New York became something of a symbol of urban dysfunction: a city that nearly went bankrupt, a place where trash piled up amid a garbage strike and a massiveblackout struck as the Son of Sam serial killer was on the loose.
Since the massiveblackout that wracked the east coast of the United States and large parts of Canada back in 2003, there has been a tremendous amount of conversation about the development of a "smart grid" that will provide a safe, reliable, efficient and resilient energy infrastructure.
Despite its inherent illogic, the notion that last week's massive, cascading electrical blackout was a "wake-up" call seems now to have become as much a part of the political landscape as has the effort to assign blame for this costly man-made disaster.