The City of the Future

I Defiance

2005-01-21T13:47:00.000-05:00

There will be a new velcro. The same way that pink became the new black, a power adhesive will become the new Velcro. We'll call it Mucilagro. It will attach clothes to bodies (possibly a prerequisite for halftime shows, if the FCC has anything to do with it). It will attach children to their parents (a controversial replacement for today's popular child leash.) Easily removed, expensively replaced.

With public nudity under control and kidnappings curtailed, we may have less to care about when we watch the nightly news at 10.

But in the city of the future, everyone is awake until way past midnight.

Jeanette

2005-01-19T09:15:00.000-05:00

Okay so the City of the Future. It's probably true that when most people imagine the city of the future they see a metallic metropolis ablaze with electricity. They see Robots completing every task from something so simple as opening a door to unraveling the complicated structures of bing-bat-boom. Most likely the common notion is that things will be piled so high on top of each other people on earth will travel in hover crafts, while others may choose to live on the moon. Of course all the food to feed the city will be bought from people who make up vegetables in labs. It’s easy to imagine an answer for everything, in pill form and its quite plausible that the lifestyles people lead now will grow and evolve into fatter, lazier, more self absorbed, i'm-alive-but-i-can't-feel lifestyles. I haven't read all of the ideas others have submitted for the City of the Future, so I apologize if you've heard not what I actually think will be seen in the city of the future but what I'd like to see. Maybe that proclivity to see things getting worse for the city in the future is wrong:

One day in the City of the Future realization hit people like an asteroid. They saw that the fast paced lives they spent in their cars on the way to "the office" where they get paid oodles of dollars were devoid of anything resembling happiness. So they slowed down. Of course technology couldn't or wouldn't just get tossed away, but it'd be used for much better things than creating things that the earth can give and ways of killing mass amounts of people. It'd be used to cure horrible diseases and keep the city clean, among other things. Cars would get smaller and wouldn't pollute the environment and more people would ride bikes. Families and Friends would spend more time together. People would communicate face to face instead of screen to screen, cell phone to cell phone. Food would be organic and healthy, because people would realize feeding their babies McDonald's is the worst they could do (as a result all fast food chains would go under). People would be very intelligent, naturally, as new things are discovered everyday no matter what or where, but they would not use their intelligence to create bigger bombs rather, they'd create bigger bridges for communicating with people that live in other Cities of the Future. And you know how your grandparents talk about when they were young and they lived in the city? They talk about how you could go out at night without being afraid, or let your kids play stickball in the street. In the City of the Future your Grandpa will look back to present times and say to you, "You're lucky you're young now, the city I grew up in was not as safe or as kind as it is now."

Kitsune Tsuki

2005-01-10T20:26:00.000-05:00

To be human is to communicate. The air of the city of the future will be filled with speech of infinite, invisible 0100011 strings. There will be wires—invisible, yet present wires—running through the air. The city of the future will be a spider web of delicate, silky wires set out to ensnare the human fly.

Foolishly, as they absentmindedly communicate through waves, with their tiny portable screen generators, they believe that on the public nets, they are anonymous. Silly surfer, your flesh is your IP. Patriot act my ass, this government knows what you are thinking.

The wariness of modification soon dissipates as amputees are given new limbs, dying old men new hearts. Philosophers ponder if the human soul will become like the cold, sterile, machines inside them. Some, filled with self-righteous bravado will begin to modify not out of necessity, but as a status symbol. It gradually spreads, business men silently muttering into tiny cell phones attached to their ears, reading the slight movements of the mouth, airline pilots with mechanical eyesight, rich housewives with constantly regenerating skin. Tiny machines run through bloodstreams, killing invaders.

Tiny machines painstakingly repairing strands of DNA. “My body will not be a host for machines” they scream, but it happens anyway. They move away, only to eat modified vegetables. The air reeks of communication.

Yet at night, when all of the machines turn off, the citizen of the future awake screaming with the same primal fears of their cave-dwelling ancestors pumping hot through their cold, mechanical veins.

