Weekly: Jan 17–23

5 min readJan 22, 2022

Thanks for coming back to the latest edition of Weekly for Jan 17-Jan23. This week, we’ll look at what Philip’s Curve is , Overview on Smart Cities, a Motivational quote, Thinking pattern on persisting with a project.

If you have missed my previous weekly readings, do check it out here! For all my blogs, visit my page. With that said, let’s dive in!

Economics

In the past weeks, we touched upon some terminology like GDP per Capita, Gini Index for Inequality , Consumer Price Index (CPI). This week let’s look at Philip’s Curve. My goal here is to build my understanding of basic terminology before tying them together.

In 1950s, William Philips ( who) noticed a correlation between unemployment and inflation.

Sal Khan of Khan Academy did a great job of explaining the fundamentals of Philips Curve by touching it’s exceptions.

Low Unemployment leads to higher productivity in the economy because the labor utilization is higher.
This results in Companies have to pay higher to retain talent.
Higher the wages results in higher the buying power
Higher the buying power, higher the demand for goods
Higher the demand for good, higher the prices and increased production
Higher the production, Companies need to retain talent and this is done by raising the wages leading to a full cycle.
High unemployment leads to lower buying power in the economy.
Lower buying power -> Lower demand for goods
Lower demand for goods -> Lower Production
Lower production -> higher unemployment
Higher unemployment -> lower buying power.

There are a few exceptions to Philips curve. This is not a law but purely an observation using curve fitting.

Stagflation: Higher Inflation and Higher Unemployment. This occurred in 1970 where there was a supply shock in Oil.
Manufacturing industries have faced higher production costs and overall higher cost of living.
This inhibited the demand for products

Motivation

“A year from now you will wish you had started today.” — Karen Lamb

Thinking

I’ve been a starter for a major part of my life but always struggled to see my passion projects through till the end. Well, by end I mean to see it take any form or shape. Upon spending a good amount of time, I realized I was not keeping my projects due to diminishing belief and not being able to nurture my interest.

I’ve made 2 changes since:

Anything that can be built in a day, can be broken in a day. So it’s important to be consistent in my efforts towards something.
And that consistency should happen for a good amount of time. In my mind, 1 year is a lot of time to get good at something. It then becomes hard to pivot or stop doing it.

Smart Cities Overview

Cities become smart when the vast amounts of data generated by the cities are put to work to make better decisions & improve the quality of life.

Data Sources & Connectivity : Smartphones and sensors across the city acquire a lot of raw data, that can be safely secured into a repository ( like a datacenter / server)
Engineers and Software Developers translate this raw data into meaningful data by sorting the data based on functionality [ Traffic, Air Pollution etc] and then cleaning it to remove dirty data.
Sharing meaningful insights with the Cities, Companies and People to be widely adopted.

Quality of Life Metrics to address

Safety

Policing : Crime can be reduced by effectively deploying scarce resources. Predictive policing is an upside with data. However, it has to be deployed in a way that avoids criminalizing specific demographic groups or race.
Emergency response: Traffic patterns are more predictable helping emergency vehicles maneuver without obstructions. This can save a lot of lives.

Time and Convenience

Traffic Pattern live updates
Public-transit apps & ease of use
Future tech like e-scooters, e-taxis etc.
Environment/ Air Quality
Air quality tracking
Essentials like Power, Water and Waste Management while ensuring preparedness for environmental uncertainties.

Jobs

Cities are huge. A portal/platform that connects a city dweller to opportunities in close proximity. This provides equal opportunities to everyone.

Dataflow

Connecting the city dwellers to public or local governments with transparency.
Proper channels to direct public problems through right channels and a scorecard tracking the progress.

Health

Ease of finding affordable healthcare
Ease of providing public-health interventions like Covid vaccines

What’s the situation around the world?

The Smart City Index is compiled by the Smart City Observatory to offer a balanced take on the economic and technological aspects of Smart Cities and more humane dimensions of urban living, such as quality of life and inclusiveness.
The most advanced are Singapore, Zurich and Oslo — but even these front-runners are only about two-thirds of the way toward what constitutes a fully comprehensive technology base today.
The report ranks 118 cities around the world based on citizens’ perceptions of how technology can improve their lives, in addition to economic and social data extracted from the United Nations Human Development Index.

In the US, New York ranks highest ( 12th in the world).
2022 seems to be a promising year due to the convergence of network, autonomy, electrification, private companies working on smart solutions and awareness.
The recently passed Infrastructure Bill contains $500 million in grants that cities around the country can apply for to pursue their own smart-city efforts, from building out autonomous and connected vehicles infrastructure to kickstarting smart-grid projects.
65B$ in that bill has been allocated to improve the broadband connectivity in under-served and poorly connected areas
100M$ budgeted for Transportation Secretary out of which 40% goes to large communities and 30% each goes to midsize and rural communities to build infrastrucuture.

Ownership

City doesn’t have to be the sole funder or operator of all services and infrastructure system. But it is important to have clear understanding of what the resources are in terms of funding, a roadmap to execute.
Ownership of infrastructure that has to be offered by the government solely falls on the government. Meaning setting up Metro/Subway etc. However, these can be built in public-private partnerships.
Adding more parties into the mix is good as it increases adoption, while applying creativity to the data available.

Data Privacy

Huge amounts of pulbic data will be generated. This needs proper handling in terms of privacy.
Regulations around what data is proprietary and what can be open-sourced without being able to trace the data back to an individual is key. Data Infrastructure must be build keeping in mind the data sources, data recipients and privacy.
The ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, privacy advocates, expressed concern in August that expanding smart-city projects could lead to greater surveillance without more explicit privacy protections.
Early smart-city projects, like Sidewalk Toronto or Sidewalk Labs’ spin-off company Replica’s work in Portland, Oregon, were hyper-focused on flashy technologies — like creating autonomous delivery carts or city-wide transportation prediction models — and paid less attention to the needs of city residents. Both projects folded in 2021 after reported fights about transparency