The Urban Blockchain

I tell stories. My professional practice has led me to find value in constructing better urban places with those who will benefit from them. Those are the stories I tell. Most of the time, the protagonist is a community, which learns the value of initiatives that do not need official sanctioning and of strong networks that make information redundant and their product sustainable and antifragile.
Antifragility, as defined by Nassim Taleb, is the condition of entities that have endured tough blows and have come out stronger and wiser.
The Blockchain is one of such entities. A strong network of shared information, it is safe, secure and redundant. Those are conditions desperately needed by urban systems, from water supply and sewage plants to zoning codes and property records, the Blockchain is arguably the most disruptive tech to come in over 100 years, since cars let us travel farther and electrical grids allowed us to keep our cities functioning longer into the night.
Perhaps the greatest opportunity that the Blockchain opens is the ability to form decentralized networks that do not have to rely on political will, nor pray to be on the politicians' good side. Cities have many great problems and some of them are exacerbated by the very strategies that try to solve them. In this blog I will look at solutions that are simple yet solve complex problems, the kind of problem a city is, to paraphrase Jane Jacobs.
To tell my stories, I bring my expertise from Academia, Economic Development and the public and private sector perspective to seek disruptive, simple solutions that could fix the way cities work.
I am an Urban Mechanic. I am a Placemaker. I believe in the power of Human Action and mankind's ingenuity and creativity. Let's network and make those solutions Antifragile.