IN THE BUBBLE JOHN THACKARA - witz cultural

Net (DPWN, formerly DHL) proclaim that ‘‘delivery is just the beginning of
what we can do for your business.’’ They have transformed themselves into
‘‘consolidators’’ or ‘‘integrators’’ of multiple flows of stuff, information, and
money. They have become proficient, too, in supply chain management,
brokerage services, trade financing, reverse logistics, critical-parts distribution,
global freight, e-commerce tools, online tracking, and package
delivery. 22
Modern logistics enables supply chains to become supply webs. Hau Lee,
director of the Global Supply Chain Management Forum at Stanford University,
says the perfect supply system ‘‘is an intricate network of suppliers,
distributors and customers who share carefully managed information about
demand, decisions and performance, and who recognize that success for
one part of the supply chain means success for all.’’ The problem is that
companies do not always want to share information. That’s where chief information
officers (CIOs) need to step in and help manage the flow of information
and build trust among business partners, according to Lee. 23
Modern logistics, although undeniably impressive, is a smart answer to
the wrong question. Logistics analyzes and optimizes the supply chain for
a company and so creates value—but at a cost to the rest of us. In addition
to the energy consumed, logistics consumes huge amounts of space and
equipment. The total supply of short-term warehouse space increased
from 6.1 to nearly 6.5 billion square feet between 1999 and 2000 alone. 24
Faster movement of people or goods requires much greater public investment
in transport systems. More logistics, however efficient, will make
things worse if it is dedicated to shifting stuff further, faster. Rather than
long-distance patterns of movement at accelerating speeds, local patterns
of activity are a better destination.
Design Strategy 1: Think More, Drive Less
Mobility 57
The overwhelming majority of modernization programs around the world
aspire to improve existing mobility systems through the better integration
of the transport systems already in place. Increasingly, European planners
now treat car, rail, air, and ship as complementary—not competing—
modes of transport. Airlines, for example, are happy to displace passengers
from some short-range flights onto rail; I can already buy a single codesharing
ticket from Amsterdam to Montpellier in which the first leg of my