Mark Lies

2005-01-03T19:27:00.000-05:00

Well, it has been such a long time responding to this query that it must be the future now, and so I suppose what ever cities are like now must be what the city of the future is like. But I guess if we go into the far future, you’ll see all sorts of interesting stuff. The zoos will be one of the most oddly captivating features I think. There will be genetically enhanced and hybridized beasts such as the gorillapotamus, the tigerangutang, the elephantwhale, and who knows what others intriguing horrors of human innovation.

They way of life will be much the same as today, but for the faster pace and the being ruled by octopi overlords.

Keith J. Allen

2004-12-22T21:12:00.000-05:00

Bill sat down in a dark gray chair. The room was circular, roughly 30 feet in diameter with immaculate ebony walls that glistened under the steady white glow from overhead. A small circular table made of the same ebony material was at the center of the room and across from Bill sat an empty chair identical to his.

It wasn’t long before the only door to the room opened and a pleasant looking young blond woman entered and took a seat across from him. She was a few inches shorter than Bill, with straight hair that was pulled back behind her hair.

“Just to be clear, you are Bill Hugh Milcost, born in the year 1964 to John and Nancy Milcost and frozen in cryogenic sleep in the year 2010?”

Bill cleared his throat with an audible cough. “Uhm…yeah.”

“How are feeling Mr. Milcost?”

“Fine. I guess.”

The blond woman paused for a moment as if to assess the man in front of her. “My name is Serna, I have been assigned to bring you up to date on the changes that have occurred during your 60 years of cryogenic sleep. Because our records say that you spent most of your time New York City before your sleep, I will focus on most of the changes you will see around you and the history behind them.”

“The biggest thing you will notice is that everyday commodities for which you became accustomed to in the early 21^st century are no longer available with the ease at which you acquired them during your time. This is primarily due to the great economic collapse of 2039. History has recorded that the collapse was nearly inevitable after America waged a 38 year war on global terrorism that bankrupted it and weakened its military strength and moral underpinnings. Simultaneously, the European and Asian nations began to unify their respective economies by uniting their currencies in to the Euro and the Yen-Won. The year of 2036 is regarded as a turning point, because it was in this year that the European and Asian nations demanded America halt its perpetual campaign. After nearly 90 years of global dominance America responded with foolish arrogance and once again increased military spending in preparation to wage a responsive war with a united Europe and Asia. The second cold war only lasted 3 years before the top-heavy economy of America collapsed. The war ground to a halt and on August 14^th 2040 President Timothy William Gates was assassinated by a member of his own secret service.”

“In the years that followed the states of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Texas declared independence in an attempt to keep their own economies solvent. What followed was a bloody and almost primitive civil war, as both sides fought with the remaining stockpiles of weapons from the war on terror. The war was decided when the Republic of California struck a decisive blow against the Allied States with a nuclear weapon being detonated in Washington D.C.”

“Unfortunately for Europe and Asia, they miscalculated their still considerable dependence on the American economy and by 2047 the global economy was in a seemingly unending decline. While many third world countries had lived for centuries in poverty, most of the citizens in the formerly first world countries of the world were unaccustomed to the hardships and sought frantically for an escape.”

“Though decade after decade had brought ruination and war to the world, science had managed to make significant advances and by 2047 many of the citizens of the world were prepared to take advantage it. Thus began the Speciation Revolution.”

“Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, privately organized and funded groups began to disappear. The movements grew, soon mankind in bulk sought to escape poverty by leaving society and forging a new frontier. Many fled to the near-vacuum of space in ships bound for countless different stars, determined never to return to the womb which had given them such a painful birth. With regards to these ships and their great emigration we no nothing of their fate.”

“Some people chose to modify their own genome and in so doing took to the oceans, with its still bountiful resources. They created whole societies for themselves beneath hundreds of feet of water. The Aquatans are now the second most powerful species on the planet, maintaining the largest and most fruitful economy on the planet.”

