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Home My WebLink AboutNews Release - Mail Packet - 7/17/2018 - Information From Darin Atteberry Re: Wall Street Journal Articles Dated June 27, 2018 - The Future Of Cities7/9/2018 AI Helps Cities Predict Natural Disasters - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-helps-cities-predict-natural-disasters-1530065100?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 1/3 In April 2018, a major storm hit Ontario, bringing torrential rain, an inch of ice and wind gusts up to 60 miles an hour. More than half a million people lost power. Within four days, Hydro One —Ontario’s largest distribution utility—restored power to its customers’ homes and businesses. By contrast, after a major storm in 2016, it took six days to restore power. Give artiﬁcial intelligence some of the credit. Hydro One used an electrical-outage prediction tool developed by International Business Machines Corp. that combines AI technology and the resources of IBM’s Weather Co. subsidiary. The tool helped predict the severity of the storm and the locations that would be hardest hit, so Hydro One knew where to position 1,400 front-line staﬀ who were needed to restore power and to handle the nearly 130,000 customer calls that came in during the outage. IBM’s outage-prediction tool is also being used, with 70% accuracy, by other cities throughout North America to predict power outages as far in advance as 72 hours before storms are expected. The outage-prediction tool gets more accurate in the ﬁnal hours before a storm as it incorporates real-time updates. “During severe weather events, every hour of advance notice counts and helps minimize the impacts,” says Mary Glackin, head of weather business solutions at IBM. Many companies and universities are developing AI tools to help cities better predict and prepare for weather events and natural disasters. In the U.S., weather and climate events caused $1.5 trillion in damage from 1980 to 2017, according to the National Oceanic and DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.859% ▼ Crude Oil 74.05 0.34% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-helps-cities-predict-natural-disasters-1530065100 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY AI Helps Cities Predict Natural Disasters New tools aim to forecast storm and earthquake damage, improving emergency response An IBM power-outage tool that relies in part on AI technology predicts outages as much as 72 hours before storms are expected, allowing utilities to plan their response. PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO GETTY IMAGES June 26, 2018 10 05 p.m. ET By Aili McConnon JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses Buildings Meld With Nature Public Art Can Be Fleeting IBM 1.35%▲ July 12, 2018 TO: Mayor & City Council FROM: Darin Atteberry FYI /sek 7/9/2018 AI Helps Cities Predict Natural Disasters - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-helps-cities-predict-natural-disasters-1530065100?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 2/3 Atmospheric Administration. When cities can predict more accurately the severity of weather, natural disasters and which areas will be aﬀected most, they can better allocate resources to prepare for relief eﬀorts such as restoring power or evacuating residents at risk. Weather forecasting has improved dramatically since the early 2000s, thanks to the dramatic increase in cheap sensors that track weather data and the increased capacity of computers to process the plethora of data from sensors, radar, satellite and other sources. New AI systems can comb through years of historical data from storms, hurricanes and earthquakes to detect patterns and better predict new events and their impact. Forecasting becomes even more accurate—and more useful to teams that respond as natural disasters unfold—when it can incorporate real-time information. A startup in Palo Alto, Calif., One Concern, has developed an AI tool used by some emergency-response centers and other government agencies in California to plan for the impact of earthquakes on a block-by-block basis. Emergency-response centers in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Woodside all conﬁrmed they use the tool. The company’s founder, Ahmad Wani, says he started to think about developing such a tool after a severe ﬂood left him stranded on the roof of his home in Kashmir for a week. The rescue eﬀort was so slow and poorly organized, “I realized there was a lack of science in disaster response,” Mr. Wani says. Similarly, Mr. Wani saw a basic ﬂaw in relying on 911 calls after an earthquake struck in Napa, Calif., near where he now lives. Many of the people in the worst-hit areas had lost cell coverage and weren’t able to call 911, he says. These experiences, Mr. Wani says, led him to work on a tool for getting help quickly to where it is needed most urgently. Now, within the ﬁrst 15 minutes of an earthquake, the One Concern platform makes calculations that try to predict how bad the damage is in speciﬁc blocks of a city. The AI tool gets its real- time information on the strength of the earthquake and its location from sensors and damage reports. The system also is trained on data from hundreds of past earthquakes throughout the U.S., and each new quake gives it more data to help it become even more accurate in its predictions. One Concern’s platform is meant as a tool for emergency responders who ultimately decide how to best respond in light of limited resources and competing priorities, says Mr. Wani. The tool is hosted in the cloud so disaster-response teams can access it with any device, whether a desktop projecting it onto a large screen during a training session, or on smartphones if crews are out in the ﬁeld during a natural disaster. “We make it easier to understand where vulnerable people are likely to have been adversely aﬀected, so rescuers can know who is likely to need saving and what unique conditions they might face,” Mr. Wani says. Michael Dayton, a deputy director in San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management, says his department has used the tool for two years now and says it has improved their “ability to respond quickly and understand where precious resources are needed most.” This IBM simulation shows an overlay of predicted power-outage levels, in red and yellow, on weather radar of a storm. PHOTO: IBM 7/9/2018 AI Helps Cities Predict Natural Disasters - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-helps-cities-predict-natural-disasters-1530065100?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 3/3 This summer, One Concern plans to roll out a ﬂood-damage prediction tool that attempts to show how much water will accumulate and where it will ﬂow up to ﬁve days in advance of potential storms. Researchers at universities throughout the world, meanwhile, are developing other AI systems that can better predict dangerous weather, including tornadoes, hail, lightning and severe wind. Such projects leverage the increased number of sensors available, including those on airplanes that provide turbulence data, which can provide helpful hyperlocal information. There are experiments using social media and crowdsourced data to supplement data from sensors as well. In a 2018 paper published in the journal Computers and Geosciences, a team at the University of Dundee in Scotland reported developing a ﬂooding monitoring tool using information from Twitter and the crowdsourced app MyCoast, which asks people to submit ﬂood photos. Using hundreds of photos from regular citizens, the AI system could potentially determine ﬂooding in a given area much more quickly than relying on human staﬀ to monitor all at-risk areas at once. The researchers say their AI system was 70% accurate in recognizing ﬂooding. Some roadblocks still exist before wide-scale adoption of AI tools to predict and prepare for weather events and natural disasters will occur, says Seth Cutler, an environment and water program manager at research ﬁrm Frost & Sullivan. For one, greater standardization is needed between technologies and platforms so that sensors and systems can communicate eﬀectively with one another, says Mr. Cutler. “It can also be hard to get utilities and cities to invest millions in extreme weather prediction and prevention systems when it’s not clear yet what return these systems will have,” Mr. Cutler says. “What jurisdiction pays, and to whose beneﬁt? Is this a public good of a city, state, country?” he adds. Ms. McConnon is a writer in New York. Email her at reports@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition. College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Technology Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 Artificial Intelligence May Make Traffic Congestion a Thing of the Past - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-may-make-traffic-congestion-a-thing-of-the-past-1530043151?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 1/5 This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-may-make-traffic-congestion-a-thing-of-the-past-1530043151 If you drive a car, you’ve probably found yourself waiting at a red light while the intersection sits empty. Artiﬁcial intelligence could make that—and other frustrating ineﬃciencies of city traﬃc—a thing of the past. For a sense of what the technology is capable of, consider that some research suggests artiﬁcial intelligence could allow networked autonomous vehicles to safely make their way around cities without any traﬃc lights at all if it weren’t for the presence of human-driven cars and pedestrians, says Dorsa Sadigh, a professor at Stanford University who specializes in the interaction between autonomous vehicles and humans. JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY Artiﬁcial Intelligence May Make Traﬃc Congestion a Thing of the Past Startups and car companies see arti icial intelligence as the answer to a lot of traf ic inef iciencies June 26, 2018 3 59 p.m. ET By Henry Williams 7/9/2018 Artificial Intelligence May Make Traffic Congestion a Thing of the Past - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-may-make-traffic-congestion-a-thing-of-the-past-1530043151?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 2/5 Humans aren’t going away anytime soon, of course, so neither are traﬃc lights. But researchers are taking steps toward a future where smart traﬃc lights and internet- connected cars can make getting around town smoother for both drivers and pedestrians—as well as provide other beneﬁts, such as giving priority to public transit or emergency vehicles and reducing auto emissions. Progress in Pittsburgh For AI to do its potential magic, the ﬁrst thing that’s needed is data. Lots of it. So several startups are connecting hundreds of sensors at traﬃc lights to understand why congestion is happening and learn how to manage it in real time. For instance, Rapid Flow Technologies, which began as a Carnegie Mellon University research project, is testing its Surtrac traﬃc-management system in the East Liberty neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Straddling a major arterial route and home to a Target store, the neighborhood has long been an area of heavy congestion as commuters, shoppers and local residents clog the roads. “Traﬃc patterns changed so much over the course of the day that [the traﬃc signals] didn’t really work all that well” in keeping traﬃc moving, says Greg Barlow, a Rapid Flow co-founder. Traditional traﬃc signals commonly change on a ﬁxed schedule. Some are coordinated with those at the next intersection. More-advanced traﬃc lights can even sense when a car is JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature An AI-based system called Surtrac has reduced waiting times at traf ic lights by as much as 42% in a busy Pittsburgh neighborhood. PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO GETTY IMAGES 7/9/2018 Artificial Intelligence May Make Traffic Congestion a Thing of the Past - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-may-make-traffic-congestion-a-thing-of-the-past-1530043151?