A collection of links that I’ve found interesting recently. Instead of having a hodgepodge of various things, I am focusing on a particular topic. In this case, logistics.

Confidence Level: Hard to judge because they’re not my ideas.

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Let’s start off with a couple of interesting blogs.

Naval Gazing is primarily a blog on naval warfare. In addition to naval warfare, it has an excellent series about various kinds of merchant shipping:

https://www.navalgazing.net/Merchant-Ships-Introduction

From this series, I found the posts on container ships and icebreakers particularly interesting.

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Pedestrian Observations by Alon Levy is a blog about passenger train service. It often talks about ongoing questions of public transit, in places all around the world. It can be hard to get started reading it because you often find yourself entering in the middle of a conversation. A particularly good post that can be read by itself is:

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2021/05/30/the-different-national-traditions-of-building-high-speed-rail/

My favorite thing that Alon has done is design plans for potential rail networks. For example, a plan for US high speed rail, based on a “gravity” model where the ridership between two cities scales as the product between the populations of the cities, divided by their distance squared. Alon has also designed a map for a future subway system for Lagos, Nigeria, including an argument for why it’s important to plan big for big cities in the 3rd World, even if they don’t have the capacity to build it all yet.

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While we’re on the topic of passenger rail, here is some data for Amtrak ridership, by station:

Amtrak ridership is relevant data for planning US high speed rail. I don’t think it as predictive as the “gravity” model that Alon used to make a well planned high speed rail network. Amtrak is neither high speed nor particularly well planned.

The network is reasonable in the Northeast and along the West Coast. This is also where the highest ridership is.^[1]Although still much lower than ridership in Europe.

The network in the Midwest is entirely a hub-and-spoke system around Chicago. Chicago certainly should be a hub, but that doesn’t mean the entire rail network should be designed around it. This includes three main lines going through Illinois (with a few additional branches) and three lines through Michigan, all of which end in Chicago. The network does not include useful lines that do not end in Chicago, such as a Cleveland – Columbus – Cincinnati line across Ohio. The small towns of Illinois have higher ridership than the larger cities of Ohio.

The lines through the Great Plains and Intermountain West are largely extensions of the Chicago hub. There are four transcontinental routes: Chicago – Washington & Oregon, Chicago – Oakland, Chicago – Los Angeles, and San Antonio – Los Angeles.

The network in the South is by far the most outrageous.

The cities with by far the least ridership for their population are Houston and Atlanta. Why? One explanation is that they’re sunbelt cities with lots of sprawl. But North Carolina’s cities perform much better, even though they also have a lot of sprawl. I think that a lot of the problem comes from Amtrak instead. Most major cities have several suburban stations, along with the main one downtown. Houston & Atlanta don’t. Their one station is close to downtown, but tucked into an interstate intersection instead of in a dense business or residential district. The stations don’t even connect to the cities’ rapid transit networks. Partially, this is the fault of local rapid transit systems, but partially it’s because there’s only one station. Amtrak runs along the same right of way as MARTA in Atlanta and could easily build a new station at any of the stations between Lindbergh and Doraville. Houston’s light rail would have to extend to connect to Amtrak, but that still doesn’t excuse there being only one station between Beaumont and San Antonio.

While the Midwest has too strong of a hub, the South doesn’t have enough hubs. No city in the South has more than 3 lines extending out of it. Houston and Atlanta are not even at the intersections of lines: Atlanta is just another stop on the route between North Carolina and New Orleans, while Houston is just another stop on the route between New Orleans and San Antonio. There is no direct route from Atlanta to Florida or the Midwest, or even between Dallas and Houston. North Carolina has a decent network (and higher ridership), while South Carolina has three lines across it that somehow don’t connect any of its urban areas to each other.

Amtrak underperforms in the Sun Belt both because Sun Belt cities have lots of sprawl and because Amtrak’s network is poorly designed in the region.

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Here is a map of freight volumes for various transportation routes in the US:

It is interesting to notice just how important the Mississippi River still is, as well as the relative importance of railroads and trucks in various parts of the country. In case you’re wondering, that is coal coming out of northeast Wyoming.

