Move by Rosabeth Moss Canter

The major elements of America’s transportation infrastructure and policy frameworks are six decades old (or older in the case rail). We haven’t even kept up with the maintenance since then. In addition to taking care of what we have, we need to adapt to the changes in technology, culture and the economy that have occurred. Our policies haven’t been keeping up.

In Move, Harvard business professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter explores how we got here and how we can move forward. We got here by adopting a defense-oriented policy that emphasized cars (especially interstate highways) and air travel, largely ignoring rail, public transit and intermodal development.

The path forward has several elements. First is a focus on mobility. Transportation infrastructure is a technical, bureaucratic realm of deep silos. Mobility changes the focus to moving people and products around communities and the nation in whatever ways make sense. Physical mobility and economic mobility are tied, and if we want to strengthen our economic leadership on the world stage, we need to break down internal policy barriers to advancing the way people move.

That means developing a national strategy. Of course, a rigid approach won’t work because we have varied nation. However, national priorities and frameworks can make room for regional priorities, adaption and leadership.

Money is always in issue. There are potentials in public-private partnership (PPP), and that can be arranged in many ways. America has a world-leading freight rail system that has very limited public investment. Airports are generally owned by governments, and attempts to privatize them have meet a cool response from possible investors. However, there are examples of successful PPPs in which there is something for everybody.

I already mentioned that technology has come a long way in the past several decades, especially in the realm of communication and data analysis. Some transportation industries, such as airlines, are taking advantage of the opportunities in new technology, while other are lagging. There are many ways our transportation system can be smarter, and we need sensible ways of incorporating technology in ways that are safe without losing out on the benefits through unnecessary delays.

This requires leadership and vision, especially in government. Politicians are often motivated by short-term wins, but mobility is a long-term investment. We need leaders who can see passed the next election and the boundaries of party.

Finally, citizen engagement is important. Plans can quickly fail if the people who are going to use, pay for and otherwise feel the ultimate effects of new transportation policies and infrastructure are not informed, involved and empowered to take action that works for them.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

1939 by David Gelernter

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Move: Putting America’s Infrastructure Back in the Lead. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.

The Supergirls by Mike Madrid

Superhero comics have been around for more than 70 year. Women adventurers started to don costumes soon after Superman showed how fun—and lucrative—it could be. Mike Madrid describes the history of these heroines in The Supergirls.

Comic book publishers have often followed fads and borrowed ideas and genres from other media. Even though superheroes originated in comic books, they still often reflected the prevailing views of their times and sometimes lagged other media in responding to changes in culture. This is particularly true for the depiction of superheroines.

Madrid shows how the ups and downs of women in American culture were reflected in the lives of their colorful, pulp counterparts. This follows a roughly decade by decade structure beginning in the 1940s when Wonder Woman appeared to fight oppressors and teach the world about the superiority of love, and the 2000s when relatively mature and complex female characters started to become more common.

It’s interesting to me that the World War II-era superheroines were tougher, more independent and more feminist than most the female characters in the decades that followed. Wonder Woman had an openly feminist agenda and aimed to teach girls to be women who could be strong and gracious, though the comic also reflected some the more peculiar perspectives of their creator and writer William Marston Moulton.

Until recently, women in comics had to be something. The had to be object lessons, girlfriends, hangers on, helpers, cheerleaders, career women, glamorous vixens, virgins, princesses,  husband hunters or whatever else a woman was supposed to be in that era. It took a long time for comics to come around to a woman being a person. Still super-powered and still a woman, but fundamentally a person.

As I read this book, I also thought about my profession. I’ve worked as an engineer for more than 20 years. Women are much more common in engineering than they once were, but there is still a push to attract women to the field. I think we sometimes get derailed by trying to prove that girls can like STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) as much as boy can.  Of course, they can. We should also think that the appeal of engineering may be in other thing, for both boys and girls. I was interested in technology as a kid (and enjoyed reading the adventures of Iron Man and Mister Fantastic), but I was also interested in justice, health, economic mobility, and the potential of water, power and mobility to make people’s lives better. I’m not that interested in technology for its own sake, but I’m very interested in how technology can lead to solutions that make people healthier, richer, more connected and happier. I think that is something that could be appealing to many girls, especially to girls who read comics.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in.

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Miss Mizzou by J. B. Winter

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Madrid, Mike. The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines. Exterminating Angels Press, 2009.