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 3/5 waiting at the light and adjust the timing. But for the most part that’s as futuristic as it gets. In East Liberty, Rapid Flow’s technology deployed at intersections allows coordination among all the lights where it has been installed—for example, allowing a light to stay green longer to clear traﬃc at a particular intersection. “We have communication between intersections,” says Mr. Barlow. “It lets an intersection plan based on what it can see with its own sensors and what its [neighbors] can see with upstream sensors.” The Surtrac system has reduced waiting times at traﬃc lights in the area by as much as 42%, Mr. Barlow says. That not only gets people to their destinations quicker, it also helps reduce auto emissions because cars are spending less time on the road. Rapid Flow is working on a feature that would allow drivers to share their planned routes with the network, so that information could be used to adjust the timing of lights and possibly cut waiting times even further. Because the project in Pittsburgh is in only a small part of the city right now, there were early issues with traﬃc backing up as cars moved from the area with the new AI-enhanced lights into areas without the technology. But AI managed to solve that, too, by recognizing the congestion on the fringes of the system and taking it into account in changing the lights under its control. Rapid Flow is expanding, with a deployment of sensors across 24 intersections in Atlanta and other deployments in the Northeast—at three intersections in Portland, Maine, with nine more coming later this year, and at two intersections in Needham, Mass. Predicting patterns A startup called Vivacity Labs is taking a diﬀerent approach in the town of Milton Keynes, in England. It is focusing on gathering data on traﬃc patterns with custom-made sensors installed at traﬃc lights throughout the town, with the aim of eventually using the system to provide predictive traﬃc information and guidance to drivers. Later still, controlling traﬃc lights would come into play. The sensors don’t simply gather information; each is a powerful Vivacity Labs’ sensors use computer vision and machine learning to process the activity on the roadway. computer 7/9/2018 Artificial Intelligence May Make Traffic Congestion a Thing of the Past - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-may-make-traffic-congestion-a-thing-of-the-past-1530043151?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 4/5 attached to a camera, capable of analyzing the traﬃc it can see at its intersection. For years, traditional mapping apps, like Google Maps and Waze, have been capturing traﬃc information by crowdsourcing their data, monitoring the speed of individual users, getting accident reports from users, and then relaying those conditions to other users. But by the time drivers plan a route through a city, or as they move along that route, the traﬃc information their app depends on can already be out of date. Vivacity instead uses its sensors at intersections to gather traﬃc information that is continually sent back to a central computer. The systemwide data can be analyzed not only to recognize current traﬃc conditions but also to predict how traﬃc patterns will develop. Eventually, it should be able to direct drivers “based not on how busy the road is now, or how busy it was a few minutes ago, but how busy it will be when you get there,” says Peter Mildon, chief operating oﬃcer of Vivacity, which is based in London. For example, the sensor at one intersection might know that ﬁve cars are waiting at a light and there’s congestion in the intersection itself. The next might be sensing a slowdown in traﬃc and some long trucks waiting to go through the intersection. All of this, along with information from all the other sensors in the system, is fed into a central AI algorithm that can project what traﬃc will be, say, ﬁve, 10 or 15 minutes in the future—or even hours later. The company hopes to eventually use the technology to control traﬃc signals for improved traﬃc ﬂow. Among other projects, Vivacity also has sensors deployed in the city of Cambridge, England, where it is trying to predict when lines for parking lots will start backing up and lead to gridlock. Where to next? Oﬃcials in Pittsburgh see the potential for Rapid Flow’s Surtrac system to optimize not just vehicle traﬃc but the movement of people around the city on mass transit. “What if we want to really emphasize person throughput rather than vehicle throughput?” says Karina Ricks, Pittsburgh’s director of mobility and infrastructure. “What if we were able to tell the signal that not only is there a 30-person bus, but there is a 30-person bus with one person in it—the driver—or a 30-person bus with 40 people in it? That can get into the algorithm” to get the most people to their destinations as quickly as possible. The city is working toward this goal with Rapid Flow. Meanwhile, car makers are betting on the technology developing further to include short- distance communications between traﬃc-management systems like these and cars, and between cars themselves. 7/9/2018 Artificial Intelligence May Make Traffic Congestion a Thing of the Past - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-may-make-traffic-congestion-a-thing-of-the-past-1530043151?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 5/5 Volkswagen’s Audi brand began putting AI-driven traﬃc technology in its 2017 models. Drivers in certain cities—including Las Vegas and —are able to receive real-time information about the intersections they’re approaching, including how many seconds are left until the light turns green. Anupam Malhotra, Audi of America’s director of connected vehicles and data, is excited about how the technology could develop. “In the future it will suggest a speed” at which to drive to hit green lights along a route, he says. Mr. Williams is an editor for The Wall Street Journal in New York. He can be reached at henry.williams@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'Congestion Ahead? Not if AI Does Its Job.' Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 Cities Hope for Big Benefits From Tiny Houses - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-hope-for-big-benefits-from-tiny-houses-1530065161?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 1/3 Cities are starting to think small when it comes to housing. Many cities have previously discouraged homeowners from building small cottages or apartments on their properties with zoning ordinances that made it nearly impossible to have them in areas designed for single-family homes. But increasingly, municipalities such as Austin, Texas, Boston, Boulder, Colo., Los Angeles, and Portland, Ore., see these small units as a way to appeal to renters and others on limited budgets who otherwise can be shut out of a city’s more desirable areas. The hope is the units will rent for less than larger single-family homes and allow more people to live within the city limits. “Not everyone needs or wants to live in a 2,500-square-foot home,” says Anthony Flint, a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. “It increases the supply and diversity of a city’s housing stock, so there are more choices to suit diﬀerent housing needs.” Small spaces Mini-homes, granny ﬂats and carriage houses—technically referred to as accessory dwellings— are usually only a few hundred square feet. They have their own kitchen and bathroom and function as a separate living quarters from the main unit. Designs vary. Some look like miniature versions of the main house, others are long, open spaces similar to a mobile home, while still others could be attached to or even part of the main dwelling. The hope is that the new units will create additional housing while maintaining the neighborhood’s look and feel. DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.861% ▼ Crude Oil 74.08 0.38% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-hope-for-big-benefits-from-tiny-houses-1530065161 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY Cities Hope for Big Beneﬁts From Tiny Houses Cities are encouraging small houses, granny lats and other mini-homes to alleviate shortages of a ordable housing Portland, Ore., eased rules on secondary dwellings like this one, saving homeowners about 10% on construction costs. PHOTO: JAKE DONAHUE June 26, 2018 10 06 p.m. ET By Lisa Ward JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature Public Art Can Be Fleeting 7/9/2018 Cities Hope for Big Benefits From Tiny Houses - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-hope-for-big-benefits-from-tiny-houses-1530065161?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 2/3 Their size, however, can run afoul of local zoning ordinances. Throughout the U.S., many city neighborhoods are zoned for single-family homes, which can constrain homeowners who may want to add a rental unit to their property. Local ordinances often dictate lot and building size along with density requirements. Complying or getting a variance can be a long and expensive process. Portland in 2010 began exempting accessory units from certain fees associated with new construction, like charges for water, sewage and street access. Homeowners putting units in their backyards now save about 10% of the overall construction cost, or $8,000 to $11,000, the city estimates. “It creates more options for renters,” says Morgan Tracy, a project manager for Portland’s residential inﬁll project. People willing to live in smaller spaces have more access to desirable city neighborhoods with shops, public transportation, libraries and other important amenities —neighborhoods that had previously been zoned for single-family residences, Mr. Tracy says. Similarly, in 2015, Austin eased the requirements for accessory dwellings in certain neighborhoods. It reduced minimum lot size and the space required between buildings, and eliminated requirements for driveways. More accessory-dwelling building permits were issued in 2017 than in 2014, according to the city. But, Ming-ru Chu, an Austin city planner, says, the city’s planning and zoning department has just begun to analyze the permit data to better understand the eﬀects of the code amendment. “It’s not clear how aﬀordable rents for these new units actually are and if the new units/properties are even rented or if they end up being sold.” In fact, the jury is still out in general on whether such units will do much to ease housing prices where it’s most needed. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality looked at rental prices for accessory dwellings in the state and found the units tend to rent for slightly more than apartments of similar size in nearby neighborhoods, though about 20% of the dwellings are rented free or below market value. Jake Wegmann, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture, says research shows that if older and unregistered secondary dwellings are included in an analysis, prices drop below market rent. He theorizes that prices will continue to fall as more units come on the market and the existing stock begins to age. A report by several groups including the University of California at Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation and the University of Texas at Austin surveyed owners of accessory dwellings in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver and found the average unit rented for about $1,298 a month (with about 58% of respondents saying they rented the unit for below market rates) and cost on average about $156,000 to build. “There is no cost of land. A lot in a central neighborhood can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s before there is even a spadeful of dirt,” says Mr. Wegmann, a co-author of the Terner Center report, which also found that ﬁnancing these units was the biggest hurdle for many homeowners since it is frequently diﬃcult for homeowners to borrow against the expected income or added value from an accessory dwelling. Boston’s program A 500-square-foot cottage behind a single-family house in Portland’s Irvington historic district is the primary residence for the homeowner’s mother. PHOTO: PAUL SIVLEY 7/9/2018 Cities Hope for Big Benefits From Tiny Houses - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-hope-for-big-benefits-from-tiny-houses-1530065161?