Climate change. Globalization. Economic trends such as e-commerce and workforce automation. Increasing socioeconomic inequality…the list goes on. Change is accelerating at a rapid pace in today’s world, in ways that can seem overwhelming. Technology is at the heart of these changes, as it has been since the beginnings of human history – consider, for example, the impacts of fossil fuel emissions (a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution) on a changing climate. This article addresses the disruptive effects of current technological trends and suggests an approach that communities might use to navigate technological change in an increasingly uncertain world.
E-commerce and new mobility, which have had disruptive impacts on the retail and transportation sectors, respectively, illustrate the challenges and opportunities associated with emerging technologies. The conventional wisdom is that e-commerce is driving the closure of brick-and-mortar stores across the nation. However, surveys show that most Americans still prefer physical stores, retail experts predict that the future of the industry lies in complementary online and in-person shopping experiences, and businesses that adapt to the changing retail environment can succeed. New mobility is the provision of public and private transportation services, such as ride hailing, e-scooters, and microtransit, on demand using mobile technology and real-time location data. The effects of Uber and Lyft on traditional taxi service are well known, and studies reveal that they are also diverting trips from public transit, walking, and biking. While new mobility offers increased access, convenience, and alternatives to private automobile trips (at least for those who are technologically savvy and can afford it), proactive planning and policy interventions are needed to ensure that the equity, health, and environmental outcomes are positive. (Navigating New Mobility: Policy Approaches for Cities, a recent study by the Urbanism Next Center, provides policy approaches, strategies, and examples of how jurisdictions across the nation are dealing with current and projected future impacts of new mobility.)
Widely acknowledged as potentially the most transformative transportation technology since mass production of the private automobile, autonomous vehicles demonstrate the uncertainty of technological change. In 2016 and 2017 carmakers such as GM and Ford were predicting that self-driving cars would be commercially available by 2020. However, those projections are being extended due to the difficulty of programming autonomous vehicles to recognize and react to all scenarios in a complex and often unpredictable physical environment (highlighting the present limitations of artificial intelligence and machine learning). While it is generally agreed that widespread deployment of autonomous vehicles will result in major secondary impacts on communities, the timeline to widespread adoption of fully autonomous (level 4 and 5) technology is currently unknown, along with variables such as private vs. fleet ownership, individual vs. shared ridership, and fossil-fuel vs. electric-powered vehicles, which will determine whether the ultimate outcomes are positive, negative, or both.
Let’s consider one more example: automation, the substitution of work activities previously performed by humans with work performed by machines. A January 2019 report by the Brookings Institution concludes that approximately 25% of U.S. jobs will face high exposure to automation by 2030, approximately 36% will face medium exposure, and approximately 39% will experience low exposure. According to the report, jobs in office administration, production, transportation, and food preparation are the most vulnerable to replacement. More secure jobs range from high paying, creative professional and technical positions with advanced educational requirements to relatively low paying service positions involving non-routine activities or requiring interpersonal skills. Like past technological advancements, automation will not necessarily reduce the total number of jobs but rather shift the types available – increasing the value of human work qualities, such as creativity and emotional intelligence.
How communities prepare for and adapt to the disruptive impacts of technological advancements such as e-commerce, new mobility, automation, and (sooner or later) autonomous vehicles will go far in determining whether they will thrive in a rapidly changing world. But how can they given the uncertainty of change and the difficulty of predicting the secondary impacts of emerging and future technologies? In hindsight, could early 20th century planners and policymakers have predicted the transformation of urban and rural landscapes in the post-World War II period stemming from mass production of the private automobile?
To begin with, community leaders, institutions, and other key players need to modify established thought patterns and ways of doing business to adapt to new and changing realities. Planners and allied professionals, for example, must adopt a mindset of continual learning and openness to change if they are to help their communities successfully navigate technological change. The traditional linear approach to planning and decision-making could be replaced by the adaptive management model used by natural resource managers, which is a structured, iterative process that reduces uncertainty over time in response to new information obtained via system monitoring. A systematic approach to planning for technological change might include the following components as an ongoing process:
- Research and develop an understanding of technological trends and drivers of change. The ones enumerated above are important examples; others might include smart city technology, augmented reality, predictive analytics leveraging the availability of big data, etc.
- Explore the implications of the trends for community-specific conditions. For example, are jobs in the community particularly vulnerable to automation? What assets can be used to create new employment opportunities? Is the institutional capacity available to address the vulnerabilities and capitalize on the assets? Given the uncertainties of technological change, scenario planning can be used to characterize different possible futures and their community impacts.
- Develop a game plan to prepare for and respond to change. The plan should identify short-term actions to start moving the ball forward while providing longer-term guidance on how to rethink planning, investment, regulatory, and programmatic activities to account for technological change. An example of a short-term action might be an audit to identify regulatory barriers to change. A longer-term example might be building capacity for change management through cross-sectoral partnerships.
- Monitor and adjust the game plan over time. The process should be viewed not as linear with beginning and end points, but rather as iterative, incorporating feedback loops to evaluate results and inform adjustments to the game plan (e.g., identification of new priorities and actions). indicators can be used to track and report on progress.
The bottom line: change is constant and accelerating, and communities too often find themselves in the reactive position of responding to past trends while being unprepared for the next ones. This observation applies not just to technological trends, but to environmental, economic, and social ones as well – all of which are interrelated. The time to start preparing is now.
References
Clewlow, Regina R. “New research on how ride-hailing impacts travel behavior,” Planetizen, October 2017. https://www.planetizen.com/features/95227-new-research-how-ride-hailing-impacts-travel-behavior
Miller, Jill. “Is There a Future for Brick-and-Mortar Retail?” Insights Association, July 2019. https://www.insightsassociation.org/article/there-future-brick-and-mortar-retail
Muro, Mark, Robert Maxim, and Jacob Whito. Automation and Artificial Intelligence: How machines are affecting people and places. Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, January 2019. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2019.01_BrookingsMetro_Automation-AI_Report_Muro-Maxim-Whiton-FINAL-version.pdf
Rouse, David. “Commentary: The Implications of Autonomous Vehicles for Urban Design Practice.” Journal of Urban Design, Routledge, November 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2019.1686351
Steckler, Becky and Rebecca Lewis. Navigating New Mobility: Policy Approaches for Cities. Oregon University Urbanism Next Center, October 2019. https://www.urbanismnext.com/resources
Walker, Jon. “The Self-Driving Car Timeline – Predictions from the Top 11 Global Automakers, Emerj, updated November 2019. https://emerj.com/ai-adoption-timelines/self-driving-car-timeline-themselves-top-11-automakers/
Woods, Sharon. “How brick-and-mortar stores can benefit from e-commerce,” Public Square: a CNU Journal, September 2019. https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2019/09/30/how-brick-and-mortar-stores-can-benefit-e-commerce