Special Experimentation Zones to solve big problems?
Existence is the ultimate proof of the possible. Every time a bold new project is tried, and works, we advance our sense of the achievable. Given how much transformation we need in order to meet the challenges we face, we need many more attempts at innovation, and we're not getting them. The achievable is not advancing quickly enough. ...Hmm, I dunno. Regulation is an impediment to innovation (for example, it's hard to play with cognitive radio when the FCC says that you can't talk in claimed bands, guard bands, etc). But SEZs are also places where countries have experimented with horrendous working conditions, human trafficking, rampant environmental degradation, and other subjects of regulatory "red tape." And it's not easy to say where one ends and the other begins -- take the cognitive radio example. If you've got a theory that you can use cooperative frequency-hopping, directional transmission with phased arrays, and other technologies to make more signal happen in the same spectrum, is the "safety" regulation that prohibits emitting in bands used by emergency services or radio astronomers "red tape" or "safety"?In many ways, the Global North is as hamstrung in the face of bright green challenges as China was in the face of capitalism. What if the answer is a sustainability and social innovation equivalent of China's answers: a sort of "Special Innovation Zone"?
Imagine a place -- perhaps a shrinking city, or a badly savaged brownfield neighborhood -- where laws were set up to strip rules and regulations down to a do-no-harm minimum (maintaining criminal laws and protecting health, safety, workers' rights and civil liberties, but perhaps limiting liability and certainly slashing red tape and delays) allowing for wild deviations from existing patterns for buildings, systems and operations. Imagine a free-fire zone for sustainable innovations, where new approaches could be iterated and tested rapidly, and, when they work, sent to proliferate outside the Zone. Conversely, some of the freedom might paradoxically come from imposing boundary limitations that can't yet be made practical or survive politically outside the Zone, such as bans on broad classes of chemicals or strict greenhouse gas emissions limits.
Special Innovation Zone: Imagination Without Regulation (Thanks, Alex!)
the latest
latest episodes
What rules do you remove? The only ones that can go are the ones that relate to it being a 'zone'. You can't remove worker rights, IP laws, taxes; but you could do things in a zone which would provoke a NIMBY response elsewhere - that pretty much comes down to architectural experimentation.
This idea reminds me of the free technology zones (I don't remember their actual name) in Transmetropolitan, where new technologies were given free reign and allowed to be developed to their extremes, even to the detriment of the inhabitants' longevity.
I'm not sure that completely abandoning regulation is the correct solution - we're looking for new stable configurations that give us better results than our current one. That doesn't mean we should create areas of anarchy in the hopes that such a system will establish itself, but that we should create zones with different regulatory systems than we are implementing in the country at large, and see whether the result is something we'd like to see everywhere.
What would happen, for example, if we created a zone in which energy from outside the area was exorbitantly taxed, but solar panels and other renewable sources of energy were subsidized in the extreme? We could then see what happens when an area invests huge resources in producing renewable electricity, when every building is covered in solar panels and every field filled with wind turbines. We'd probably learn a lot from such a system, and we could then implement the best parts nation wide.
In any case, I love the idea in general, but I think the quoted author's concept of simply creating anarchy in a dying city is not likely to produce the kinds of innovation we're looking for. There are, after all, already places in the world where the rule of law is as good as non-existent, but the innovation-barons of western Pakistan, for example, haven't made much of a mark on the world yet.
I'm reminded of them as well. I believe that they were called reservations.
While I'm glad of many innovations (little chance of contracting leprosy, tuberculosis etc.)It's sad that a natural state of being has to be shut away from the general populace into zones. (Like the "free speech zones" you have in the US)
I read Transmet for the first time last week, and it colours my thinking heavily. Reading the news it feels like we're almost there. (If only I could get my hands on a Maker)
I'm endlessly impressed by the audacity of the Corporate Right in these econopocalyptic times, still saying "Hey, y'know what would really solve all our economic problems in the wake of the crash our unregulated new financial products caused? More unregulated financial products! And I bet our environmental problems caused by unregulated industrial activity could be solved by deregulating industrial activity, and the health care system the insurance companies invented that's collapsing under their greed could fix itself if only we left the health insurance companies alone to compete!"
Meanwhile there's always been important innovation coming from grass roots levels and impoverished places. Did Kiva and its precedents in the microloan movement need deregulation or special zoning? In the corners of the world where neither government nor corporation models dominate, tribalism and networking fill in the gaps in ways those mindsets couldn't, creating a perpendicular axis to the old right-left ways of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.