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 3/3 Meanwhile, Boston’s Housing Innovation Lab recently embarked on a small pilot program studying the feasibility of tiny houses and granny ﬂats. This spring it built a 360-square foot prefabricated house at Boston’s City Hall, designed to be quickly and cheaply inserted into backyards and vacant lots. The home took a ﬁve-person team ﬁve hours to build and cost about $50,000, says Marcy Ostberg, director of the innovation lab. Ms. Ostberg is also intrigued by the idea of homeowners leasing their backyards to existing tiny-house owners. The idea came from Sharon Day, 59 years old, who built a tiny house for $65,000. Her house is oﬀ the grid. It has a rain barrel, water ﬁltration system, and composting toilette and runs on solar power. Ms. Day is talking with city oﬃcials in Somerville and East Boston about creating a small community of such homes on vacant lots or even on brownﬁeld sites. In Boston it can cost $1,200 a month to rent a room where you are still sharing a bathroom and a kitchen, says Ms. Day, who adds that her initial outlay to build a tiny home was much more palatable than spending thousands of dollars on rent or spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of her retirement savings buying an apartment in the city. Ms. Ward is a writer in Mendham, N.J. Email her at reports@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition. College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Technology Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 Homeless People May Get Help From Blockchain - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/homeless-people-may-get-help-from-blockchain-1530064980?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 1/3 A new pilot project is trying to use blockchain—the technology at the heart of bitcoin—to help the homeless get the support they need. With limited personal security, homeless people often have identiﬁcation cards and other important papers lost or stolen. That makes it harder for them to get medical services, substance-abuse treatment or the housing that gets them oﬀ the streets. And those who help the homeless are often unable to get them replacement papers quickly because of red tape and unwieldy record-keeping systems. Blockchain, which lets multiple parties share veriﬁed and encrypted data, could be an answer. A collection of city agencies and other groups in Austin, Texas, is testing a service called MyPass that stores key documents on the blockchain, where they can’t be lost or stolen. The documents can then be accessed by homeless people via cellphone, computer or text message and shared among health-care workers and government agencies. “The goal is to empower [the homeless] with that information and allow them to have ownership and autonomy of [their data] and use it to garner services,” says Sly Majid, chief service oﬃcer for the city of Austin. A frustrating reality For the homeless, the loss of ID or other documents can have profound consequences. In one study of homeless who didn’t have photo ID, 51% were denied Supplemental Security Income DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.859% ▼ Crude Oil 74.07 0.37% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/homeless-people-may-get-help-from-blockchain-1530064980 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY Homeless People May Get Help From Blockchain Lack of ID often prevents them from getting support services they need. A pilot project aims to remedy that. Potential clients in Austin, Texas, saw a demonstration of the MyPass service to store key identity and other personal documents on the blockchain. PHOTO: MICHAEL HENDERSON June 26, 2018 10 03 p.m. ET By Tomio Geron JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature 7/9/2018 Homeless People May Get Help From Blockchain - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/homeless-people-may-get-help-from-blockchain-1530064980?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 2/3 beneﬁts, 53% were denied food stamps, 54% were denied access to shelters or housing, and 45% were denied Medicaid or medical services. Many states require multiple proofs of identity to get a new identiﬁcation, such as a Social Security card, birth certiﬁcate or utility bills, which homeless people may not have. When the homeless “lose documents or ID they have to literally start over” and reapply, says Timothy Mercer, director of global health at Dell Medical School, one of the institutions backing MyPass. “Blockchain solves that problem. It’s encrypted securely and can be accessed in the cloud. It doesn’t rely on vulnerable paper-based systems.” MyPass, which started in February and now has 20 to 25 homeless people and a few service providers participating, is still being developed and tested. But here’s how organizers envision it working. To get service at a provider such as a health clinic, a homeless person would sign in with a password or another login tool, using a computer or mobile phone at the clinic oﬃce. The person could then show an ID or document on MyPass to prove his or her identity. Homeless people also could use MyPass to show the clinic a document such as a health test from another provider. Or they could send the document to the clinic in advance—say, from a computer at a library—or allow the clinic to access it. If the program works as organizers hope, homeless people would be able to access important services more easily and be less likely to fall through cracks in the system. For service providers, it would mean an easier and faster way to access critical individual data. Currently, many local agencies and health providers use their own computer networks and paper forms. “Sadly, in this day and age, we still rely on paper-based release of information and faxes of medical records,” says Dr. Mercer. “I get patients who are quite astounded by the fact that we still operate in the way we do that they have to sign a form, and records get faxed a week later.” With MyPass, the documents could be entered into a single system accessible by multiple providers, boosting eﬃciency and cutting costs, says Anjum Khurshid, director of data integration at the department of population health at Dell Medical School. For instance, a clinic might request the result of a blood test. The agency that did the test could use MyPass to upload the data to the blockchain, where it would be encrypted, and after the patient approved, the clinic could view or download the information. Working out problems The program, which received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge and includes a number of city agencies, charities and other institutions in Austin, is trying to address a number of questions. Among them are how individuals could recover access to their account if, for example, they lost their password, and who would help them manage those issues. There are several ways to solve those problems, like having two other veriﬁed users of the system, such as representatives of city agencies, vouch for an individual’s identity, says Ashish Gadnis, chief executive of BanQu Inc., which developed the technology used in the pilot program. Programs similar to MyPass are being used elsewhere for other at-risk communities. Minneapolis-based BanQu provides similar blockchain services for organizations working with Somali refugees in a camp in Kenya. The technology records their identity documents, as well as employment history, among other things. Other groups are using blockchain as well. The United Nations’ World Food Program, for instance, uses the technology to help refugees prove their identity and verify some transactions. “The ultimate vision is people are able to manage their own data,” says Robert Opp, director of the innovation and change-management division at WFP. “This is something we’d really like to see in the future for the most vulnerable people in the world.” 7/9/2018 Homeless People May Get Help From Blockchain - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/homeless-people-may-get-help-from-blockchain-1530064980?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 3/3 Mr. Geron is a Wall Street Journal reporter in San Francisco. He can be reached at tomio.geron@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'ID Help for the Homeless.' College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Technology Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 How Driverless Cars Are Going to Change Cities - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-driverless-cars-are-going-to-change-cities-1530065340?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=7 1/5 As the arrival of driverless cars gets closer, cities are scrambling to get ready. And for good reason: The driverless car promises to reshape the urban landscape as we know it. Little wonder, then, that the potential changes are creating excitement—and fear—among city planners. As they host test ﬂeets of robot vehicles and ﬁgure out how to rework ordinances to prepare for the autonomous future, they’re imagining what life is going to be like when the streets are ﬁlled with cars that can largely think for themselves. Some see an opportunity to create on-demand public transit that gets people where they’re going faster and reaches more of the population. Or open up streets for more green space and greater walkability. Or redirect traﬃc to make it easier to hold functions like farmers markets. But, even as they acknowledge the promise, others see possible problems. They warn that robot cars could encourage greater urban sprawl and cut into funding for public transit, widening the divide between the haves and have-nots. And driverless cars won’t be replacing all human-driven cars overnight, meaning an awkward mix of robots and humans sharing roadways. Whatever the future holds, it will very likely be arriving soon. “It wouldn’t surprise me if by the end of 2019 we have autonomous vehicles readily part of people’s lives,” says Steve Adler, the mayor of Austin. His city was the ﬁrst outside of California DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.860% ▼ Crude Oil 74.06 0.35% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-driverless-cars-are-going-to-change-cities-1530065340 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY How Driverless Cars Are Going to Change Cities Self-driving cars could mean better public transit, more green space and less congestion. But also: more urban sprawl and greater inequality. . Driverless cars are arriving, and cities are preparing for a host of changes.’The technology is coming sooner than people think,’ says the mayor of Austin. PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO GETTY IMAGES June 26, 2018 10 09 p.m. ET By Tim Higgins JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature Public Art Can Be Fleeting 7/9/2018 How Driverless Cars Are Going to Change Cities - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-driverless-cars-are-going-to-change-cities-1530065340?