The Motor City, Detroit, once the fourth biggest city in the United States, filed the largest municipal bankruptcy on July 18. This, in many ways, will be a huge benefit, considering that this once flourishing city has nearly 150,000 vacant homes and 700,000 people in 360 square kilometres. By declaring municipal bankruptcy, a new plan can be implemented for the beginning of a new start, but how would a plan like this work?

As of today, there are over 10,000 vacant homes in neighbourhoods that are unlikely to ever rebound. The plan that Detroit Future City has implemented is to vacate the rest of the citizens living in these “ghettos”, and tearing down the land completely to plant orchards and hardwood. In doing so, many benefits can be seen. Not only will the “streets” see reduced violence and crime rates, but just the growth of this urban landscape would attract more investors. Real estate investors might consider the city to be an adequate candidate for purchasing homes in, if they see recovery.

Although there are many skeptics about this plan, including many current residents of Detroit, there is no question whether this city needs a committed team to bring it back on its feet, and I believe the Future City’s project for restructure can be a successful one.

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/07/detroiters-living-amid-ruins-resist-moving-as-city-struggles-to-restructure/

In recent years, cellphone cameras have come on par, if not better, than many entry level SLRs. What does this mean for the older guys in the game? Companies like Nikon, who is known as one of the kings of photography, find themselves fighting a losing battle to the light and portable, yet superior camera technology in these smartphones as seen in this article.

Through a quick SWOT analysis, Nikon, who relies on camera sales for 78% of their revenue, shows an obvious weakness in the fact that their target is a very narrow market segment. Point-and-shoots are no longer sensible (smartphone camera capabilities are surpassing), and today’s fast-paced world, many would prefer to carry a smartphone with multiple functions. Along with the new “professional photography” accessories that Sony offers for their phone, there’s even less reason to purchase an SLR. However, a good way to approach this problem, I believe, would be an industry-wide differentiation strategy. There is no question that for professional photographers, SLRs must still be used, but which brand? There has not been many technological breakthroughs in the SLR industry in the past decade, and if Nikon were to develop a research program to set them apart from other brands, this would definitely give them the edge over another company like Canon, who are distracted with many other focuses. Successfully implementing this into a 5-year program would definitely allow Nikon to get on their feet, and return to its rightful place on its throne.

Over the past few years, the automotive industry’s engineers have made numerous technological breakthroughs, one being the modern and futuristic idea of electric vehicles. Now that the technology of these electric vehicles has been nearly perfected, its previous idealistic image is being re-evaluated. Are the electric cars overall good for our society, or does it only add more complications and poison to our environment?

Though one might believe that being “electric”, these new automobiles generally have a smaller carbon footprint, but according to the article linked, this is not the case. Electric vehicle sales has risen to 0.01% of total automotive sales in the last year, and manufacturing is becoming more and more popular. However, the true success of the electric car depends entirely on “how much we can clean up our electricity grid”. In the UK alone, 40% of electricity generated is by coal-powered plants., reducing the “green” advantage of the EVs (electric vehicles) by a considerable amount. It seems almost hypocritical, using extremely pollutive methods to produce a non-pollutive method of transportation. A good way to approach this problem would be to consider alternative energy providing sources, making the EV projects a “complete package”. This might include using solar, wind, or hydro powered plants, and eventually eliminating the use of coal-powered plants completely.

Another issue that should be considered is on the economical side of the situation. As of now, the world consumes over 85 million barrels of crude oil per day, a large portion of which goes into commercial and domestic transportation. If the world were to switch over to electric vehicles, the demand for oil would plummet, reducing profit for governments and oil companies who play a big role in the economy. With the excess supply of oil, mining and oil companies would have no choice but to sell at non-profit prices, eventually resulting in the loss of labour jobs and even bankruptcy.

Call me a sceptic, but with all of these negative impacts, it seems like the glorified electric vehicle is not an answer to our world’s questions, but merely a trade-off for whatever problems we have today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22001356

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