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The freight railroads of the US are owned by a bunch of different companies, many of which date to the late 1800s. To help you keep track,^[2]Pun intended. here is an interactive map, showing the ownership of all of the rail lines in North America:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=96ec03e4fc8546bd8a864e39a2c3fc41

I encourage you to zoom in to where you live or know people to see where the freight lines go and which companies run trains on them.

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In case that’s not enough for you, here is an interactive map of all of the railroads in the world:

https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

It is color coded based on what type of railway it is, instead of based on who owns it. As you zoom in, more railways become visible, including subways, streetcars, and cable cars.

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A bit of a shift now, from railroad networks to city planning:

During the last century, there was a certain tendency of modern urban planning that emphasized grandeur over livability. Everything was to be big and impressive, with lots of concrete and right angles. This style of urban planning was extensively criticized, by people like Jane Jacobs and Scott Alexander. I thought that urban planning had internalized many of these lessons and so has stopped trying to build new cities from scratch, designed entirely from the air.

So I was surprised to learn that Egypt is doing exactly that, building a new capital out in the desert to the east of Cairo.

The government agencies of Egypt are currently located scattered across Cairo. The new capital will bring them all together in a single place, along with the legislature, the presidential palace, the largest flagpole in the world, and a giant square for military parades.

Here is the plan for the rest of the city:

The light orange area to the northeast is the administrative center of the government we described above. Running down the center of the capital is a park with an artificial river, which will be 6 times the size of New York’s Central Park. The Central Business District is in blue in the center of the park. Residential areas are in dark orange, on either side of the park. Each one copies the style of residential districts in different parts of the world. Light green areas on the west end of park and at two other places along the park are religious buildings: two new mosques, one of which will be the largest in Egypt, and a new Coptic cathedral, which will also be the largest in Egypt. The teal area on the north, touching a residential district, is a sports centers. There is also another sports center off the screen to the south which should be capable of hosting the Olympics. Universities and knowledge hubs are pink and purple dots along the center of the city.

Notice how compartmentalized and separated everything is. The residential areas are far away from the administrative buildings, from the central business district, from the universities, and even from the religious buildings. To get from anywhere to anything, you will have to drive, which either restricts this to the wealthiest members of Egyptian society,^[3]Note that America is much wealthier than Egypt, so driving everywhere is affordable for the American middle class. This city is even more spread out than American suburbia, which at least has small … Continue reading or much of the new city will be empty. Or perhaps people will move into and fill in all of the gaps in the city with mixed use neighborhoods, where people can live, work, worship, and play all in close proximity.

And what’s the other light orange section in the southwest? Another complex larger than the administrative center of the government?

It’s the headquarters of the Egyptian military.

So that’s why Egypt wants a new capital out in the desert. Sometimes, Egyptians want to make demands of their government. Since Egypt is not a democracy, the best way to do this is through protests in Tahrir Square. The headquarters of the government was close to Tahrir Square, so if the protests were large enough, the government had to pay attention. Now, the government will be located far away from turbulent old downtown Cairo. Instead, it’s located out of the city, next to the military headquarters. How do you think this will impact the relative power of the military vs the street?

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But Egypt’s new capital isn’t the most extreme high modernist plan today. That honor goes to a new city, Neom, planned for northwest Saudi Arabia.

The underlying idea is interesting.

Cities work by concentrating people and goods, so that they can specialize and become more productive. To achieve this, everything tries to be as close together as possible. Normally, this means a dense city core with transportation corridors spreading out in all directions. However, what really matters is transportation times, not distance. So if you have a single, extremely efficient transit corridor, you could make the city one dimensional instead of two dimensional.

Noem will have three levels. The surface level will be entirely for pedestrians and will consist of parks and the ground floors of buildings. The next level will be a service level for the buildings. The lowest level will be a subway & freight rail system, with high speeds and frequent trains. The time to travel the entire length of the line should be just 20 minutes. Despite being one dimensional, everything in the city is close to everything else in the city.

