IF Democracy...

The presidential candidates may not have talked much about climate change or our declining infrastructure, but families sure are after countless power outages.

A decision to grant free road travel meant hundreds of thousands of Chinese drivers spent the first day of the mid-autumn festival in gridlock.

—Gridlock as China begins its ‘Golden Week’ holidays - Telegraph

As California is one of the first to move ahead with self-driving cars, the state is encountering a series of legal and moral questions: Who is responsible for the self-driving car? If the operator of the car is at home while the car is, for example, collecting a child from school—who is responsible for this car? The manufacturers? The “driver”? The rider?

Denmark, already a cycling nation, is trying to encourage commuting to Copenhagen by bicycle by opening what it calls cycle superhighways.

As Bill Ford sees it, Ford Motor Company is about democratizing technology, and it’s preparing to tackle a new challenge over the next 50 years. TechRepublic’s Jason Hiner has the story. Read this blog post by Jason Hiner on Cutting Edge.

A little-known company is finding success offering free online education around the world.

Following up on David Brooks’s op-ed about the importance of place, here is a deeper discussion of the importance of “the local.” Wendell Berry offers a very thoughtful discussion on the importance of “immobility”—of “sticking” and the wealth of information that comes from knowing one place well. Are we, however, better stewards of the land and better neighbors (local and global) by “staying put”? Or, are we more likely to get “stuck” and become mired in our local realities?  

Bruce Springsteen’s appeal is a reminder of our deeply human need to experience and express meaning within the bounded framework of a place, a people and a history.

What prohibits social mobility? Is the American Dream being replaced by the “British caste system”? 

Is the ability to move linked to achieving the “American Dream”? As we continue to think about social mobility in the United States and elsewhere, how are we measuring social mobility? Is social mobility the same as economic mobility? What effects socio-economic mobility? According to the Economic Mobility Project by the Pew Charitable Trusts, where you live impacts your ability to climb the social ladder. Northeast wins!