The Rise of Innovation Districts: A New Geography of Innovation in America

As the United States slowly emerges from the great recession, a remarkable shify is occurring in the spatial geogrpahy of innovation. For the past 50 years, the landscape of innovation has been dominated by places like Silicon Valley - suburban corridors of spatially isolated corporate campuses, accessible only by car, with little emphasis on the quality of life or on integrating work, housing, and recreation. A new complementary urban model is now emerging, giving rise to what we and others are calling "innovation districts." These districts, by our definition, are geographic areas where leading-edge anchor institutions and companies cluster and connect with start-ups, business incubators, and accelerators. They are also physically compact, transit-accessible, and technicall

Supporting Big Data at the Vehicular Edge

Vehicular networks are commonplace, and many applications have been developed to utilize their sensor and computing resources. This is a great utilization of these resources as long as they are mobile. The question to ask is whether these resources could be put to use when the vehicle is not mobile. If the vehicle is parked, the resources are simply dormant and waiting for use. If the vehicle has a connection to a larger computing infrastructure, then it can put its resources towards that infrastructure. With enough vehicles interconnected, there exists a computing environment that could handle many cloud-based application services. If these vehicles were electric, then they could in return receive electrical charging services. This Thesis will develop a simple vehicle datacenter solution based upon Smart Vehicles in a parking lot. While previous work has developed similar models based upon the idea of migration of jobs due to residency of the vehicles, this model will assume that residency times cannot be predicted and therefore no migration is utilized. In order to offset the migration of jobs, a divide-and-conquer approach is created. This uses a MapReduce process to divide the job into numerous sub-jobs and process the subtask in parallel. Finally, a checkpoint will be used between the Map and Reduce phase to avoid loss of intermediate data. This will serve as a means to test the practicality of the model and create a baseline for comparison with future research

The correlation between telecommunications and economic development: The essential connection

Much has been written, discussed, debated, advertised and hypothesized about the knowledge-based economy, the need for speed and the effect of the internet on the economy in general. This overwhelming information exchange and speed of change has had a profound effect on the economic development mandate at a variety of levels in the public and private sector. This paper examines the synergies between economic development and telecommunications in rural and urban environments, concluding that in rural settings its impact on economic development has the potential to create significant benefits.Keywords: telecommunications, economic development, knowledge-based econom

Urban geography of digital networks

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation examines the development of digital network infrastructure in the world's great cities at the turn of the 20th century. Drawing upon the concept of cities as information systems and techniques of communications geography, it analyzes how the physical components of digital networks were deployed in major urban areas during the 1990s. It finds that historical processes and pre-existing differences between places shaped the evolution of this infrastructure at multiple spatial scales; global, metropolitan, and neighborhood. As a result, rather than bringing about the "death of distance", digital network infrastructure actually reinforced many of the pre-existing differences between connected and disconnected places. With the telecom bust of 2000-2002, these differences were likely to persist for a decade or more. Yet just as the development of wired digital network infrastructure slowed, wireless technologies emerged as a more flexible, intuitive, and efficient form of connecting users to networks in everyday urban settings. As a result, an untethered model for digital networks emerged which combining the capacity and security of wired networks over long distances with the flexibility and mobility of wireless networks over short distances. This new hybrid infrastructure provided the technology needed to begin widespread experimentation with the creation of digitally mediated spaces, such as New York City's Bryant Park Wireless Network.by Anthony M. Townsend.Ph.D

Urban form and planning in the information age: Lessons from literature

This paper focuses on the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICT) and urban form, and on urban planning response to spatial and economic consequences of ICT. It starts with literature-based review of how urban environments in the United States change with technological advances and explanations of the relationship between ICT and urban form. The paper also includes a discussion of the manner in which ICT impact is handled by urban planning. The literature review points to insufficient attention to the dynamics between ICT and urban planning and increasing gap between physical and economic development implications of ICT. It is the role of urban planners to balance the consideration of the physical and economic aspects against the prospects and opportunities offered by ICT.

Autonomous Vehicles: State of the Technology and Potential Role as a Climate Solution

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are an emerging technology in surface transportation with tremendous potential to change the way individuals and communities interact with the built environment. The widespread use of AVs could also have a substantial impact on greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, which is responsible for the largest share of emissions in the United States at 28 percent. The vast majority of those transportation emissions—82 percent—are from cars and trucks, many of which could be replaced with AVs. A recent study suggests that half of new vehicles could be autonomous by 2050, and half of the entire vehicle fleet by the 2060s. Another, related key trend in transportation is electrification: more than half of all new passenger vehicles will be electric by 2040, according to a BloombergNEF study, and most AVs are expected to be electric. Whether AVs increase or reduce greenhouse gas emissions could help make or break efforts at keeping climate change in check. This issue brief reviews the projected environmental impacts of AVs, the benefits AVs could provide as a form of mass transit, and an overview of AV development, testing, and policies in the United States as well as internationally

Volume 69 - Issue 6 - March, 1958

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