? Well, no, but they can provide some vital innovation to our society. Provided we play our cards right, that is. Anthony Townsend’s book gives us the lowdown.

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