The Handbuilt City - Page 2 of 31 - Dispatches from the Rust Belt

Business & Economics

Losing Your Shirt: Amazon’s Anticompetitive Edge in Pricing

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amazon brand, amazon prices, amazon pricing, Amazon Web Services, anticompetitive, antitrust, apparel, AWS, best buy, break up big tech, breaking up big tech, buttoned down, competitive pricing, consumer behavior, consumer economics, consumerism, cost leadership, dress shirts, elizabeth warren fan club, goodthreads, jeff bezos, jeff bezos skull keg party, loss leader, monopoly, pima cotton, prices of amazon products, pricing, pricing theory, sartorial finesse, shirts, supima

Amazon is playing a strange game involving pricing of some of its products, selling them at a hefty loss. It’s not really clear why.

Sustainability Manufacturing

Port Angeles CRTC: Giving New Flight to Aircraft Scrap

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 Vishva Nalamalapu 0 Comments advanced manufacturing and composite technology, aerospace, aircraft manufacturing, aircraft recycling, boeing, boeing 777, boeing 787, building materials, carbon dioxide, clad, cladding, CLT, composites, composites recycling technology center, CRTC, CRTC port angeles, energy efficiency, energy-efficient, green building, green building materials, manufacturing, nicole wright, olympic mountains, olympic peninsula, peninsula college, pennies for quarters, pickleball, pickleball paddle, port angeles washington, recycled building materials, recycling, repurposing, sequim, sustainable building, sustainable construction, tiny home, tiny house, veterans housing, vishva nalamalapu, washington state, waste

In Port Angeles, Washington, Vishva Nalamalapu hangs out at the Composite Recycling Technology Center, or CRTC, with Michigan transplant Nicole Wright, to learn about all of the cool stuff they are manufacturing from aerospace industry scrap.

Infrastructure Utilities

Centralization: Economy of Scale? Looming Disaster? Lil Bit of Both?

March 26, 2021March 26, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments 1.21 jiggawatts, ann durkin keating, blair kelley, centralization, charles perrow, chicago streetcars, coal power, decentralization, detroit edison, detroit public lighting, detroit public lighting authority, distributed generation, DTE Energy, electrical generation, georg leidenberger, hazen pingree, hazen s. pingree, history of street lighting, invisible networks, mehrsa baradaran, mistersky power plant, municipal streetcar systems, municipal water systems, municipalization, networks, normal accidents, power grid, power grids, private responsibility, public responsibility, samuel insull, social contract, solar power, street lighting, streetcar systems, Streetcars, texas winter storms, the detroit edison, transit systems

Streetcars, gas and water pipes, power lines, and other “invisible networks,” to borrow a line from the title of Ann Durkin Keating’s book, make up a vibrant history of infrastructure in which centralization vs. decentralization is a big debate.

Mobility Cycling

Strava’s Heat Map Makes The Case For Safer Streets.

March 26, 2021March 26, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments Detroit, GPS tracking, grosse pointe, location data, nonmotorized infrastructure, safe mobility, safe streets, safer streets, safety, strava, strava cycling, strava heat map, strava running

Dion Thompson-Davoli showed us his Strava Heat Map of Detroit. It’s exactly as you would expect– showing a gaping hole of activity in most of the city proper.

Business & Economics Transit infrastructure Infrastructure

Black Ocean Strategy? Private Firms Are Looking To Cut Themselves A Slice Of The Infrastructure Pie.

March 25, 2021March 25, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ann arbor, anthony townsend, austerity, autonomous cars, BRT, CASE, cavnue, chicago parking meter deal, chicago parking meters, daley the lesser, diane cross, EVs, fast bus, finance 101, ford mustang mach-e, free market, google, highways, hudson yards, infrastructure, Infrastructure Partners, invisible hand, jeff cranson, LRT, mach-e, mark de la vergne, mdot, michael heller, morgan stanley infrastructure partners, MSIP, mustang mach-e, PAV, privatization, privatization of transportation infrastructure, privatized, richard j. daley, richard m. daley, roadways, Sidewalk, sidewalk labs, SMART, smart city, smart roadways, subways, transportation infrastructure

Wall Street and Silicon Valley are looking for access to infrastructure as they seek out new markets and sources of reliable revenue streams and growth potential. It’s good work … if you can get it.

