A requiem for Detroit

May 13th, 2010

I became aware of the plight of Detroit through my research into Local Motors. I used Detroit in my sxsw presentation to highlight what happens when we cannot build adaptation, into business systems, into regions – this is the toxic legacy of the industrial revolution. This film takes us on a sad journey and is a salutatory lesson, especially for working out what comes next? My question is how do we build lightweight, adaptive, flexible, effective real-world organisations and businesses, that can perform in unprecedented ways, plus input costs dramatically reduced when we re-engineer business systems? What happens when we put humanity into the economic mix – do we become romantic economists? How does that impact on the quality of life as well affecting regional development, inward investment and job creation? More (here) and (here). Detroit did not have open source, or open api’s, it was a closed system. As Neil Young sang, its easy to get stuck in the past when you are trying to make a good thing last.

In Natural Capitalism, (a book that has a great deal going for it) the authors write,

Capitalism, as practised is a financially profitable, nonsustainable aberration in human development. What might be called “industrial capitalism” does not fully conform to its own accounting principals. It liquidates its capital and calls it income. It neglects to assign any value to the largest stocks of capital it employs – the natural resources and living systems, as well as the social and cultural systems that are the basis of human capital.

I give you Detroit…