City as a grid: call for contributions (inter-linking)

[Florent Thiery]

Hi Folks,

The City-as-a-grid project aims at producing and studying several P2P scenarios that could happen in the next century's cities, on a resource creation/consumption level and with a focus on real-life projects. A strong dichotomy will separate local and global scales, with an emphasis on local scale (local/global layers).

Local scale focuses on what the inhabitants of an elementary-sized unit (called "Cell") have to provide to make the community autonomous. It is mostly focused on community needs, goods, services, chores and resources. It is more practical, yet the most critical to implement items for surviving and living in harmony.

Global scale focuses on virtual-powered (virtual reality, e-learning, e-teaching, ...) activities in conjunction with tomorrow manufacturing, sharing and distribution techniques (CAO, 3D printing...) with social network substrates (professional, personal...) and associated needed infrastructures (transportation, communication, knowledge sharing, ...). These are the macroscopic structures needed for extending the city.

I was wondering if anyone knowing other resources that would let scalable/distributed "city" models exist (like distributed power generation, Peer goods lending, automated short-scale community transports, alternative monetary systems, ...) could participate to the inter-linking in the wiki in P2PFoundation Links at http://p2pfoundation.net/City_as_a_grid.

While i am deeply convinced that some of the alternative models and uses will progressively rise up, under economical constraints or not, i have begun looking at them and listing them as building blocks. Please add yours and your vision !

A second step will be to evaluate their applicability within the current, existing system and timing scale, and a third to implement scenarios and associated models in simulators possibly using roleplay/virtual worlds.

Also, does anyone know of virtual/software tools that can be used to simulate scenarios (some open source SimCity) ? I thought of OpenSim et al, yet looking for a more scenario-focused engine.

Thanks

[Evolving Trends]

Your theory sounds scientifically informed, especially the part about 'locally stable and globally scalable.'

I would love to go on a journey exploring all its aspects, but so far I only see glimpses of it.

Can you explain more profoundly or at longer length?

Also, as you construct the full picture from the "idea" you will have to work at a higher resolution and with higher degree of clarity.

I found the best way to do this is to ignore the cost of political mishap and go for a crazy high bandwidth high speed agile process, where you release [the model/theory] often and release early, and only accept those changes (due to feedback or your thinking) that make the model higher in resolution and more clear.

This process is like constructing the fractal backwards, from the smallest and roughest piece.

[Evolving Trends]

Here is the updated Value Creation Model (section of P2P Social Currency model)

The Value Creation Model

When the peers have more capacity to produce energy than is consumed directly by other peers, i.e. when there is a surplus of energy in the grid, Peer Bank (the open, automated, distributed process) converts that surplus energy to new money (e.g. 1 peer dollar for 1kW), which is then converted by the peers to goods and services, loans and appreciable assets (including revenue generating ones), all of which lead to an increase economic activity, which then uses up the surplus energy, in a continuous cycle. The money invested in appreciable assets (including revenue generating ones, e.g. farm land) grows with the growth of the economy, which has the effect of expanding the value basis for the economy, which is not derived from energy directly but from land mass, which grows with the growth in population, which in turn requires more energy (to utilize the land and support the growing population.) So as the value basis for the economy expands (i.e. as the land increase in usage density and volume), in correspondence with the growth of the population, the economy should continue its steady growth.

When we say that land mass is the value basis for the economy (under this model) we mean the following:

As population of people grows the land mass (density of usage and volume) has to grow, too, and so land even unused is guaranteed to provide an increasing value basis.

So land mass provides a stable, always-increasing value basis.

By contrast, the value basis for energy is tied to its use, so as usage goes up and down in times of high and low economic productivity its value (and price) goes up and down, and that's why land mass (the usage density and volume of land encompassed by the economy not the value of land), which increases with growth in population, not energy, is used as the value basis for the economy.

This value basis for an economy should not to be confused with the "value of an economy," which is defined per the given valuation model.

The need to reduce the currency in circulation is not present in this model because the value basis for the economy is not derived directly from energy itself, which can overflow beyond all possible use in the short term, leading to overflow of currency in circulation beyond what's usable in the short term, and is not derived from interest, which can go up and down also overflow beyond society's ability to pay it in the short term, creating a vacuum of cash (see: global credit crisis 2008), and is not derived from the level of economic activity, which can go up and down, but from the land mass (mass = usage density * volume) encompassed by the economy, which grows as the population grows, requiring more energy and enabling higher output, ad infinitum (or till the available land mass is fully utilized.)

[Florent Thiery]

Well, it'd be hard to get more clarity on this since the project is about sharing visions of what (and why) p2p elements can bring to daily living.

But, being an engineer, i get the agile development idea, and it will be nice when this state-of-the-art phase is complete.

By no means i intend to pretend having a clear vision, this is merely refactoring/cross-linking for now.