*cough* Hurricane Katrina -> Gulf Opportunity Zone *cough*
The one where no-bid contractors could hire illegal aliens but the local telco could stomp all over attempts to provide free wi-fi.
Hey, how about home hemp farms, neighborhood citizens' wi-fi a la "Someone Comes To Town...," letting people back on land the FHA seized after tearing down the projects and the Ninth Ward?
*crickets*
I believe Mr. Steffen naively presumes much about the character of others. He should spend some time living in Lagos, Tegucigalpa, and other such fine places that have no rules about what you can do with your time and space.
I am sure those cities and others like them can enlighten him greatly on all of the incredible wonders spawned by the unfettered human imagination.
Who'd have thought everyone would be so unremittingly negative about this. The idea, as I understand it, is to create a zone aside from the political world so you can try things like legalised prostiution, or legalised drugs and see if they work, without having them stomped on straight away.
If I was setting up something like this I'd have a special council of a few educated types, something along the lines of a University Ethics Committee that can give a yes or no answer in a very quick time.
Freaky! A combination of Michael Marshal Smith's The City from "Only Forward" and Ken MacLeod's balkanised London in "The Star Fraction".
Didn't Dr. Mengele do just that for medicine?
It seems to me this author is basically calling for special "unethical" zones, so that they can break rules in order to innovate quickly.
Sounds like quite the dangerous proposition.
"But SEZs are also places where countries have experimented with horrendous working conditions, human trafficking, rampant environmental degradation, and other subjects of regulatory "red tape."
Countries have also had all of these bad things in presumably regulated areas too.
I have no idea why there is negative reaction to this. The author made it explicitly and abundantly clear that many macro-regulations would be kept in place, esp. those surrounding human rights. If you are going to criticize an idea - criticize the actual idea, don't create a straw man.
Read the original blog post - the author lists some very specific examples of the type of constraining regulations he's talking about - many of them are rules that favor big business. He also talks about some successes with similar ideas in Vancouver.
I seriously doubt a place like Vancouver would just up and decide - "you know what? slave labor - not such a bad idea! human trafficking - why not!"
Of course changing regulations is not easy - but that's just stating the obvious.
@Bill Albertson -- What in the world do economically unfree countries like Nigeria or Honduras have to do with the issue? They don't have "no rules about what you can do with your time and space." -- if they did, they'd have much higher scores on the Index of Economic Freedom. On the contrary, their dismal rankings imply that they have even more rules than countries like the US or even unrepentant social democracies like Sweden...
"To stay experimentation in things social and economic is a grave responsibility. Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the Nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."
Justice Louis Brandeis in New State Ice Co. v. Liebman, 285 U.S. 262 (1932)
I'd think the most important thing about this would be the extremely un-corporate-America mindset which is the hallmark of innovation -- willingness to admit failure.
Look at a real-life American example (the only one I can think of off the top of my head) -- Disney World's Reedy Creek Improvement District. They've done amazing things with community design and infrastructure, but that's coupled with the failures of a large corporation to leave room for freedom of its residents, who aren't allowed to change the slightest thing about the exterior of their homes, or choose their own ISP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reedy_Creek_Improvement_District
Lookin' at you, Detroit!
I'm reminded of TAZ by Hakim Bey:
"T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism is a book by anarchist writer Hakim Bey. The book describes the socio-political tactic of creating temporary spaces that elude formal structures of control."
Source: Wikipedia
I believe there are already a number of places like this. One is called "South Carolina". And really, it's worked out so well for them . . .
This place is called Burning Man.
The rules (leave no trace, survive in the relentless desert, etc.) are conducive to generating new ways to conduct life. Our camp is dealing with its dirty shower water, for example, by filtering it and using it to keep us cool and humidified.
It's true that you can't transfer that knowledge to the mainstream housing world easily, since the marvelous BR rule set stops at the gate. But you can do it on the sly!
Anybody else seen the show Eureka?...
Detroit.
OK, to be fair, making Katrina (and I'll throw in Iraq under the CPA while I'm at it) are examples of disaster zones, one man-made, requiring emergency action that someone thought could be resolved through greed. But those are the kinds of zones of "innovation" that the US government has actually allowed to exist, so it's not surprising they leave potential citizen worldchangers cold.
