????“桑迪”颶風(fēng)充分暴露了美國電力和運(yùn)輸系統(tǒng)的脆弱性。紐約市是世界主要經(jīng)濟(jì)中心之一，而且我們明知“桑迪”颶風(fēng)就要來了，但還是不能避免紐約被“桑迪”摧毀的命運(yùn)。作為全球市場的兩條大動脈，紐交所（NYSE）和納斯達(dá)克（Nasdaq）也全部停盤——盡管它們在“9?11”事件后為城市應(yīng)急系統(tǒng)投資了那么多錢。美國有10個州的810萬人失去了電力，在美國，因“桑迪”颶風(fēng)死亡的人數(shù)超過了100人。

????那么，我們應(yīng)該如何對我們的城市進(jìn)行升級，讓它們在如此惡劣的條件下也能維持運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)？我們應(yīng)該把錢投到基礎(chǔ)建設(shè)的哪些地方，才能收到最好的回報？答案可能隱藏在另一個重要系統(tǒng)的設(shè)計上——互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。

????互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的設(shè)計很有韌性，即使一部分網(wǎng)絡(luò)出現(xiàn)故障，整個網(wǎng)絡(luò)還可以繼續(xù)運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)。現(xiàn)代互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的先驅(qū)“阿帕網(wǎng)”（ARPANET）的設(shè)計者們?yōu)樗麄兊木W(wǎng)絡(luò)選擇了一個沒有中心節(jié)點的分布式系統(tǒng)，使信息通過多個通道從起點發(fā)送到終點，以避免單點故障。這也是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)今天為何如此繁榮的原因之一，即使它被黑客攻擊了，或是它的硬件因自然災(zāi)害而遭到破壞，信息也可以繞過故障點，到達(dá)接收方那里。

????我們的電網(wǎng)設(shè)計卻和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)完全不同。如果一條線路上發(fā)生了任何故障，這條線路上的所有用戶都會失去電力。史蒂芬·約翰遜在他的新書《將來完成時》（Future Perfect）中把這種網(wǎng)絡(luò)稱為“羅格朗星”（Legrand Star）網(wǎng)絡(luò)，僅次于法國的中央節(jié)點鐵路系統(tǒng)。事實證明，我們的電網(wǎng)比普通的中央節(jié)點網(wǎng)絡(luò)更容易發(fā)生故障。2003年，一次突然停電導(dǎo)致4,500萬美國人的家庭瞬間失去了電力供應(yīng)。其實，在那次災(zāi)難中，僅僅是因為俄亥俄州的一座電廠發(fā)生了事故，就導(dǎo)致整個美國東部停電。如果有黑客從多個節(jié)點攻擊我們的電力系統(tǒng)，那么又會發(fā)生什么情況？

????到目前為止，我們并沒有從那起災(zāi)難中汲取什么教訓(xùn)，而且?guī)缀鯖]有采取任何措施。美國的電網(wǎng)恰好就是納西姆·泰力布在他的新書《反脆弱》（Anti-fragile）中描述的那種脆弱的系統(tǒng)。泰力布在書中警告我們，必須重新設(shè)計系統(tǒng)，從故障中汲取教訓(xùn)，變得更強(qiáng)大。

????今天，我們的電網(wǎng)仍和2003年大斷電時一樣脆弱——甚至可能比那時還要更脆弱。目前向下曼哈頓區(qū)提供電力的電網(wǎng)還是美國的第一個電網(wǎng)，早在19世紀(jì)90年代由大發(fā)明家托馬斯·愛迪生建造。現(xiàn)在該是時候升級紐約市和全美國的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施了。我們可以采取以下幾個步驟來增加美國電網(wǎng)的可靠性和抗風(fēng)險性。

????Hurricane Sandy?revealed the vulnerability of our power and transportation systems. New York City, one of the world's major economic centers, was brought to its knees by a storm that we knew was coming. The NYSE and Nasdaq exchanges -- the lifeblood of world markets -- were closed, despite all their investment since 9/11 in backup systems. More than 8.1 million people lost power across ten states. More than one hundred people died in the US.

????How can we upgrade our cities so that they function during such adverse conditions? Where should we invest in infrastructure to get the best return? Answers may lie in the design of another crucial system: the Internet.

????The internet was built to be resilient -- it was engineered to keep functioning even if part of the network went down. The designers of ARPANET, the precursor of the modern internet, chose a distributed system with no central node for their network. They found ways to route information in multiple paths from origin to destination to avoid a single-point of-failure fault. This is one reason why the Web is so robust today, even when it is attacked by hackers or its physical elements by natural disasters, information can be re-routed around the fault to reach its recipients.

????Unlike the internet, our power grid is architected such that if any fault takes place along a line,?all customers on that line lose power. Steven Johnson calls these?"Legrand Star" networks?in his new book,?Future Perfect, after the?central-node railway system in France. It turns out that our power grid is even more fault-prone than a central-node network. In 2003, 45 million Americans lost power due to a sudden blackout. In that disaster, the entire Eastern half of the US lost power when just?one?utility plant in Ohio went offline. What would happen if hackers tried to take down the system at multiple points?

????And yet, we learned little from that catastrophe and did seemingly nothing about it. Our grid is the very definition of the fragile system that Nassim Taleb warns against in his new book,?Anti-fragile.Taleb urges us to redesign systems?to learn from failure points and get stronger.

????Our grid today is just as fragile as it was in the blackout of 2003 -- maybe even more so. The grid that serves lower Manhattan was the first utility network in the country, built by Thomas Edison in the 1890s. It's time to upgrade the infrastructure in NYC and across the US. Here are specific steps we can take to increase the reliability and resiliency of our electric grid: