Uncaptured Values
Growing Meta #20
Hi everyone!
V20 has concluded for 2020. Values 20 is an unofficial engagement group of many global experts. Their goal is to inspire policy makers into designing public policy that taps into and change the individual’s behavior. For example, we can build a stronger foundation for peace if we had strong trade ties. To have stronger trade ties, we need to foster trust in individuals in global trade. Another example: so much of global issues, like damages from consumeristic behavior, can be mitigated by dissolving the barrier between the consequences of that behavior, to the person who behaved that way. That way we can foster a more responsible global community. Share your thoughts with them here.
Here’s a thread I enjoyed researching: The forms of knowledge creation.
Thinking about values force us to grow meta, because everything links to a value economically or socially.
What things have a lot of economic value, but are uncaptured?
Our perception of value has often been utilitarian. We look at what we need immediately, and we miss out on value circulation and transformation. Of course, the literature is rife with ways to capture lost value.
Economic values have different forms.
Utility (what is of use), currency (a form of value exchange), power (facilitate value), and perception (indirectly mapped value, like brands) are some forms of value that change the economy.
Value is just like energy. It changes from one form to another.
If I accidentally smash your car, the value of the car transforms into economic value for a certain workshop. Who, in turn, transform the value back to you by fixing it. Of course, the value of your money (or mine) will transmit to someone else. But at least your car is in good shape now..
(Reminder: Even one second spent reading a WhastApp message while driving could mean an accident. Even if you’re driving at 20km. No message is worth the risk.)
Value, like energy, has a dormant state.
From the flowing river to the heated sand particles, there is always uncaptured value that can be transformed and circulated.
Once we master value unveiling, i.e. knowing the many faces of economic value a thing has, we then can think about the circular economy with larger degrees of flexibility.
Value we can potentially capture
Streets as Money
How much of streets can we recycle? In Trillion Dollar Streets[1], complexity researcher Cesar Hidalgo briefly comments on how Manhattan is potentially losing out on a lot of recurrent revenue by allocating 36% of its land as streets. Tokyo manages to allocate only 29% (mainly by not having on-street parking). Hidalgo breaks it into supply and demand: for governments to reclaim streets, they need to double down on public transportation. Once supplying the land of streets is an option, they can sell it for commercial and residential projects or create more park spaces.
Hidalgo comments that the green area below alone can give Manhattan millions in annual revenue, many residential units, and of course more economic opportunities.
So how much of streets do we really need?
Air as Property
What if we’re sold air-rights, not land-rights? When you’re in an area such as Manhattan, you need to think about vertical value. Here is a paper with implementation strategies air-right development policies [2]. They also briefly survey land-value capture tools that governments use (image below).
Waste as Data
You may not realize it, but garbage & waste are actually gigantic untapped data lakes. Garbage can tell us how an economy is doing. They can tell us a lot about people and their behaviors. What they eat, what they use or what they let go of. They all mean something (to an economist, a marketer, or a policy maker).
“Garbage is a pretty good indicator of economic health, and tends to be a leading indicator.” - Ken Whitehead, director of Eagle County Solid Waste and Recycling
Why did he say this? Well, his county’s construction trash dropped by 68% in 2007! They felt something was really wrong with the demand on housing. It was a major indicator on the events that ensued in 2008.
Also, scientists can now classify a region’s drug intake by testing the sewers. What else can we learn?
Plastic and Greenhouse Gases
Of course, everyone is waiting for the day we can turn our consumeristic economies into self-sustaining wheels. Can tech help us create circular value out of plastics and greenhouse gases?
What’s an uncaptured value you often think about?
[1] Hidalgo, César A. "Trillion dollar streets." Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science 47.7 (2020): 1133-1135.
[2] Bunio, Nathan. Air rights development and public assets: an implementation handbook for public entities. Diss. Ryerson University, 2016.