So far, I think it’s an interesting plan. Now let’s see how it’s implemented.

Wait. What? That’s the city?

It’s one thing for the city to be one-dimensional. But why does it have to be straight and completely ignore the topography?

It seems to me like the best plan here would be for the city to curve and follow the coast. Why didn’t Saudi Arabia do that? That’s where all of the palaces for the Saudi Royal family are going.

A straight line of green across the corner of Saudi Arabia will undoubtedly look cool from space. But I don’t think that’s the optimal arrangement for human flourishing.^[4]I am probably being too harsh here. All cities have problems, and if this is Noem’s main problem, it could do just fine. If it’s indicative of a broader trend of caring about geometry … Continue reading I suspect that it will be difficult to fill the one-dimensional city with people who want to be there. But that might be a good thing – the design does not leave room for the city to grow on its own.

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Now for a good example of city planning, which may or may not happen.

Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia. It’s metropolitan area has 33 million people. Only Tokyo is bigger.

Jakarta has some problems, beyond what you would expect for a megacity in the Third World. Jakarta was built on a swamp, and 40% of the city is currently below sea level. This problem will only get worse as Jakarta continues to sink^[5]Most people use groundwater instead of the water in the heavily polluted rivers. As the acquifer is depleted, the ground above it sinks. and as sea levels rise.

There are several plans for what to do about it, including having the government abandon ship and build a new capital on Borneo. I prefer a much more beautiful plan: the Garuda.

Jakarta plans to build a new archipelago and sea wall to keep the sea from flooding the city. The main islands will be in the shape of a Garuda, a mythical bird and symbol of Indonesia.

The islands will provide new areas of residential and commerical buildings for the overcrowded city. Unlike in Egypt, buildings of different types will be intermingled with parks. Transportation between islands is hard, so it is important to make so people don’t have to travel as much. It also looks as though the city on the island will be allowed to grow more organically. Even featureless concept art of the buildings make the island look beautiful.

The biggest challenge with this plan (other than cost) is pollution. There are nine rivers flowing through metropolitan Jakarta and they are currently heavily polluted with trash. Cleaning up the rivers is good for its own sake, but it would become particularly important to keep the new bay formed behind the Garuda from filling in with trash.

None of these three examples of city planning are as bad as the high modernist cities of the twentieth century. Egypt’s is centered on a curved park and the residential areas use popular styles from other cities, but places everything too far apart and acts as a tool to further the military’s poem. Noem in Saudi Arabia is built on an innovative idea about how to improve transportation in a city while emphasizing the experience of a pedestrian on the surface, but it insists on a straight line instead of following the local landscape or traditions and doesn’t provide for organic city growth. Jakarta’s guardian bird is wonderful city planning to fill an important need while honoring local traditions and the experience on the street, but it remains to be seen whether Indonesia can make it happen and keep it clean.

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There is also a new movement of city planning known as Charter Cities.

A charter city is a new city, built from scratch by a (usually) private organization, with different organizational structure and civil law from the host countries. Many poor countries have corrupt and poorly designed institutions. So they have someone else set up the courts, police, utilities, education, etc. If it is actually better, then people in the host country will want to move there and international businesses are more likely to invest there. If the institutions are not better, then people won’t come and the city will fail. The charter city can then be sources of economic development and institutional reform for the host country.

Charter cities are often compared to special economic zones (ZEDEs). Special economic zones also have different institutions from their host countries and attempt to attract international businesses, but they are created by the government of the host country instead of by a third party. Some, like Shenzhen in China and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, have been wildly successful. They have not only turned into world class cities, they have also helped institutional reform spread through and improve the entire host country. In order to make a special economic zone work, there has to be state capacity, and the state has to to want to experiment with different institutions to see what is more effective. Charter cities allow a similar thing to work, even when there is very little state capacity originally, and (hopefully) will explore a wider range of institutional structures to find what works best.

Currently, the charter city which has progressed the farthest is Próspera, in Honduras:

https://prospera.hn/

I find the idea of charter cities to be extremely interesting, but there has already been significant discussion of them elsewhere, so I will not say more for now.