Cities using innovation and imagination in their infrastructure

louisville bridge

Louisville’s Big Four Bridge, built in 1895 and later known as “The Bridge to Nowhere,” reopened to pedestrian and bicycle traffic after a $30 million-plus renovation.

Ron Littlefield: Recently, I visited two cohort communities of the City Accelerator, a program sponsored in part by Governing, sister publication to Government Technology: Louisville and Nashville. I expect to be in the third city, Philadelphia, before the end of the year. The purpose of these visits is to meet face to face with the mayors and their principal innovation staff, to experience how their innovation efforts fit within the context of the community and to see how the City Accelerator project is affecting the overall climate for innovation. In simple terms, I want to sense the air of change and creativity in each place.

 

 

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Investments in power lines says a lot about how the US electricity system is changing

Power line workers

Private investment in electric transmission has quintupled from $2.7 billion in 1997 to $14.1 billion in 2012.

Private electric utilities in America have been doing something surprising over the past ten years – they have been investing a lot of money in power lines and other electric-transmission infrastructure. (Chart)

 

 

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Italy’s old bridges will become inverted high-rise communities

bridge 1

Huge concrete bridges will be turned into vertically-stacked neighborhoods.

Along an old highway that winds through the mountains in southern Italy, a series of huge concrete bridges will eventually be turned into vertically stacked neighborhoods–as long as the government can come up with the cash to build the project. (Pics)

 

 

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Connected cities of the future are starting to emerge

connected cities

Three-quarters of people will live in cities by 2050.

It’s fashionable to attach the ‘smart’ tag to any technological trend today and this is particularly true of our cities. But, digging beyond the hype, what actually is a smart city and what progress are we as a society making towards that vision?

 

 

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Recharging electric vehicles on the move

Researchers have designed this proof-of-concept wireless charger for moving electric vehicles.

A problem with electric vehicles is providing power while the vehicles are moving. One way to extend the range of electric vehicles may be to provide power wirelessly through coils placed under the surface of a road. But charging moving vehicles with high-power wireless chargers below them is complex.

 

 

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The rapid growth of electric car charging stations (Infographic)

An electric car charging station.

Electric cars and hybrid cars have gone pretty mainstream. But is the charging infrastructure keeping pace? Especially since there are lots of proposals for how we could transition away from the gas station model.

 

 

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The future of the energy infrastructure in the U.S.

The U.S. has massive renewable energy potential.

Transmission lines hold much of the same challenge and promise of the interstate highway system a century ago. The transmission network – the high voltage, long distance power lines that carry electricity from power facilities and into communities – is currently a patchwork system, lacking centralized organization or planning. Assuming that America cannot achieve 100% clean energy with distributed resources, the transport of renewable electric energy across state lines is a major hurdle to realizing a future without fossil fuels.

 

 

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Falling bridges and the decline of U.S. infrastructure spending

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZAR7hbcBsA[/youtube]

When a bridge falls in America, like this one near Seattle last week, infrastructure spending has a way of transforming into a national obsession. Fortunately, falling bridges in America are still a rarity. But, infrastructure spending is being squeezed at the very moment that infrastructure spending is a historic bargain for the federal government.

 

 

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Colorado’s Opportunity to Take the Lead in the Alternative Transportation Marketplace

Futurist Thomas Frey: The first time I rode on a Segway, I was confused. Even though I loved the experience, I couldn’t quite figure out how it would fit into my life. It wasn’t going to replace my car and it certainly wasn’t a substitute for my bicycle, so what exactly was it?

 

 

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Wind power tops new electricity generation in U.S. for 2012

The US remains second to China, which had 62,000 MW of installed wind power at the close of 2011.

According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), wind energy was the single largest source of new electricity generation capacity in the U.S., during 2012.  With 13,124 MW of new infrastructure, wind accounted for 42 percent of all new capacity, from renewable sources or otherwise, according to a press release put out by the organization.

 

 

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Top 15 emerging technology trends: Forrester

“We went a level deeper in our research by examining how today’s hot technology create platforms for future disruption,” analyst Bryan Hopkins writes.

Forrester, a research firm, understands that everyone who’s been listening  knows that mobile, social, cloud, and data are big freight trains of change that are blowing up old business models and old business practices.

 

 

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