Friend of the newsletter, David Zipper, did a good rundown on a new book called, “Disrupting D.C.: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City” and I’m pretty pumped to read this, despite this terrible cover:
Seriously it looks like it was designed in about 12 minutes. I’m not sure I have a lot more to add to this except to direct you to David’s pointed commentary for CityLab earlier this week. I’m particularly intrigued by this:
Significant though it was, the arrival of ride-hailing can only tell us so much about how cities now handle new technology ventures that are locally regulated. Startups that have tried to copy the Uber playbook (i.e., converting early users to become lobbyists) have met limited success; in 2019 Airbnb unsuccessfully sought to mobilize its “hosts” to defeat restrictions in Jersey City, New Jersey. Bird initially hoped to blitzscale its way toward electric scooter domination — hiring Uber lobbying veteran Bradley Tusk to lead the charge — but today it, like other e-scooter providers, typically asks cities for permission rather than forgiveness. The experience of Uber and Lyft riding roughshod over local rules was a searing one for many city officials, who have vowed never to let it reoccur.
Here’s my summary: cities and leaders have the power to hold these big tech companies to account. And sometimes they do. And Uber is full of shit. Good on these authors and this idea that cities run the tech that’s supposed to make them better and not the other way around. More coverage, thanks.