I'll try to make up for dumping on the concept by making a positive suggestion. There've been a lot of citizen initiatives, like the aforementioned free Wi-Fi projects, community gardening and networks for growing and delivering medical marijuana. When they start to get anywhere, they are ruthlessly wiped out by the fuzz or else handed over to a deep-pockete player (and the people who orginally devised it and made it work are squeezed out; cf. George Soros' Open Society initiatives in early 1990s East Europe).
So how about a federal-level office to which these citizens' groups can appeal against local, state or corporate opposition? Within Constitutional limits of course. Or even at the federal level, such as a community radio broadcaster getting a fast-tracked license or variance from the FCC?
Something to keep in mind about these "Special Experimentation Zones" is the people who just happen to already live in them and find themselves swept up in someone else's exciting experiment. The author specifically talks about depressed cities, which may be depressed, but still have a lot of people living in them.
For example, the Free State Project wants to turn New Hampshire into a free-market paradise by sending tons of libertarians there to take over the government. Which would be great for them, but not so great for the people who already lived in New Hampshire and depended on government services.
Similarly, Washington DC was the subject of an exciting economic experiment by the federal government called "privatize public education". This was very interesting for think tanks and politicians to observe, but not so great for lower class people in DC who saw their public schools get closed down and substituted with "vouchers" for private schools with little quality control. They would probably have preferred that the experiment be done on volunteers.
Isn't this the concept of state's rights?
Burning Man was kind of like that, prior to '97...now they have just about as many rules as anywhere else in Nevada.
Just try burning your herb, or driving your art car without registration, or allowing some of your gray water to splash on the playa, smoking near the Man, or burning something outside of a fire pit, or selling something, or taking pictures w/o registering your cam...you'll find out just how unregulated and free Burning Man is, real quick...
I don't mean to hate on Burning Man...the regulation is necessary (mostly), for safety and protection of the environment, but in reality, it is not quite the anarcho-topia some seem to think it is...
Stateless in Greg Egan's Distress. The first original kibbutzim.
It can work, I think. I envision GM crops cultured in an organic way while energy is obtained in a sustainable way and zoning regulations are drastically changed, drugs allowed, etc. I think it could work again, a community of committed people is a very strong force, and with the new technologies it could do much better these days.
As an architect and planner, this is the best idea i've ever heard. We creative folks can solve a lot of problems if only we are allowed to do so.
Surprised no one has yet to drawn the correlation to The Wire's Hamsterdam.
This is my favorite thing Alex Steffen has ever said, ever.
@#26 CuriousVelocity
I'm surprised no ones made the comparison to Bioshock's Rapture.
Sounds like Hamsterdam in season 3 of "The Wire."
It's a pre-ordained "Train Wreck" if/when such projects attract the unethical. Arguing further definitions usually de-evolves into self rhetorical debates. All centering on a few "should be simple" facts. The trump card being that- absent common sense, any such experiment risks disaster. Sad but true.
@#21
"For example, the Free State Project wants to turn New Hampshire into a free-market paradise by sending tons of libertarians there to take over the government. Which would be great for them, but not so great for the people who already lived in New Hampshire and depended on government services."
Funny how you seem to approve of mob rule to impose unpleasant conditions on Libertarians, but disapprove of mob rule by Libertarians.
I've got far more sympathy for those being forced to pay for government services whether they use them or not than i do for anyone who finds themselves lacking something that the government usually provides, since that would also mean that they able to keep what used to be taxed out from under their noses, thus affording them the resources to solve their own damn problems without burdening the rest of us.
what if there were no rules except that everything has to be open, well documented and available online for review?
the rest of the world could point and laugh at the failures and emulate the successes.
Actually it's funny someone should mention detroit. Everyone's favorite left wing opportunist Michael Moore wrote a somewhat absurd albeit inspired piece regarding the fall of GM, and what we could do with their now languishing infrastructure. He wanted to focus on green energy initiatives, and other absurd tasks for a government agency to approach.
But, that doesn't change the fact that places like detroit are built for industry, filled with industrial equipment, and for the most part... derelict. There is opportunity here.
Now jump over to the hackerspaces movement, and this growing shift toward public access communal workshops. Not all that different from privately controlled libraries these "clubs" provide an organized effort to bring complex / prohibitively expensive, or difficult technology into communities that have never had access to this technology before. And the results are generally great.