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=7 2/5 where Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, then a Google project, tested early versions of its self-driving technology. He adds, “The technology is coming sooner than people think.” Here’s a look at some of the changes that may be in store for cities. Smarter public transportation Some urban planners envision integrating autonomous cars with existing public transit, making the whole system more ﬂexible and responsive. A likely starting place is on-call robot taxis married with smartphone apps that let users plan the most eﬃcient routes across town. For instance, a commuter might check the app and see that the quickest path is taking a rental bike to the train station, riding for 20 minutes, then ﬁnishing up with a robot taxi for the ﬁnal 2 miles to the destination. In another combination of autonomous vehicles and transit, vehicles would actually anticipate commuters’ needs. The startup Moovit, which tracks anonymized user data to create a real- time picture of public-transit use, could use such data to help robot taxis know where and when to deploy to meet demand, predicts co-founder and Chief Executive Nir Erez. The operating system might see that 300 people are on board a commuter train set to arrive at noon. So it would send enough robot taxis to the station to cover the probable number of taxi riders, based on past usage statistics. Robot cars could also help riders in underserved areas. After being used for private trips during rush hours, the cars could be deployed in parts of the city with limited public transportation so that residents could use them for essential travel, perhaps even subsidized by the city to reduce cost. These setups oﬀer a rare chance for a strong public-private partnership in transit—because companies have a ﬁnancial stake in keeping the cars as full as possible, just as cities want to oﬀer residents as many commuting options as they can. “We’re going to want [that car] running all of the time at capacity,” says Glen De Vos, chief technology oﬃcer at auto-tech supplier Aptiv PLC. “If you can bolt on public-transportation services on top of [private service], it gives you a bigger customer base and more opportunity to essentially be running those vehicles at capacity all time.” For cities, which often don’t have the latest technology, creating the infrastructure to allow such a network takes preparation. In Las Vegas, Aptiv has joined with Lyft Inc. to test self- driving cars to better understand what’s required to make a ride-hailing system work with robots. “A lot of times, people completely overlook that the municipality will play a critical role in how all of this is implemented,” according to Mr. De Vos. One of the open questions about how the technology will ultimately be used is whether robot vehicles will be more like a public utility, with cities deciding where and when the vehicles operate, or whether these vehicles will be more akin to chauﬀeured cars operated by private ﬂeets. In January, Ford Motor Co. announced it acquired a startup called Autonomic to help create a so-called Transportation Mobility Cloud that could essentially serve as an air-traﬃc control center for a city trying to manage diﬀerent transportation providers, such as public buses and privately owned robot taxis. Traditionally, each mode of transportation has been trying to ensure it is working in the most eﬃcient way possible, says Marcy Klevorn, president of Ford Mobility. “You can’t solve the problem by having everything optimized for itself,” she says. “One of the things we want to do is help the diﬀerent modes of transportation talk to each other.” Less parking, more space Autonomous cars can drop people oﬀ and then go somewhere else to park—or to shuttle other people around. That means less need for parking space, which could open up huge possibilities for space-crunched downtowns. Some cities have as much as 30% of land devoted to cars for 7/9/2018 How Driverless Cars Are Going to Change Cities - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-driverless-cars-are-going-to-change-cities-1530065340?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=7 3/5 roads and parking, according to Brooks Rainwater, director of the Center for City Solutions at the National League of Cities. Some see the advent of autonomous cars as the spark to reimagine a city with pedestrians at the center of development—whether that involves making wider sidewalks, adding green space and parks or converting former downtown parking-garage towers into housing or retail space. Another change could be in the design of buildings. Half of a new building’s footprint is typically devoted to parking, says Ryan Snyder, a principal at consultancy Transpo Group and a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles, urban-planning department. If fewer spaces are needed for autonomous cars, those spaces could be turned into retail or living space—potentially leading to lower costs for residents and businesses. Changing streetscapes As autonomous vehicles take over the roads, they will learn to coordinate traﬃc ﬂow. Autonomous vehicles could be directed to pull out of the way of emergency vehicles or public buses to create virtual lanes for those higher-priority vehicles, for instance. But cities could also begin to use streets and sidewalks in a more ﬂexible way, changing the dynamic of communities, Mr. Snyder says. For instance, streets could more easily be used for events like farmers markets, because automated vehicles could ﬁnd routes around the blocked- oﬀ areas without causing traﬃc jams. Sidewalks might also change in front of large oﬃce buildings, as robot taxis and shuttles pick up and drop oﬀ huge numbers of passengers. Planners may create wider pick-up and drop-oﬀ zones, perhaps indented to allow traﬃc to ﬂow easily around them. The curbs may also have sensors that can notify an autonomous vehicle when it is safe to pull over, says Grayson Brulte, who advises governments on driverless technology. The congestion question Some proponents of driverless cars believe the shared vehicles will cut down on clogged streets. Research by Larry Burns, the former head of research and development for GM and a consultant for Waymo, suggests that a community needs only a small number of robot taxis to handle its transportation needs. In research for Columbia University’s Earth Institute, he found that if a city’s population density is greater than 750 people per square mile—the level of most U.S. cities—then it can ensure service with a ﬂeet of robot vehicles amounting to just 15% of its current total of conventional cars. But some experts aren’t so sure robotic cars will ease congestion. Bruce Schaller, an expert in transportation planning, published a report last year that suggested ride-hailing services in New York City added to congestion on the road, even as the number of taxi trips decreased, as people gravitated away from public transportation. He says that there’s a real concern that autonomous vehicles will lead to lower fares and more riders, creating “more trips in already-congested cities.” In Austin, Mr. Adler says he’s generally positive about autonomous technology’s potential beneﬁts but says he could envision it leading to greater congestion problems. For instance, he PETER & MARIA HOEY 7/9/2018 How Driverless Cars Are Going to Change Cities - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-driverless-cars-are-going-to-change-cities-1530065340?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=7 4/5 imagines a resident who typically takes three children to diﬀerent events and runs errands in a single vehicle. In a future with driverless cars, the resident might decide to send each child to those activities in separate robot cars while using another vehicle to run the family errands. New revenue streams Governments, which already tax gasoline and car purchases, may likely turn to taxing autonomous vehicles for using the roads, through perhaps a usage fee. One idea that’s emerged is a so-called zombie-cars tax, which was ﬁrst proposed in Massachusetts last year, that would aim to tax vehicles on a per-mile fee to avoid people letting their cars drive around empty. Mr. Snyder, the urban-planning consultant, for example, suggests cities might charge a fee to have curb access in high-traﬃc areas or give preference to vehicles with multiple people, such as a shuttle. Driving the rich and poor apart While some believe enhanced public transportation will provide beneﬁts for communities that have limited public transit now, others worry the technology might favor the rich. Lauren Kuby, a City Council member in Tempe, Ariz., which had seen a test ﬂeet of Uber Technologies Inc.’s self-driving vehicles, says she’s intrigued by the possible beneﬁts of the vehicles. But she fears that “AVs could encourage sprawl, especially if people own their own AVs.” In this scenario, Ms. Kuby says, “AVs could siphon oﬀ ridership from public transportation, eroding revenue, which then justiﬁes cutting service, hurting those who depend on it but who cannot aﬀord the higher cost of ride-sharing AVs.” Similarly, Richard Florida, an expert in urban planning and a professor at the University of Toronto, expects that autonomous cars will push the poor from middle suburbs out to exurbs, because the ease of using the cars will lure wealthy people to move to suburbs that haven’t seen reinvestment in more than a generation. “Self-driving cars are likely to make those [middle suburbs] more valuable and turn them from working-class areas to more upscale areas,” he says. “You’ll get a metropolitan area where more and more of the less-fortunate population is pushed out to the periphery.” There are also concerns that self-driving vehicles will cost people their jobs, such as those who currently drive taxis, Ubers or public buses. But many companies believe that humans won’t be displaced entirely soon, noting that there will be a need for people to maintain the ﬂeets and monitor them. A matter of safety Perhaps the biggest unknown for driverless vehicles—and the thing that could most delay their arrival—is safety, a renewed concern after a test vehicle by Uber was involved in a fatal crash earlier this year in Tempe. Columbus, Ohio, was picked in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Transportation as a test city for advanced transportation technology. The city planned to deploy an autonomous shuttle around an indoor-outdoor shopping complex. But it has reconsidered the route after realizing some of the current technology’s limits. The problem was that the vehicles they were looking at couldn’t go fast enough to keep up with traﬃc, and the city was concerned about the need to make a left-hand turn against traﬃc, a driving move that has proved diﬃcult for developers to implement safely, says Brandi Braun, the city’s deputy innovation oﬃcer. The program is now re-evaluating where to deploy such shuttles. Mr. Higgins is a reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau. He can be reached at tim.higgins@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'What Driverless Cars Will Bring to Cities.' 7/9/2018 How Driverless Cars Are Going to Change Cities - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-driverless-cars-are-going-to-change-cities-1530065340?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=7 5/5 College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Technology Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 How Driverless Cars Are Going to Change Cities - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-driverless-cars-are-going-to-change-cities-1530065340?