Living near L.A-Long Beach, the largest port in the US, I’ve seen a lot of containers being moved. I’ve toured the port and been up in the big crane facilities that can load and unload 6 ships at a time. There is a special rail line expressway, the Alameda Corridor, that takes containers out of the ports to a large transshipping yard in Vernon. Super long trains leave from there to all over the US. Back at the port, an amazingly organized system of trucks pull in to get the rest and get them on their way.
Impressive as it is, US ports are semi-automated, and are archaic compared with the automation used all over Asia and other parts of the world. In Sydney, the port is completely automated. Not so, in Dunedin, New Zealand as pictured. It is more like L.A.-Long Beach. In my opinion, the US needs to address the issues with the Longshoreman’s Union and automate the infrastructure. The amount of goods being moved around the world everyday will only get greater.
If you have not visited a port and watched their operations, I highly recommend it. The concept that a picture is worth a thousand words could have been based on watching a port operate. Even in Dunedin, where they can load/unload only 2 ships at a time, it is impressive.
Other infrastructure is impressive in Dunedin as well. A hilly city, they had 4 different cable cars in the 1880s to carry people up and down from their houses in the hills to the center city. They designed the city with a large swath of bush (untouched wilderness) running across the middle so original trees remain today. It is dense and beautiful. And it has the University of Otago with 21, 000 students from all over the world.
You couldn’t keep up with the modern world living on an island without constant trade and shipping containers coming from all over the world. This week, look around you at all the infrastructure it takes to make our lives function. It is not just software or AI that is important for our future.
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