137: The interplay between technology, politics and the social contract with Laura Fox, GM of Citi Bike

This week Oliver interviews Laura Fox, General Manager of the Citi Bike bike sharing service in New York, and Senior Director of Lyft Bikes. This podcast was also released on our sister podcast project, Infinite Block.

Laura has a very deep background and thinking about the future of cities, not only in an operational sense - running a Micromobility firm, before that working for Sidewalk Labs for Google and working with former world bank urban economist, with whom she edited one of Oliver's favourite books on urban economics “Order Without Design.”

In this episode, Laura talks with Oliver about the implications of Micromobility on the city and also new forces calling upon her background at Sidewalk Labs, and consulting on the interplay of regulations and housing supply in Mexico City with Alain Bertaud.

In this weeks episode, they talk specifically about:

- How Citi Bike is a novel means of accessing high performance city vehicles, but it's highly dependent on government interventions for things like street space, allocation and funding. What would happen if NYC voted in a new council that took Citi Bike very seriously as a transport option? 

- Laura reflects on her time at Sidewalk Labs: What went well, and whether their new focus on software enabled tools is a step down.

- A city often builds up complex regulations over time, and that deregulation, especially around things like zoning and building codes (for example in Mexico) can unlock cities to be more responsive to their citizens. Oliver and Laura discuss how this can be achieved.

- Where are there cities who are not as fast at responding to tech advances, and how the process can be accelerated.

- How we can trust in governance in an age of quicker change, and what countries are doing this well.

- Whether there have been any alternative methods for infrastructure funding that have been successful.

Check out Citi Bike and their developments within New York right here

Our sponsor for this episode is Joyride.