The Interconnectivity of Things : work

    A popular topic nowadays is the Internet of Things (IoT). This talks about tangible devices that are interconnected via the Internet. I might discuss that someday. However, IoT is really a subset of the interconnectivity of Things (InOT). And that interconnectivity applies at many levels. Today, in continuation of my recent blogs on economics, I thought I would talk about how work/jobs interconnect.

    One way to examine this is to put forth a possible change to the economy -- a shift from private transportation to public transportation (to save space later, let's call this "the Shift"). How would this affect the economy and how would it affect jobs and work?

    The first thing that can be done is to list the things that are associated with private transportation.

1. Roads
2. Parking Lots (including driveways and garages)
3. Gasoline (assume have not migrated to electric cars)
4. Consumable parts (tires, windshield fluid, batteries, etc.)
5. Car distribution (including sales and transport)
6. Car manufacturing
7. Car repair
8. Car maintenance (including washing, upgrades, and so forth)
9. Car disposal

    I am certain that this is not an exhaustive list and, as we will see, each item can be broken down into many sub-items. The Shift is also not a truly radical shift as most things associated with private transportation also exist associated with public transportation. Thus, it is a shift for reduction rather than elimination and creation.

    Let's look at the first item on the list -- roads. First thing is that roads occupy space -- lots and lots of space. The Shift would not eliminate the need for roads but probably no roads would need to be more than 2 lanes (one each direction). In fact, many low usage roads could probably be a single lane with pull-over areas (similar to low-traffic roads in Europe). As a conservative estimate, let's say that, with the Shift, we could reclaim 80% of the land currently used for roads. (Skipping to item two, we can also probably reclaim 95% of the space needed for driveways and garages.) It also reduces the size needed for bridges and tunnels. What can this space be used for? Parks, farmland, recreation, pasture -- whatever space is presently used for.

    One website indicates about 18,000 square miles (about 0.6% of the land area) are used for roads in the US. That site argues that that isn't very much but I would note that there are 9 states in the US that are each less than 18,000 square miles and it would be the same square miles as Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, and New Jersey combined. The Shift would reclaim about 15,000 square miles or a little more than the size of Maryland.

    Space was the first part of the first item. Roads also includes heavy construction equipment, labor (about 140,000 workers in the U.S.), concrete and asphalt manufacture and transportation, bridge and tunnel design, and so forth. Let's say that there are 200,000 jobs associated with roads and the Shift would eliminate the need for 50,000 of them. This means that 150,000 people in the US would need to find different jobs.

    And this is just the very first item associated with the Shift. Every item above involves jobs, land use, energy use, and so forth. As a conservative guess, the Shift would cause the need for a million people to find new jobs.

    So, yes -- many reasonable people would like to see the Shift, but resistance to the Shift is not just an automatic resistance to change. It is also based on the economic turmoil to families and economic infrastructure.

    Once upon a time, I suggested a tool that would make analysis of such changes as listed above much easier. In my next blog, I will go into more detail of the design of such.

    In the meantime, what effects do you see would come out of the Shift and would it be worth it?