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=7 4/5 imagines a resident who typically takes three children to diﬀerent events and runs errands in a single vehicle. In a future with driverless cars, the resident might decide to send each child to those activities in separate robot cars while using another vehicle to run the family errands. New revenue streams Governments, which already tax gasoline and car purchases, may likely turn to taxing autonomous vehicles for using the roads, through perhaps a usage fee. One idea that’s emerged is a so-called zombie-cars tax, which was ﬁrst proposed in Massachusetts last year, that would aim to tax vehicles on a per-mile fee to avoid people letting their cars drive around empty. Mr. Snyder, the urban-planning consultant, for example, suggests cities might charge a fee to have curb access in high-traﬃc areas or give preference to vehicles with multiple people, such as a shuttle. Driving the rich and poor apart While some believe enhanced public transportation will provide beneﬁts for communities that have limited public transit now, others worry the technology might favor the rich. Lauren Kuby, a City Council member in Tempe, Ariz., which had seen a test ﬂeet of Uber Technologies Inc.’s self-driving vehicles, says she’s intrigued by the possible beneﬁts of the vehicles. But she fears that “AVs could encourage sprawl, especially if people own their own AVs.” In this scenario, Ms. Kuby says, “AVs could siphon oﬀ ridership from public transportation, eroding revenue, which then justiﬁes cutting service, hurting those who depend on it but who cannot aﬀord the higher cost of ride-sharing AVs.” Similarly, Richard Florida, an expert in urban planning and a professor at the University of Toronto, expects that autonomous cars will push the poor from middle suburbs out to exurbs, because the ease of using the cars will lure wealthy people to move to suburbs that haven’t seen reinvestment in more than a generation. “Self-driving cars are likely to make those [middle suburbs] more valuable and turn them from working-class areas to more upscale areas,” he says. “You’ll get a metropolitan area where more and more of the less-fortunate population is pushed out to the periphery.” There are also concerns that self-driving vehicles will cost people their jobs, such as those who currently drive taxis, Ubers or public buses. But many companies believe that humans won’t be displaced entirely soon, noting that there will be a need for people to maintain the ﬂeets and monitor them. A matter of safety Perhaps the biggest unknown for driverless vehicles—and the thing that could most delay their arrival—is safety, a renewed concern after a test vehicle by Uber was involved in a fatal crash earlier this year in Tempe. Columbus, Ohio, was picked in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Transportation as a test city for advanced transportation technology. The city planned to deploy an autonomous shuttle around an indoor-outdoor shopping complex. But it has reconsidered the route after realizing some of the current technology’s limits. The problem was that the vehicles they were looking at couldn’t go fast enough to keep up with traﬃc, and the city was concerned about the need to make a left-hand turn against traﬃc, a driving move that has proved diﬃcult for developers to implement safely, says Brandi Braun, the city’s deputy innovation oﬃcer. The program is now re-evaluating where to deploy such shuttles. Mr. Higgins is a reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau. He can be reached at tim.higgins@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'What Driverless Cars Will Bring to Cities.' 7/9/2018 How Driverless Cars Are Going to Change Cities - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-driverless-cars-are-going-to-change-cities-1530065340?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=7 5/5 College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Technology Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 More Buildings Are Going Green. Literally. - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-buildings-are-going-green-literally-1530065281?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 1/4 This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-buildings-are-going-green-literally-1530065281 Most people, when they think of “green” buildings, take that to mean structures built with energy conservation in mind. But, increasingly, buildings are becoming literally green, as cities and companies around the world embrace biophilic design—the concept of surrounding buildings with nature, even on their upper ﬂoors, and bringing the outdoors indoors by including natural elements in their interior design. Planted terraces that wrap around buildings, indoor man-made water features such as ponds and waterfalls, plantings that can cover entire interior walls, cascades of windows to maximize natural light—all are key elements of biophilic design, as are expanded views of nature itself. Aesthetics are clearly a driver of the biophilic movement, but it is also motivated by the bottom line. Biophilic design can result in signiﬁcant energy savings, and research indicates that employees in buildings designed with biophilic elements not only feel better about their workplace but perform better, too. For example, a landmark 2003 study of 100 employees in a call center of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District showed that workers who sat with views of nature handled up to 12% more calls per hour than those who had no view. Clif Bar & Co.’s state-of-the-art bakery in Twin Falls, Idaho, is in the vanguard of the movement. Its profusion of windows, skylights and tubes designed to bring sunlight deep into building interiors bathe the facility in gentle natural light. Wall-size projections of nature bring images of mountains, rivers and forests into the bakery’s core. An imposing stone interior corridor is designed to mimic the Snake River Canyon, one of the most stunning geographic features of the West. JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY More Buildings Are Going Green. Literally. ‘Biophilic’ designs incorporate elements of nature both outside and inside. It’s aesthetically pleasing— and makes people feel, and perform, better. June 26, 2018 10 08 p.m. ET By Ken Wells JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Public Art Can Be Fleeting 7/9/2018 More Buildings Are Going Green. Literally. - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-buildings-are-going-green-literally-1530065281?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 2/4 And there are plants everywhere: Low-maintenance plants decorate the light-ﬁlled common areas where workers gather, giving these indoor spaces an outdoor feel. Outdoors, a number of patios used by employees for breaks and dining are planted with or surrounded by drought- tolerant native plants, including more than 570 trees and 5,700 shrubs and grasses. The bakery also was sited to oﬀer unimpeded vistas of the nearby mountains of the Sawtooth National Forest. The idea behind the design of the $90 million, 300,000-square-foot bakery, completed in 2016, was to make it “the kind of place all of us would like to work,” says Rich Berger, vice president of engineering and food supply for the maker of organic energy bars and snacks based in Emeryville, Calif. Bill Browning, a founding partner of Terrapin Bright Green, a New York-based consulting ﬁrm focused on sustainable development, is among America’s leading biophilic experts. He has been consulting with companies including Walmart and Marriott International ’s Westin Hotels & Resorts to bring biophilic design into their building plans. Walmart teamed up with Mr. Browning as he ﬁrst began to explore how bringing elements like abundant natural light into retail workspaces could improve not only productivity but also sales. From experiences with a prototype green store that featured abundant natural light, the company began to ﬁnd that sales per square foot were signiﬁcantly higher for departments located in the daylit sections of stores than in those with artiﬁcial light, according to a joint report by Mr. Browning and the company. At Westin, “we believe people have an innate need to interact with nature,” and so the company gears all of its design with biophilic principles in mind, says George Fleck, the chain’s vice president of global brand marketing and management. He points to one of Westin’s newest properties, the ﬁve-story, 116-room Westin Buﬀalo in Buﬀalo, N.Y. The hotel incorporates A stone corridor at the Clif Bar bakery in Idaho is meant to mimic the Snake River Canyon. PHOTO: ADDISON PHOTOGRAPHY WMT 1.69%▲ MAR 1.97%▲ 7/9/2018 More Buildings Are Going Green. Literally. - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-buildings-are-going-green-literally-1530065281?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 3/4 planted walls, soaring banks of windows and exposed wooden beams into its common areas and decorates its guest rooms with carpets, walls and art suﬀused with earthy tones and replicating patterns of nature. A pivotal piece of research backing up the premise of biophilic design is a 1984 study published in the journal Science that found that a suburban Pennsylvania hospital’s gallbladder-surgery patients who had views of green space from their rooms had shorter recovery times than those who didn’t. Many other studies have since conﬁrmed such health beneﬁts. Today, the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore, completed in 2010, features vast indoor courtyards of tropical plants surrounding patient areas. Fins along the building’s exterior channel prevailing northeast winds into the building, enhancing airﬂow by 20% to 30% and reducing the need for air conditioning. Singapore is also home to one of the pioneers of biophilic design, the architectural ﬁrm WOHA, founded by Wong Mun Summ and Richard Hassell in 1994. The WOHA-designed ParkRoyal on Pickering hotel in Singapore, part of the Pan Paciﬁc Hotels Group, features almost 4 acres of lushly planted, self-sustaining terraces interlaced with waterfalls, ponds and other naturalistic features. The 367-room hotel has been largely sold out since it opened in 2013, and suites go for more than $500 a night. “It’s a project that shows that an investment in green design can translate into real proﬁt,” says Mr. Hassell. WOHA is working on 14 biophilic projects in seven countries, according to Mr. Hassell. One of them is a park and classroom cluster as part of a new campus for the Singapore Institute of Technology that will cocoon campus buildings in an urban forest. Biophilic design has earned some prestigious recognition. The dual towers of the Bosco Verticale apartment complex in Milan are clothed in staggered terraces featuring about 800 trees—enough to cover a 3-acre forest. The project won Europe’s International Highrise Award in 2014 for the continent’s most innovative building. While designing buildings with huge green spaces, green walls and terraced gardens can be challenging—using trees requires building in load capacity—some projects get around that by the choice of plants they use. At One Central Park in Sydney, hydroponic plants require no soil and minimal water to thrive, alleviating the issue of structural overloading. The mixed residential and commercial building features a series of hanging gardens that clad the exteriors of its two residential towers with more than 85,000 plants, and includes 22 interior green walls. Green walls add only modest costs to new construction, since bringing in water and drainage is no more complicated than installing the necessary plumbing. As for maintenance, “our focus 7/9/2018 More Buildings Are Going Green. Literally. - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-buildings-are-going-green-literally-1530065281?