Sidebar: What Actually Happens To Those Overdue Water Bills?

March 25, 2021March 24, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments dennis kefallinos, detroit water and sewerage department, detroit water department, dwsd, glwa, great lakes water authority, public utilities, water

A followup to the Dennis Kefallinos article with a response from the Water Department on why the delinquent property owner has been allowed to rack up several hundred thousand dollars in delinquent bills. The response may have opened up more questions than it answered.

Public Health Government

Detroit Gets It Right On Vaccine Rollout

March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments astra zeneca, astra zeneca vaccine, astrazeneca, cardi b coronavirus, coronavirus, coronavirus vaccine, COVID19 vaccine, detroit lions, ford field, JNJ vaccine, johnson & johnson vaccine, moderna, moderna vaccine, pfizer, pfizer vaccine, tcf center, vaccine, vaccine hesitancy, vaccine rollout, vaccines, why are the detroit lions so bad

Vaccine rollout in Detroit has gone a lot better than management of the pandemic when it first started, and for this, the city should be given credit.

Energy Efficiency Poverty Energy Utilities

Debt or Asset? How Utility Shutoffs Are About To Be A Big Problem.

March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ACA subsidies, accounts receivable, chevy aveo, debt, double-entry bookkeeping, dr. tony reames, DTE Energy, energy poverty, harvard business school, investor-owned utilities, investor-owned utility, LIHEAP, mercedes g-wagon, michigan public service commission, MPSC, public service commission, public utilities, regulated corporations, regulated entities, Tony Reames, utilities, utility shutoffs, willy wonka, willy wonka rant

Springtime and mounting debt related to COVID19 means utility shutoffs are coming. At least probably. Here are some ideas for how we can fix our broken systems for utility billing– and how we subsidize utilities through programs like LIHEAP without actually moving the needle on energy poverty.

Public transit Transit infrastructure Energy Utilities

BUILD GREEN Act Charges Forward With Electric Transit. Is It The Right Move?

March 22, 2021March 23, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments alexandria ocasio-cortez, andy levin, AOC, build green act, DC fast charger, decarbonization, decarbonizing transportation, distributed generation, electric buses, electric charging infrastructure, electric vehicles, electrification, electrification of vehicles, electrifying buses, fleet electrification, fleet vehicles, fossil fuels, grid infrastructure, grid modernization, House of Representatives, IOU's, IOUs, michigan, microgrid, modernizing the power grid, power generation, power grid, power grids, public utilities, rashida tlaib, transit, transit electrification, US Congress

Public utilities are apprehensive about vehicle electrification because it’ll require a huge amount of investment in grid infrastructure. A new legislative proposal to electrify transit systems might make this a bit easier by delivering a big economy of scale.

Real Estate Cities & Urban Planning

Dennis Kefallinos Owes Half A Million Dollars In Water Bills.

March 16, 2021March 16, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments 760 campbell, abandoned buildings, berwalt, BSEED, code enforcement, dennis kefallinos, detroit international bridge company, detroit water, detroit water and sewerage department, detroit water department, detroit water quality, dwsd, flint water crisis, glwa, great lakes water authority, industrial loft apartments, industrial real estate, jack lessenberry, jon zemke, kurt hesse, loft apartments, loft conversion, postindustrial, russell, russell industrial center, water bills, water quality in detroit

DURING MY BRIEF, 45-MINUTE STINT WORKING IN THE DETROIT BUILDING DEPARTMENT, I remember a day when a slick, older gentleman