Horace and Oliver have a great discussion on the philosophicalunderpinnings of price signals going back to Freidrich Hayek and how priceworks to coordinate activity in society.They discuss how micromobility suffers from market manipulation for itsinfrastructure and manufacturing and how road space allocation is currentlymisaligned to how it’s valued as real estate.It’s Horace at his best - philosophical, paring theory to reality, andgiving us all new frameworks to think about how the world works and willchange.Specifically, they dig into:- The concept of using price signals to allocate resources in societyproposed by Freidrich Hayek, where that came from as a concept, where ithas been applied (free market vs. centrally planned economies), and whyit’s interesting in the context of oil prices.- Why black/grey markets exist everywhere- Where it has and hasn’t used for road space allocation, and why thatmatters- What the impact on micromobility would be if road space could be moreeffectively priced.- Why minimum car parking is an unpriced externality, and how it came tobe.- The geostrategic investment in the auto sector coming out of WW2, and whythat has had an impact on city infrastructure- Sunk cost fallacies and the choice of what we continue to invest in insociety.- Why clear price signals for real estate used for infrastructure wouldaccelerate the adoption of micromobility.- A discussion about the use of economics in urban planning, including ashort discussion of the excellent book Order without Design by AlainBertaud.Thanks also to our sponsor for the episode, Populus.ai. Populus arebuilding digital tools that assist government agencies to manage theircurbs, streets and sidewalks with access to intelligent data and analyticstools. Last week, they announced their Open Streets Initiative to providecities with digital solutions to identify and communicate slow and safestreet policies. Oakland, California recently announced that 74 miles ofstreets would be closed to through vehicle traffic in order to make itsafer for pedestrians, and small sustainable modes to travel for essentialtrips and create more room for social distancing. Populus works with citiesaround the world, from Buenos Aires to Baltimore - to help build trustbetween operators and regulators to see shared mobility become the bigsuccess that we think it can be. They run webinars and produce some of thebest editorial content about the impact of micromobility on cities in theUS that we’ve seen - if you’re looking to educate yourself better on thespace, and/or are looking for tools to build trust with your localgovernment to help take shared micromobility to the next level, check themout.