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3 4/4 has been on building walls where there is minimal plant loss and therefore a lower cost of operation over time,” says Richard Kincaid, founder of Chicago-based Sagegreenlife, which specializes in green-wall construction. In the U.S., biophilic projects are popping up across the country. Among the notable ones is a project by CookFox Architects of New York that has transformed a blocky ﬁve-story parking garage adjacent to the city’s High Line elevated green space into a light-ﬁlled, 10-story oﬃce complex that is nearing completion. With the High Line as inspiration, “the idea was to rethink the site for the biophilic workplace of the future,” says Rick Cook, a CookFox founder. “Every single ﬂoor will have access to outdoor spaces and gardens. “An outdoor garden begins on the second ﬂoor, north-face terrace and rises to connect the second-, third- and fourth-ﬂoor terraces with a wide stairway that features planting beds and integrated seating,” Mr. Cook says. “Each ﬂoor above also features a terrace in varied locations,” he says, and to top it all oﬀ, “there are rooftop gardens at the 11th and 12th ﬂoors.” Mr. Wells is a writer in Chicago. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'Green Buildings. Literally..' Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. The Bosco Verticale complex in Milan won Europe’s International Highrise Award in 2014 for the continent’s most innovative building. PHOTO: DAVIDE PIRAS STEFANO BOERI ARCHITETTI 7/9/2018 People on Higher Floors of Buildings Tend to Take More Risks - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/people-on-higher-floors-of-buildings-tend-to-take-more-risks-1530064860?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 1/3 People apparently take the idea of the heights of power literally. So says a group of researchers who found that being on the higher ﬂoors of a building tends to make people feel more powerful—which may lead them to take bigger ﬁnancial risks. “We know that people who are taller take more risks, and we have a sense that people who are risk takers gravitate toward high-elevation activities like skydiving, but I wanted to understand if the reverse is true in a controlled environment,” says Sina Esteky, an assistant professor of marketing at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University in Ohio, and the lead researcher for the recent paper published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. In one of ﬁve studies that make up the paper, Dr. Esteky looked at investment and returns data from 3,147 hedge funds, as well as elevation from street level of their oﬃces. He found that the higher the oﬃce location, the more risk the funds would take, as measured by their volatility across a one-year period. Still, he says, there was quite a bit of “noise” in the data. For example, Dr. Esteky says he didn’t totally control for factors such as the relative experience of fund managers. In the second study, a research assistant entered a glass elevator in a 73-story building with a stranger going all the way up or all the way down, and oﬀered each person a choice: invest in a safer lottery with a 50-50 chance of winning $50 or $100, or in a riskier lottery with a 50-50 chance of winning either $20 or $130. “We found that people who were going up were twice as likely to choose the riskier lottery,” Dr. Esteky says. A similar study Dr. Esteky conducted at a business school compared people on the ground ﬂoor versus the mezzanine level of the building DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.860% ▼ Crude Oil 74.06 0.35% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/people-on-higher-floors-of-buildings-tend-to-take-more-risks-1530064860 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY People on Higher Floors of Buildings Tend to Take More Risks One reason, researchers say, is that being higher up may lead people to feel more powerful The higher a hedge fund’s of ice, the more risk the fund would take, one study found. PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO GETTY IMAGES June 26, 2018 10 01 p.m. ET By Heidi Mitchell JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts See more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature 7/9/2018 People on Higher Floors of Buildings Tend to Take More Risks - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/people-on-higher-floors-of-buildings-tend-to-take-more-risks-1530064860?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 2/3 and found that being even two ﬂoors oﬀ the ground led people to take more risks. In a follow-up study, Dr. Esteky asked 260 participants in 22 states to take a picture of their views to conﬁrm their elevation and sightlines. He then oﬀered each of them $70 and asked if they wanted to keep it or bet it on an investment in which the chance of total loss was 66%. Those who had elevated views were more likely to choose the risky investment, while those in windowless spaces—regardless of which ﬂoor they were on—were more reluctant to do so. The results suggest “the elevation-risk aﬀect only works when people have a view, and it is elevated,” says Dr. Esteky. Dr. Esteky sees a few practical applications for his research, which builds on previous studies demonstrating that people associate elevation with power and that a sense of power increases risk taking. Marketers promoting ventures with perceived risk, like casinos, could use technology such as geo-tagging or location-based apps to target prospective consumers while they are at high elevations, he says. Urban planners, too, should consider elevation when determining where to put high-stakes decision makers such as judges, surgeons and ﬁnancial planners, he says. “Architects should make sure that important decisions that aﬀect people’s money, lives or futures are made in as unbiased spaces as possible,” he says. That may mean thinking twice about the top-ﬂoor executive suite with expansive views. The United Nations says that by 2030, 60% of the world’s population will live in cities—many working in skyscrapers. “If you have that many people working on the 70th ﬂoor, that is going to impact society long term,” Dr. Esteky says, adding that the aﬀect would be subtle and nuanced but ubiquitous nonetheless. “Urban planners need to be mindful of the design of these cities,” he says. Ms. Mitchell is a writer in Chicago. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'Going Up? So Might Your Risk.' College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Technology T 7/9/2018 People on Higher Floors of Buildings Tend to Take More Risks - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/people-on-higher-floors-of-buildings-tend-to-take-more-risks-1530064860?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 3/3 Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 Public Art Isn’t Always Meant to Be Permanent - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-art-isnt-always-meant-to-be-permanent-1530065040?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2 1/4 In late February, the canal waterfront of Scottsdale, Ariz., was brightened by “Desert Sun,” an illuminated sculptural piece, and a colorful set of giant tops with seating for those who wanted to spin. By the end of April, both artworks had been taken away. When it comes to public displays of art, many cities are deciding that shorter is better. Some cities are ﬁnding that temporary contracts—renting an artist’s work instead of buying it—make it possible to cut costs, compared with the expense of purchasing and maintaining, say, a statue for permanent display. Short-term agreements can also help avoid controversy that modern art sometimes inspires. Experts say there tends to be less opposition when community members know an unconventional work will be up for only a short time. From a purely aesthetic viewpoint, installing and replacing public art on a regular, short-term basis can also keep a city looking new. “We don’t want everything up for 25 years,” says Kim Curry-Evans, director of the nonproﬁt Scottsdale Public Art, which put up “Desert Sun” and the spinning tops as part of its temporary-art program. Another work, Lee Yun Qin’s installation “Moonﬂower,” which consists of ﬂower sculptures that glow as the evening sets in, was up for just four days in 2017. The amount of money cities pay artists varies widely. But whatever the amount, cities and artists say they both beneﬁt from the short-term programs. The city of Evanston, Ill, for instance, has a program in which artists lend large-scale pieces for display on city-owned sites for two years. DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.860% ▼ Crude Oil 74.07 0.37% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-art-isnt-always-meant-to-be-permanent-1530065040 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY Public Art Isn’t Always Meant to Be Permanent Cities can save money—and limit controversy—by commissioning works to be on display for a short time A temporary-art program in Scottsdale, Ariz., recently displayed “Desert Sun” there for about two months. PHOTO: SEAN DECKERT June 26, 2018 10 04 p.m. ET By Daniel Grant JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature 7/9/2018 Public Art Isn’t Always Meant to Be Permanent - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-art-isnt-always-meant-to-be-permanent-1530065040?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2 2/4 The artists are paid $2,000 a year, and sometimes the city helps pay to transport artwork from their studios to the outdoor sites. That “economically makes sense,” says Jennifer Lacik, cultural-aﬀairs coordinator in the city manager’s oﬃce. “We get a really good deal getting these beautiful pieces for 24 months,” and the artists get what amounts to a two-year exhibition. Sculptor Janet Austin of Evanston has lent pieces to art-loan programs in Evanston, Chicago, Skokie, Ill., and Michigan City, Ind. Between 2014 and 2018, she says she received about $22,000 from the various programs. “These programs have been great for me,” Ms. Austin says. “It isn’t diﬃcult for people who might want to commission me to see my work, and it proves that my work is suitable for the outdoors.” Ms. Curry-Evans of Scottsdale says purchase prices for a permanent public art piece might be anywhere from $30,000 to well over $1 million. In addition, Scottsdale allocates $140,000 a year to maintaining its permanent public art projects, numbering more than 100 to date. Most of the temporary artworks, which artists are lending to the city for periods ranging from a few days to months, cost between $10,000 and $40,000, Ms. Curry-Evans says. Some programs keep costs down by declining to cover liability-insurance costs. The city of Santa Fe, N.M., doesn’t extend coverage to items it doesn’t own, so artists lending their work there must pay for their own. If there is damage, the artists also are responsible for repairs. “We’ve had a few, limited instances of damage, mostly graﬃti that was easy for the artists to remove,” says Debra Garcia y Griego, director of the city’s Arts Commission. “There was one instance of vandalism where someone really went at a metal sculpture, but the artist repaired it and put it back on display.” Replacing art faster can also be a shot in the arm for businesses in the area. Indeed, each new unveiling becomes an event that can draw people to a city’s downtown or a little-used public space. Often, these are interactive, engaging pieces of art that get people talking or lend themselves to being shared on social media. “You want to create a sense of urgency, which wouldn’t really be practical with a work of permanent public art,” says Kate Levin, director of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, which supports temporary art projects that address civic issues. Most of the projects receiving Bloomberg grants last between one month and two years. The Public Art Fund in New York installed “Wind Sculpture” in Central Park in March. It will be gone by November. PHOTO: NY PUBLIC ART FUND 7/9/2018 Public Art Isn’t Always Meant to Be Permanent - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-art-isnt-always-meant-to-be-permanent-1530065040?