Ten Across Conversations

This is the second episode in our limited series about artificial intelligence trends shaping life in the I-10 corridor and beyond. In this episode we chat with experts from the Ten Across cities of Phoenix, Houston and Jacksonville on the power of digital twins to more seamlessly convene stakeholders around shared goals.     As virtual representations of actual places and systems, digital twins a...

As we were publishing this episode, news from The New York Times broke that Jeremy Greenberg, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster command center has left his post , a day after President Trump said he would wind down the federal agency by November. CBS reported that Tony Robinson, regional administrator of FEMA Region 6, which includes Ten Across states New Mexico, Te...

Last week, news broke that the depletion of groundwater across the Colorado River Basin has been quietly, rapidly outpacing the more visible decline of the river itself. Even as the seven basin states negotiate reduced consumption of river water—inevitably driving dependence toward local aquifers instead—this newly published research shows that the majority ofmost of the water lost throughout the...

Last week, we discussed the emerging digital economy and artificial intelligence sector . Fulfilling the long-term potential of such technological advancements will also require innovation in the ways we anticipate, understand and control their potential consequences.   Take, for example, the revolutionary success of Amazon and other online and same-day delivery retailers. During the COVID-19 pand...

As artificial intelligence capabilities and related infrastructural demands have exploded in recent years , we have been keeping an eye on the implications for the Ten Across region .  To help kick off our summer podcast series on the subject of AI, Arizona State University’s chief information officer Lev Gonick joins us to explore the ways AI is reshaping education, urban development and predicti...

If you follow the evolution of American education, you are surely aware of Arizona State University's transformation under the leadership of Michael Crow. In a little over two decades, Crow has grown ASU into one of the largest and most influential public universities, in terms of overall enrollment, research expenditures, and the adoption of new technologies. In doing so, he has become an interna...

The insurance industry's bottom line offers the clearest, least political evidence that a stable economy and livable communities are increasingly dependent on strategies to address extreme weather impacts. California, Louisiana, and Florida have become harbingers of a spreading issue: disaster-related property losses that continuously exceed underwriting profitability. The resulting gaps in afford...

Given a looming negotiation deadline and recent changes in federal operations, this is an apt time for us to check back in on how things are going with Colorado River management. Frequent listeners and 10X Summit attendees alike will be well acquainted with how clearly this topic illustrates our collective responsibility to be proactive in the face of the "knowable future".   A 100-year-old miscal...

During an on-stage conversation between insurance industry leaders at the 2023 10X Los Angeles Summit, former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones described the need to mitigate the impacts of climate-driven weather in order for the state to remain insurable. His point has been clearly illustrated by news headlines the last couple years since the summit.     Among the greatest risks to hom...

Place and personal circumstance can play a decisive role in how one perceives the purpose and effectiveness of government. According to a 2021 study , in 2010 an estimated 37% of the U.S. population lived in an unincorporated area—places without municipal government and the services it might provide.      Central Alabama’s Lowndes County, for instance, has a population of just under 10,000 people....

Some curse words are used in this discussion.   In the previous episode , Mitch Landrieu discussed his upbringing, including the impact his father had on race relations in New Orleans and how this informed Mitch’s leadership during some of city’s toughest hours. In the second half of this conversation, we get his unvarnished perspective on changes in the federal approach to the budget, humanitaria...

As a native New Orleanian, Mitch Landrieu knows a thing or two about crisis and recovery. He served as the lieutenant governor of Louisiana through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and the compounding effects of subsequent storms including Ike and Gustav. In 2010, he was sworn in as mayor of New Orleans—just one month after the Deepwater Horizon explosion undermined the region's efforts to reco...

Phoenix experienced a 113-day streak of temperatures at or over 100 degrees, and an annual average high temperature of 90 degrees in 2024. The city’s extreme heat is the worst in the nation and has equally resulted in staggering increases of climate-related health emergencies and deaths.   Greater resilience to such rising temperatures requires clear, verifiable information that can guide communit...

New Orleans is an extraordinary place that has experienced more than its fair share of adversity. Living below sea level where the mouth of the Mississippi River meets the Gulf Coast, residents have become adept at mitigating a variety of water-related challenges, from the inundation of tropical storms and subsidence to the scarcity issues of saltwater intrusion.   There’s a lot we can learn from...

Compelling communication about risks and necessary actions is of special interest throughout the Ten Across geography. As we continue to follow the course of recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area, we took a closer look at journalism on the ground-- reporters doing their best to convey urgent information at multiple and sometimes personal scales.   On the heels the hottest 12 months in recorded...

In many ways, modern American engineering was born on the Mississippi. In the early days of westward expansion, the continent’s largest river basin presented both a vital resource for transportation, biodiversity and agricultural production and a complicated barrier.   The Army Corps of Engineers was founded in 1802, a year before the Louisiana Purchase. By the mid-1800s, Congress charged the Corp...

Our examination of the conditions that exacerbated the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this month continues today with perspective from author and environmental historian Char Miller.   Southern California received some much-needed rain over this past weekend , allowing firefighters to better contain the Palisades, Eaton, and Hughes fires. At the same time, the burned hillsides now bear much greater...

In the hottest year in recorded history, extreme heat corresponded to several notable weather events and ongoing public health impacts in the Ten Across geography. Evidence shows warming ocean temperatures were behind an especially destructive Atlantic hurricane season for the Gulf. Nearly all states along this transect saw their rates of private insurance nonrenewal increase among the most at-ris...

The events of the past year have reinforced the logic of the Ten Across initiative. In the context of the hottest year in recorded history , the Ten Across geography witnessed ongoing drought, a supercharged Atlantic hurricane season , devastating wildfires, and a significant loss of homeownership or insurance safety nets for its residents.   As we enter 2025, with staggering urban wildfires still...

On January 10, a sudden urban fire began in Los Angeles’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, immediately scorching 200 acres. Two hours later, evacuations were ordered for the 23,000 people in the community. By morning, all Los Angeles firefighters were called to duty, prepared for the worst as 50 to 80-mph winds began to pick up and carry embers from the fire for miles.   Then the worst happened—fir...

"It’s not just trust, it’s agency. Going back to this election—that anger is so often connected to people who feel like they are at the mercy of forces they cannot control." —Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America As we enter 2025, perspectives increasingly diverge on issues of the economy, national and international politics, energy and artificial intelligence, and management of the environment...

Louisiana’s coast sits at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The largest discharge basin in the United States, the Mississippi collects runoff from 41% of the nation’s rivers and delivers it into the Gulf of Mexico. Where this freshwater meets the ocean, randomly deposited mounds of river sediment form a large, well-inhabited delta that is constantly reordering itself.    To assert permanence upo...

The U.S. Atlantic hurricane season has changed. A recent study by Climate Central found that over the last six years, manmade warming amplified the average Atlantic hurricane’s strength by as much as 18 miles per hour. For context: it only takes an increase of 16 miles per hour to advance a hurricane from "minimal" Category 1 to "major" Category 3 — but the difference in damage is 140 times greate...

Extreme heat, when compared to other natural disasters, can be slow-moving and hard to observe. There aren’t homes to repair or debris to clear following a heat wave, but the devastation is revealed in the rising number of heat-related fatalities and declining public health measures across many vulnerable populations within Ten Across communities like Phoenix, Los Angeles, Tucson and San Antonio....

The cost of housing has risen nationwide, but this change has been particularly acute in the Ten Across geography. With the exception of California, the Sun Belt has been known for decades to offer abundant and affordable housing, attracting young families and retirees alike.   However, development of new single-family housing has shown more hesitancy since the 2008 housing bubble collapse , and p...