600 zoning out, new ideas in

Ok, we're going to stay away from ebikes again in this one, to the best of my ability. Which isn't great, considering we got our first ebike last week. 

At top is a fun idea, a way to turn train tracks into, um, not quite micromobility. Or personal mobility. But something nicely in between train and car. 

The MonoCab uses gyros to stabilize on one track, so two cars can pass each other. The idea is to run robotaxi-ish shared ride vehicles on existing train tracks. 

This would be pretty neat to see where we live. We have train tracks running through town that basically connect to the nearest large city. Currently, we have two viable options for getting back and forth to that city. There's a bus that runs twice a day, or you drive. The drive involves an hour on a two way road. It's a pretty drive, but also pretty scary, especially at night or in the snow. An on-call train-cab might be just the ticket!

If it feels like life in the US has gotten a little funky in the past thirty years, here's a good chart to explain why. Things are looking pretty great for that top 1%, huh? And the bottom 50%? Ouch.

Meanwhile, another curve that looks basically the same. But this one compares median home price with median salary. 

Ok folks, we all love our quiet neighborhoods and boy, we sure have a lot of our retirement tied up in our houses, but something has to give here. The stranglehold that is home-values/zoning/net-worth/sorry-you're-too-late isn't working. 

Just look at the tents.

Meanwhile, this idea of converting empty offices to residences is gaining momentum. And running into roadblocks. 

One of the big issues is that sometime in the 70s-ish, we figured out HVAC systems so that buildings could be built without operational windows, and no light wells. Apparently that doesn't mesh well with residential building codes, rendering much of our office space "unliveable."

(Of course, compared to living under a freeway, maybe we could figure out a compromise?)

Who else is thinking of new prayers for the 21st century?

"Our AGI, who art in the cloud, give us this day our daily data..."

Ok, back to zoning.

You see, what happened was we cut up the pie back in the 60s and 70s. Back when there were less people, and cars seemed endlessly awesome.

Now, we're wondering if maybe we can change the game a little. What if I lived somewhere I didn't need a car, and then didn't have one? 

Impossible, says current zoning.

I mean, really, zoning has some points, but perhaps we took it a little far? 

Funny, that's exactly the size our town requires. In San Francisco the average lot was 2500 square feet, one third the size, and the average home value was about 4 times higher.

This is kinda fun. In my fiction I've speculated about what the physical interface will be for virtual worlds. Currently, it's "stand in an empty room and be careful." 

This mat is an interesting approach, I guess it can sense your footsteps, but does it also somehow provide you with an "endless scroll"?

Finally, some artwork by Txutxo Perez. Txutxo ran the Transmission Gallery back when we had season two of the Barbary Coast Revue there. He's been making some fabulous art lately!