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2 3/4 “Tw o year s is the right lengt h of atten tion span for a com plica ted project,” Ms. Levin says. Bloomberg has helped fund artworks on such issues as police- community relations in Spartanburg, S.C., and property abandonment in Albany, Schenectady and Troy, N.Y., where artists illuminated windows from the insides of vacant buildings, which were not open to the public, to spark discussion about renovations. Help from other private foundations is available as well. The Oakland-based Kenneth Rainin Foundation supports temporary public art in San Francisco and Oakland. “Temporary art projects are able to be more ‘experimental,’ because they don’t last very long,” says the foundation’s director of art strategy and ventures, Shelley Trott. “Permanent public art projects tend to be more conservative.” Others agree that temporary works draw less controversy. “People aren’t thinking that they are going to have to put up with something they don’t like forever,” says Lillian Hsu, director of public art for the Cambridge, Mass., Arts Council, which sponsors both long-term and temporary art installations. (“We don’t say ‘permanent,’ because nothing lasts forever,” she says.) Similarly, temporary art typically comes without the often lengthy approval process that long- term installations require. With a permanent work, “the approval process is drawn out, as you have to solicit opinions from one group after another and make changes based on those opinions,” says Nicholas Baume, director and chief curator for the nonproﬁt New York-based Public Art Fund. “What you end up with is art by committee, which is dangerous for art.” Keeping the time frame short allows the New York fund to “work with more artists and more emerging artists,” Mr. Baume says. “We can take more risks.” The fund uses a variety of sites around the city’s ﬁve boroughs. In March, it installed a colorful, 23-foot-tall sculpture at the southeast corner of Central Park, called “Wind Sculpture.” The piece resembles blowing fabric, and will be gone by the end of October. Mr. Grant is a writer in Amherst, Mass. Email him at reports@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'Public Art Isn’t Always Meant to Stay Very Long.' College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Spinning tops big enough to sit in were on display for about two months recently in Scottsdale. PHOTO: SEAN DECKERT 7/9/2018 Public Art Isn’t Always Meant to Be Permanent - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-art-isnt-always-meant-to-be-permanent-1530065040?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2 4/4 Technology Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 Sweden May Hold the Secret to Reducing Traffic Deaths - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-may-hold-the-secret-to-reducing-traffic-deaths-1530064920?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2 1/3 Traﬃc fatalities remain stubbornly high in the U.S., fueled by distracted and drunken driving, more miles being driven and a spike in pedestrian deaths. How can the U.S. get those numbers down? The answers may be found in Sweden. In that country’s two biggest cities—Stockholm and Gothenburg—fatalities have remained essentially ﬂat over the past ﬁve years even as road use has steadily risen. The rate of people severely injured or killed in traﬃc accidents nationwide has tumbled by about two-thirds since oﬃcials there started rethinking the problem two decades ago. Anders Lie, a traﬃc specialist at the Swedish Transport Administration, says his country has managed to make its roads safer through its unconventional approach to traﬃc oversight: focusing less on reducing crashes and more on reducing fatalities. “People will make errors and mistakes all the time,” Mr. Lie says. Thus, he says, traﬃc laws and infrastructure need to be designed with those errors in mind. For example, in the U.S., people often walk or bike alongside cars legally traveling 45 miles an hour, Mr. Lie says. A better speed limit in such zones would be 25 mph, he says, citing research published by the Swedish Transport Administration in conjunction with the European New Car Assessment Program, an association of governments and consumer and motoring groups that tests vehicles and sets crash standards. DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.860% ▼ Crude Oil 74.08 0.38% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-may-hold-the-secret-to-reducing-traffic-deaths-1530064920 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY Sweden May Hold the Secret to Reducing Traﬃc Deaths Country focuses more on reducing fatalities than on reducing accidents Sweden uses simple methods like roundabouts and guardrails to reduce traf ic deaths and serious injuries. PHOTO: VISIONZEROINITIATIVE.COM June 26, 2018 10 02 p.m. ET By John D. Stoll JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature 7/9/2018 Sweden May Hold the Secret to Reducing Traffic Deaths - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-may-hold-the-secret-to-reducing-traffic-deaths-1530064920?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2 2/3 The risk of a pedestrian being killed by a vehicle traveling 18 to 25 mph is “very very small,” he says, citing the same research. Speeds in that range are acceptable for residential areas, he says. But city traﬃc, he says, should be capped at 30 mph, and freeway traﬃc at 50 mph. Various states or cities in the U.S. have plans to upgrade roads or enact laws to address road-safety problems. The National Highway Traﬃc Safety Administration informed Congress last month it has initiated a study on car crashes. The Swedish government, meanwhile, has set a long-term goal of zero fatalities and a target of 220 fatalities by 2020, or a 13% reduction from 2017’s 253 fatalities. That would mean less than one death a day, down from more than two a day in 1990. Many strategies being deployed in Sweden are simple but grounded in science: lower speed limits, tougher drunken-driving laws, a more-rigorous approach to driver’s education. Redesigning roads can be more eﬀective than attempting to change driver behavior, oﬃcials have found. Sweden has invested heavily in installing guardrails, which reduce the potential for head-on collisions, and roundabouts, which eliminate accidents typical of crossroad-type intersections. Mr. Lie says that on wide roads where median guardrails have been added, and where previously nothing divided the opposing lanes, fatalities have plunged 80%. Sweden also puts pressure on manufacturers to act in the social good by making cars with top-notch safety systems. These include such features as automatic braking, which senses an object ahead and brakes even if the driver doesn’t, and lane-keeping assist, which reads the lines on the road and prevents the car from weaving over them by controlling steering. These capabilities don’t always prevent mistakes, but they go a long way in mitigating their impact. One of the biggest causes of mistakes, in Sweden and elsewhere, is also one of the most diﬃcult to ﬁx. Sweden only recently banned the use of hand-held mobile phones in cars, requiring drivers to talk on a hands-free connection. This is seen as a Band-Aid for distracted driving, though. Mr. Lie doesn’t expect a signiﬁcant impact on fatalities. Similarly, regulatory eﬀorts and technological advances around the world appear to have accomplished little to reduce accidents due to distracted driving. Additional safety questions will no doubt arise with the increasing number of driverless cars predicted for the future, though many hope that autonomous cars will be safer and less mistake-prone than human-driven cars. For now, Mr. Lie says, oﬃcials need to consider the costs of making human-dominated roads as safe as possible. “You have to calculate whether we are prepared to sacriﬁce so much that we would have to invest to eliminate crashes today,” he says. “If you want to go to zero accidents, your sacriﬁces would have to be very, very big.” Mr. Stoll is a Wall Street Journal reporter in Detroit and writes the Full Disclosure column. Email him at john.stoll@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'To Reduce Traﬃc Deaths, Look to Sweden.' College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Technology T 7/9/2018 Sweden May Hold the Secret to Reducing Traffic Deaths - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/sweden-may-hold-the-secret-to-reducing-traffic-deaths-1530064920?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2 3/3 Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 There Are Park Benches. And Then There Are Smart Park Benches. - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-are-park-benches-and-then-there-are-smart-park-benches-1530064801?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 1/2 SYDNEY—The bench in your local park may soon know that you’re sitting on it. “Smart” benches are popping up in cities and suburbs around the world. In a Sydney suburb, a town is about to install park benches and tables with sensors that track when and how often residents are using them. Town oﬃcials say the data will tell them whether a bench or table isn’t being used, or is broken, thus helping them redesign public spaces and speed up repairs. The nearly $500,000 trial, funded in part by an Australian government grant, is one of many projects in diﬀerent countries deploying smart furniture in parks and public spaces. A U.S.-based company, Changing Environments Inc., oﬀers a solar-powered bench that comes with phone chargers and sensors that measure nearby activity. A British company, Strawberry Energy, has installed similar benches around London. Future cities will use sensors on everything from parking spaces to water meters to “crunch numbers on big items like utility consumption, traﬃc, public transport, power use,” says Christian Tietz, senior lecturer in industrial design at the University of New South Wales, and co-leader of the Sydney suburb trial. “We don’t want to look at the big stuﬀ. We want to look at microenvironments.” In the past, to measure how many people use a particular area of a park, oﬃcials have typically relied on surveys or dispatched observers—methods that are time-consuming and expensive. DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.859% ▼ Crude Oil 74.08 0.38% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-are-park-benches-and-then-there-are-smart-park-benches-1530064801 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY There Are Park Benches. And Then There Are Smart Park Benches. Data transmitted by sensors in benches and tables are just the beginning of local-government plans to better manage public spaces A test of smart park furnishings near Sydney will include a bench that o ers phone charging and power outlets. PHOTO: STREET FURNITURE AUSTRALIA June 26, 2018 10 00 p.m. ET By Mike Cherney JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature 7/9/2018 There Are Park Benches. And Then There Are Smart Park Benches. - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-are-park-benches-and-then-there-are-smart-park-benches-1530064801?