It's in these arenas that increased regulation intended to target major multinational R&D forces end up destroying opportunities for hobbyist, or small business innovation. And that severely undermines our countries ability to remain competitive on the international market.
Beyond that, the shift from a skilled labor force in the united states to an information based economy has left our nation somewhat reliant on financial services institutions, and federal / state government. There's low diversity in the US markets. And simply put, that means lowered creativity, and lowered competitiveness.
Opening up opportunities for legal innovation and infusing the market with smaller business ventures ultimately is a good thing.
Going back to hackerspaces, and the library comparison. Providing a well managed and safe environment in communities for people to pursue design and industry innovation in their own lives or businesses serves the public interest in a number of ways. It provides new avenues for hands on education. Increase the capabilities of our workforces. Puts technically or financially prohibitive technology into the hands of diverse markets. And more than that it provides an opportunity for meritocracy to once again take the reigns in our markets.
I absolutely agree with this guy, and see so much more possible.
PS
Can anyone here remember earlier this year when increased safety standards across all toys would have crippled the small business toy market? It's easy to forget the needs of small business, and even easier to forget their considerable contributions.
...why not?
What's your beef with emergence and spontaneous order?
The US actually used to be split up into "SIZ". When states were more autonomous you basically had what was described in the article. This is still mildly true. Welfare reform came about from a change in federal regulations that gave state more leeway in how they set up their welfare programs. A few stats had phenomenal successes and a few years later everyone agreed they had a winning formula, passed it as federal law, and the last time I heard anyone whine about welfare with much enthusiasm (on the left or right) was in the 90s.
Personally, I like the US welfare reform model a lot. I look at stuff like health care and see a golden opportunity. Have the federal government loosen up the rules and tell the states to go try stuff. Someone might hit on a formula that everyone agrees is a winner, while bad ideas will be nixed. You could do this sort of thing with a lot of issue that seem to turn into left/right splits with no room for compromise.
I personally wont hold my breath waiting for more state driven action, much less zone experimentation though. The Supreme Court has basically annulled all constitutional state rights and the federal government letting states try a solution before inflicting it upon 300 million people all at once is the exception, not the rule.
How about quarantining the predatory capitalism that just brought down the American and world economy into a 'special zone' to die and leave the rest of the world to move on relieved from it? Now that would be an experiment!
All these comments and no-one has yet mentioned the whole section in Alvin Toffler's Future Shock on this idea.
Brilliant
The optimist in me have always thought that when things are not working, we could start a new place with new rules and new way of life. Quickly the pessimist in me shouts that the biggest problems are man-made. you don't like regulations, people created them. you don't like deregulation, people deregulated. you don't like laws, lawyers wrote them. you don't like globalization, guess what, you're part of it.
There're no big solutions or revolutions. We are interconnected to our own worst enemy, ourselves. Even Obama is hamstrung on many fronts. Let's hope even with compromises we could flourish. But I wouldn't hold my breath as I remember the saying - if we all do a little , we'll all get a little.
P.S. above rant pertains to human/social problems not tech. tech innovation is only bound by physics and imagination; while social/philosophical/political innovation is bounded by human nature .
This is why a move back to actual *states*, from, let's face it, *provinces* would be useful. You could do things like pit different systems against each other, or at least offer people somewhere else to go if the state's laws were in too great a conflict with their beliefs/rationales/delusions.
You mean quarantine the Federal Reserve?
They're the ones who kept interest rates artificially low for so long, creating the asset bubble in housing and stimulating borrowing / spending.
Oddly enough, the current prescription for "curing" the current econocalypse is more credit and more spending.
All borrowing must originate from savings, but who's going to save when interest rates are effectively zero? So we continue to spend non-existent resources (via inflation) to "stimulate aggregate demand" -- i.e. create more waste (technically called "malivnestment").
The economic mistakes are made in the boom phase and corrected (via liquidation) in the bust phase. Creating more boom (to avoid the bust) equates to creating more mistakes, for which we all must ultimately pay.
I'd totally forgotten about that. I love Toffler, so please elaborate from what you remember (or can find online... aka externalized memory).
@Manko: it's funny that you mention Kiva, because in fact the US Govt just recently shut down Prosper, a p2p lending company because the SEC feels that the loans are 'securities' and therefore each and every one of them needs to be filed with the SEC.
http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/0s-1s-and-s/2009/03/27/government-crackdown-peer-peer-lending