Yes, it is a feature story, but the content -- and context -- is also a wonderful, almost-perfect example of humans developing/evolving Complex Adaptive Systems.
Rai, Saritha. "In India, Grandma Cooks, They Deliver." *The New York Times*29 May 2007. 29 May 2007 < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/worldbusiness/29lunch.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>. "...In India, where many traditions are being rapidly overturned as a result of globalization, the practice of eating a home-cooked meal for lunch lives on. To achieve that in this sprawling urban amalgamation of an estimated 25 million people, where long commutes by train and bus are routine, Mumbai residents rely on an intricately organized, labor-intensive operation that puts some automated high-tech systems to shame. It manages to deliver tens of thousands of meals to workplaces all over the city with near-clockwork precision. At the heart of this unusual network is a chain of delivery men called dabbawallas...." "The service is at once simple and complex. A network of wallas picks up the boxes from customers' homes or from people who cook lunches to order, then delivers the meals to a local railway station. The boxes are hand-sorted for delivery to different stations in central Mumbai, and then re-sorted and carried to their destinations. After lunch, the service reverses, and the empty boxes are delivered back home. The secret of the system is in the colored codes painted on the side of the boxes, which tell the dabbawallas where the food comes from and which railway stations it must pass through on its way to a specific office in a specific building in downtown Mumbai." -tj -- ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ==========================================
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