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 2/2 In contrast, the sensors will use mobile networks to automatically send data to park managers in real time. The Sydney suburb’s local government, the Georges River Council, will test two types of sensors supplied by a private company, Street Furniture Australia: One type of sensor will count foot traﬃc using Wi-Fi to determine how many devices are in the area; the other will measure vibrations on a bench caused when someone sits on it or moves it. Both methods have their advantages. Counting devices in an area will miss children or anyone else not carrying a smartphone or tablet. But the vibration sensor, aﬃxed under a bench, will register not just if someone sits on it but also if a heavy bag is set down on it. Researchers plan to gather data for six months. Other items in the trial include internet-connected trash bins, which will signal when they are full and if there is a ﬁre inside, and a bench and table that will include phone-charging and power outlets. “It’s about making public spaces more enjoyable for people and communities,” says June Lee Boxsell, design and marketing manager at Street Furniture Australia. “You could have an outdoor meeting room where business people come out of their oﬃces and have a chat,” she says. Kevin Greene, mayor of the municipality, says the local government has a general idea of how many people use its public spaces, but it’s “based on anecdotal evidence rather than good statistical data.” Mr. Greene says he would like to use the technology in other public areas when this trial is complete. He says the data collected won’t identify individuals, just raw numbers, so residents shouldn’t be concerned about privacy. “It doesn’t matter if it’s me, you or Billy Bob sitting on the seat,” he says. “There’s no private details involved in this.” Mr. Cherney is a Wall Street Journal reporter in Sydney. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition. College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership Retirement Small Business Technology Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. 7/9/2018 What Makes Walkable Communities Work - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-makes-walkable-communities-work-1530065220?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 1/5 The walkable movement has picked up its pace. Since construction began on Seaside, Fla., and other communities in the 1980s, developers have built hundreds of towns where residents can live, play and sometimes work without pulling their cars out of the garage. Many destinations that matter to residents—stores, parks, schools, restaurants and churches—are within a ﬁve-minute walk. Many new developments are stand-alone, like the ﬁrst wave of walkable projects. But planners have also been using the same principles in recent years to help reinvigorate an estimated 750 aging suburbs or dying shopping centers, according to Ellen Dunham-Jones, co-author of the book “Retroﬁtting Suburbia.” Pulling oﬀ these communities is far trickier than a stand- alone development. For instance, municipalities often have to rewrite their building codes to permit the blend of uses essential for walkable communities. In the meantime, architects, developers and city planners have learned a lot about what works and doesn’t work when it comes to creating walkable communities—whether stand-alone or not. Here’s some of what they have learned. Keep Pedestrians Safe This may sound obvious. But consider that in most conventional subdivisions, traﬃc engineers aim to create road systems that quickly move cars out of the neighborhood. DOW JONES, A NEWS CORP COMPANY DJIA 24776.59 1.31% ▲ S&P 500 2784.17 0.88% ▲ Nasdaq 7756.20 0.88% ▲ U.S. 10 Yr -10 32 Yield 2.860% ▼ Crude Oil 74.07 0.37% ▲ This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-makes-walkable-communities-work-1530065220 JOURNAL REPORTS: TECHNOLOGY What Makes Walkable Communities Work For new towns, old suburbs and central cities, lessons include slowing traf ic, making walking interesting and creating dense neighborhoods Carlton Landing in Oklahoma aims to follow the model of pedestrian-friendly streets and dense, mixed-use development. PHOTO: CARLTON LANDING June 26, 2018 10 07 p.m. ET By Neal Templin JOURNAL REPORT Insights from The Experts Read more at WSJ.com/journalreporttech MORE IN THE FUTURE OF CITIES Driverless Cars’ Impact on Cities The Big Potential of Tiny Houses AI Aids Natural-Disaster Response Buildings Meld With Nature 7/9/2018 What Makes Walkable Communities Work - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-makes-walkable-communities-work-1530065220?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 2/5 By contras t, town planner Susan Hender son, of Albuquerque, N.M., wants to slow down traﬃc speeds so that streets become safer and more walkable. “I want it safe for the kids to play in the street,” says Ms. Henderson, who has planned communities including The Waters, located near Montgomery, Ala. Ms. Henderson designs streets as “skinny” as possible so that drivers aren’t comfortable going over 15 miles an hour, and pedestrians are more at ease walking near traﬃc. She doesn’t use speed bumps, saying that they aren’t necessary in such properly designed streets. Ideally, Ms. Henderson says, streets in walkable communities are kept to a mere 32 feet across —compared with 38 to 40 feet for a typical suburban road. Main streets with retail shops are tougher to gauge simply by width. These streets can be as wide as comparable suburban thoroughfares, but they are redesigned to make them more pedestrian-friendly, such as putting parking lanes on the sides or maybe grassy medians down the middle. Another common tactic to make walkers feel more comfortable around traﬃc: trees that separate the sidewalk from the street. Block length must also be ﬁnely calibrated to encourage walking. If blocks are longer than 300 feet—about the length of a Manhattan block—Ms. Henderson says, pedestrians have trouble taking an eﬃcient, direct route to destinations. Make Walking Interesting Every building in a walkable community should have “a gift to the street”—that is, something that captures a walker’s attention, says Miami-based urban planner Steve Mouzon. For houses, the gift can be as simple as a ﬂower garden or a bench in the front for walkers. For commercial buildings, it might be an interesting window display. The village of Providence in Huntsville, Ala., where Mr. Mouzon is the town architect, encourages builders to use gates that are set back 3 or 4 feet from fences around homes to give a more welcoming feel, and create variety in the architecture. Another town where Mr. Mouzon is the architect—Beachtown, near Galveston, Texas—takes a diﬀerent approach. The homes are built on stilts because hurricanes scour the area, so when In Seaside, Fla., narrow streets keep traf ic speeds down, and short blocks encourage residents to walk. PHOTO: DPZ Homes elevated to weather hurricanes in Beachtown, near Galveston, Texas, have front porches set back so that people on the street can talk to people above. PHOTO: BEACHTOWN 7/9/2018 What Makes Walkable Communities Work - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-makes-walkable-communities-work-1530065220?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 3/5 homes have fences the town encourages builders to construct arbors over the gates. The goal is to ﬁll space between the houses—which are as high as 16 or 17 feet in the air—so that the buildings ﬁt together pleasingly, and thus encourage walking. (The fences themselves are gentle on the eyes; they can be only 40 inches high and most are picket or rail design.) In addition, there were fears that the home height would cut the connection between occupants and those passing by. So, the developer required all homes to have front porches that were set back the right distance so that people on the street could talk to people above without straining their neck, says Beachtown founder Toﬁgh Shirazi. Resident Sally Greer says that she and her husband were sitting on the porch the other day when a neighbor walked by. “He heard our voices and came over, and we chatted for a while,” she says. Give People Places to Go Every block in Seaside is designe d to give the walker a destinat ion within sight. Many of the streets end in pavilions leading to the beach, and the town nestles around a central square with bustling restaurants, a grocery store and other commercial uses. Of course, such commercial destinations can’t spring up from the outset. Rather, the gestation period can be decades, as villages build up a critical mass of residents to support retailers. Carlton Landing in Oklahoma plans to have 3,000 homes but will take 30 years to complete. For now, it has 180 completed homes—enough to support a small pizza restaurant, two food trucks, plus 10 pop-up shops that open on weekends. “We see retailing as something you have to incubate,” says town founder Grant Humphreys. Architect Andrés Martin Duany, who designed both Seaside and Carlton Landing, says that it takes around 25 years before walkable communities are “hitting on all cylinders.” Pack a Lot In Higher population density is key for making neighborhoods vibrant, says urban planner Jeﬀ Speck, author of the book “Walkable City.” The real payoﬀ comes when neighborhoods have at least 10 housing units per acre, Mr. Speck says. Seaside is full of destinations for people on foot, including this public space where food vendors gather. PHOTO: DPZ Beachtown and other walkable communities have much greater housing density than most suburbs, enabling them to support retailers within walking distance of residents. PHOTO: BEACHTOWN 7/9/2018 What Makes Walkable Communities Work - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-makes-walkable-communities-work-1530065220?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 4/5 That’s the level needed to sustain street retail, which means residents can walk rather than drive to shop or dine. Residents in such neighborhoods cut their driving roughly in half from typical suburbia, he says. Mr. Speck is now working on Water Street Tampa, a $3 billion, 53-acre walkable development near the hockey arena in downtown Tampa, Fla. The developer plans to build 3,500 additional apartments and condominiums, 2 million square feet of new oﬃce space, plus restaurants and hotels. The project also has wide sidewalks and shade trees intended to encourage walkers. “Our hope is you accomplish everything you want to do in a day without getting in a car,” says James Nozar, chief executive oﬃcer of Strategic Property Partners, the developer. Want Scale? Add Transit Cities and urban planners are turning their focus from walkable neighborhoods to walkable cities. But they’re learning that for the idea to work, they must build in links to mass transit—or else people will eventually need cars to get around. Southern California adopted a plan in 2016 that includes $550 billion in mass-transit spending through 2040 while subsidizing high-density developments. The hope is to create communities that use walking and biking for short commutes and mass transit for longer ones, says Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments. Two-thirds of car trips there are less than 3 miles, Mr. Ikhrata says. “That tells me if you have good facilities to walk and bike, a lot of those trips will be done with walking and biking,” he says. Farther north, urban planner Peter Calthorpe has proposed a similar approach for the 45-mile stretch of El Camino Real highway between Daly City and San Jose. He says the historic highway is currently an unsightly parade of strip malls. Mr. Calthorpe believes that it can be transformed into walkable communities with retail at ground level and apartments above. Residents would commute to jobs on light rail or a high-speed bus lane. Mr. Templin is a writer in New Jersey. Email him at reports@wsj.com. Appeared in the June 27, 2018, print edition as 'Paths to Success for Walkable Communities.' College Rankings College Rankings Highlights Energy Funds/ETFs Health Care Leadership A rendering of the kind of development planners hope to achieve along the Metro Blue Line in Long Beach, Calif., as part of a regional push toward higher-density, transit-oriented communities. PHOTO: FREGONESE ASSOCIATES 7/9/2018 What Makes Walkable Communities Work - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-makes-walkable-communities-work-1530065220?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 5/5 Retirement Small Business Technology Wealth Management Copyright ©2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.