U.S. should build a green city: Why not Detroit?

What if we were to go into an area of our country that's seriously in need of reinvention — the Midwest — and build a city that would offer a living, breathing opportunity to create an entire clean-tech infrastructure? That's not nearly as utopian as it sounds. Here's why.

Moving from an oil-based economy to one fueled by sustainable, clean power requires more than a technology shift. It requires an infrastructure shift — a concept we explored in a recent Harvard Business Review article. Technologies don't replace technologies — systems replace systems. Fossil-fuel powered transport isn't a technology; it's a system comprising countless interconnected businesses (and business models), markets, government policies, and, yes, technologies. Replacing gas-powered cars with electric ones isn't a matter of simply swapping in new engines. It requires building the entire system that will make electric transport economically viable. Entrepreneur Shai Agassi is, at this very moment, building a comprehensive electric-vehicle infrastructure in Israel that encompasses not just the cars but the charging stations and cutting-edge power management grids and software such an infrastructure requires — a system.