This is a great writeup, Jeff! Posts like this make me wish that Substack had some kind of "keep forever" button I could use to save this for future reference (stronger than just "like"). Cheers!
Why are you so bullish on flying transport in the cities?
It seems to me that high speed rail between city railway station and the airport is an already existing solution with a very similar speed (especially if future option of maglev trains is considered), more compact and versatile infrastructure. By that I mean that it should be easy to get to the railway station and from that point on you can use high speed rail. One train takes in hundreds of people (maybe even more than a thousand if it's a longer train or double decker) and you can have many of them running at the same time. While for vertical take-off you'd need to build many platforms in the city, then there would be a lot of them in the air, which people on the ground won't like, and finally in the airport you'd have to run a secondary set of flight infrastructure and coordinate them to come in similar fashion to busses, one after another. But unlike busses they need a lot of spacious infrastructure.
Anyway, my point is, trains seem to be getting the job done. Especially faster ones on electromagnetic propulsion that Japan is now trying to make commercially available on longer routes.
Also, would be nice if you were to write a piece more focused on technologies that will transform the cities in the foreseeable future
It's a good call-out. I'm more cautiously optimistic about eVTOLS (esp eVTOLS versus rail) than I probably sounded in this post.
On a purely policy/technical level, you're 100% right that existing rail technology is a superior transit method. Where that might not matter is if eVTOLs get better technologically and enjoy a regulatory relative advantage.
That might look something like...
On the tech side:
- carrying capacity has improved to the point that eVTOL is something like a passenger van or better
- downtown parking garages get repurposed with landing pads on top (setting them up as multi-modal transit hubs); idea being that setting up some level of landing pad infra isn't /that/astronomically expensive.
On the regulatory side (in the U.S. context):
- ground-based transit continues to have problems acquiring right of way (ex: it took years to just get political consensus on for a rapid bus lane on one major artery in San Francisco)
- the U.S. continues to be especially bad at major infrastructure (as documented by the transit costs project)
- eVTOLs benefit from having one regulatory authority (the FAA) that sets the rules and needs infra only in the form of "stations", no property acquisition or infra development along a right of way.
Any of that could be wrong, but a lot of it may end up being right.
This sounds reasonable. I'm not very optimistic on this tech, but I agree that there is potential as long as the vehicles can be built cheaply enough. Especially in the context of US. I can only imagine very specific countryside applications in EU, where there is enough population wanting to commute to the major city to justify a flight once or twice a day, which is better than a car or bus, but not enough people to have a railway. I know much less of US context to judge it, though I imagine FAA will have a lot to say about safety. But economics will ultimately decide if this tech becomes impactful.
We will see which stance is closer to reality in the coming 15-20 years
- I think that ROW acquisition (specifically, not having to do it) is the single biggest reason eVTOL may be transformative.
- The second reason is that the majority of America is already so decentralized that any decentralized technology has an advantage over a centralized one -- a single train line isn't that much use, to reach European levels of rail convenience we need to build entire *networks,* and that's just inherently hard. But given eVTOL can go anywhere we only have to build a network of stations, not a network of stations and lines.
It's correct to be skeptical, none of this is proven. But the technology is real, and the concept is compelling, so I feel certain that we'll see it get tested in the real world -- that's exciting!
As you alluded, as the population rises, the inputs required sustain that population scale sublinearly (electrical lines, sewers, roads, gas stations) while the outputs (GDP, patents, income) scale superlinearly.
This is a great writeup, Jeff! Posts like this make me wish that Substack had some kind of "keep forever" button I could use to save this for future reference (stronger than just "like"). Cheers!
Use the Reader app—best way to keep anything you like from anywhere is one place!
This was a great read! I liked how you pulled together examples of technology from throughout history that have made possible more vibrant cities.
Why are you so bullish on flying transport in the cities?
It seems to me that high speed rail between city railway station and the airport is an already existing solution with a very similar speed (especially if future option of maglev trains is considered), more compact and versatile infrastructure. By that I mean that it should be easy to get to the railway station and from that point on you can use high speed rail. One train takes in hundreds of people (maybe even more than a thousand if it's a longer train or double decker) and you can have many of them running at the same time. While for vertical take-off you'd need to build many platforms in the city, then there would be a lot of them in the air, which people on the ground won't like, and finally in the airport you'd have to run a secondary set of flight infrastructure and coordinate them to come in similar fashion to busses, one after another. But unlike busses they need a lot of spacious infrastructure.
Anyway, my point is, trains seem to be getting the job done. Especially faster ones on electromagnetic propulsion that Japan is now trying to make commercially available on longer routes.
Also, would be nice if you were to write a piece more focused on technologies that will transform the cities in the foreseeable future
It's a good call-out. I'm more cautiously optimistic about eVTOLS (esp eVTOLS versus rail) than I probably sounded in this post.
On a purely policy/technical level, you're 100% right that existing rail technology is a superior transit method. Where that might not matter is if eVTOLs get better technologically and enjoy a regulatory relative advantage.
That might look something like...
On the tech side:
- carrying capacity has improved to the point that eVTOL is something like a passenger van or better
- downtown parking garages get repurposed with landing pads on top (setting them up as multi-modal transit hubs); idea being that setting up some level of landing pad infra isn't /that/astronomically expensive.
On the regulatory side (in the U.S. context):
- ground-based transit continues to have problems acquiring right of way (ex: it took years to just get political consensus on for a rapid bus lane on one major artery in San Francisco)
- the U.S. continues to be especially bad at major infrastructure (as documented by the transit costs project)
- eVTOLs benefit from having one regulatory authority (the FAA) that sets the rules and needs infra only in the form of "stations", no property acquisition or infra development along a right of way.
Any of that could be wrong, but a lot of it may end up being right.
This sounds reasonable. I'm not very optimistic on this tech, but I agree that there is potential as long as the vehicles can be built cheaply enough. Especially in the context of US. I can only imagine very specific countryside applications in EU, where there is enough population wanting to commute to the major city to justify a flight once or twice a day, which is better than a car or bus, but not enough people to have a railway. I know much less of US context to judge it, though I imagine FAA will have a lot to say about safety. But economics will ultimately decide if this tech becomes impactful.
We will see which stance is closer to reality in the coming 15-20 years
Agreeing with Jeff here:
- I think that ROW acquisition (specifically, not having to do it) is the single biggest reason eVTOL may be transformative.
- The second reason is that the majority of America is already so decentralized that any decentralized technology has an advantage over a centralized one -- a single train line isn't that much use, to reach European levels of rail convenience we need to build entire *networks,* and that's just inherently hard. But given eVTOL can go anywhere we only have to build a network of stations, not a network of stations and lines.
It's correct to be skeptical, none of this is proven. But the technology is real, and the concept is compelling, so I feel certain that we'll see it get tested in the real world -- that's exciting!
Nice peice Jeff. You are correct, cities are important because they are the cauldrons of progress. Cities follow predictable scaling laws, what you called serendipity! https://www.lianeon.org/p/let-a-thousand-skyscrapers-bloom
As you alluded, as the population rises, the inputs required sustain that population scale sublinearly (electrical lines, sewers, roads, gas stations) while the outputs (GDP, patents, income) scale superlinearly.