“Finally, the most popular speciation involves the mass uploading of personalities to the Internet. Fully one third of the global population abandoned their bodies to become Cybans. They are currently the dominant species on the planet.”

“As the years passed the divide between the species has increased and solidified. We have had no wars in the last 20 years, however land-bound man has dwindled and lost contact with each other as poverty and resources become more and more scarce. No doubt mountain communities still exist somewhere. I have revived you from your sleep because I am the last human worker at this facility. In two hours I am scheduled make the transition into that of a Cyban. As you prepare to take your first steps back into New York you should know that you we are the last land-bound humans in the city.”

Bill sat for a moment in silence. A blank look of disbelief covered his face.

“So, are you saying it will be hard to get pizza?”

Dogbears

2004-12-22T14:32:00.000-05:00

I think that the people of the city of the future will be very happy at last. I think that all of the large corporations and modern technology and the whole economy will eventually fail and we will all have to start over. Everyone will have to use their skills or learn skills that contribute to the community because everything will be based on trade instead of money.

There will be lots of gardens in the city because people will need to grow their own food. All the large stores and malls will be changed into market places where people can trade handmade goods and food or services. There will be a big emphasis placed on art because people will finally realize that beauty feeds the soul, just as food feeds the body. Murals will cover all of the ugly office buildings and all of the museums will be free and open all of the time.

Everyone will have free housing, education and healthcare. Healthcare will be more natural and preventative, incorporating healing ideas from all over the world, so less people will be sick. Skyscrapers will be turned into huge homes. People will have a much more communal way of living because we will finally realize that we all need each other to survive. People will walk places and ride bicycles and there will be some electric cars, but no pollution because we have to keep the cities clean to grow our food. There will be lots and lots of libraries that will be open all of the time. Finally, there will be free public bathrooms everywhere.

Callejero

2004-12-22T01:38:00.000-05:00

We have finally learned from the animal kingdom. People of one inclination and those of another do not live in the same city-state. Rather, they each have their own geographic area, free, for the most part, from federal and state mandates.

An individual is able to move from one city-state to another if his ideology fits in. Law-abiding visitors, however, are always welcome--no matter how they differ. They receive, by federal law, the utmost protection, the kind afforded a diplomat. There is one city-state somewhere that has people who drink, smoke pot, and do not believe in incarcerating rapists, thieves, and scofflaws. Instead, they castrate rapists, tag thieves, and make the scofflaw put money in escrow for future transgressions. Another allows its citizens to hire mercenaries to go to war in place of their own sons and daughters. This is their choice and no one can tell them otherwise.

The federal government ensures our common defense, our libertarian blessings, and some services that a single city-state cannot handle by itself: disaster recovery, garbage disposal, etc. When a crime is committed by a citizen of a different city-state, federal law takes precedence.

Fresh Curd

2004-12-16T11:13:00.000-05:00

So, I spent some time on the bus ride home last night, thinking about the City. I don't really have an answer to the question, just a series of questions that I had to ponder on the way to discovering that I had no answer. I was trying not to be too swayed by the multitude of sci-fi books that I've read. So... here's what I thought.

What will the City of the Future look like? Part of it depends on the people who live there. Will people still live in the City? Or will they just commute to work from the Ring of Suburbia? Or will all the jobs move out of the city, so that the traditional commute is reversed? Will people be able to afford to live in the City, or will housing be limited to the very rich and the very poor, even more so than it is now? Will people own real estate, or will everything be controlled by the government and/or corporations? Will there still be parks and playfields? Gardens? Public spaces? Privacy?

Will cities even exist in the future? Will threats of terrorism, disease, and/or warfare make it dangerous and illegal to have such a concentration of people? Or will cities become the *only* places people can live, for more efficient use of dwindling natural resources?

How will people get around? Will we start exploiting the airspace above the streets, with hovercrafts or more sophisticated elevated trains? Will people ever completely buy in to public mass transit, or will we simply find new ways of making private vehicles the staple transportation mode? Or will the concern about obesity in America lead to a mandate that everyone has to walk or bicycle everywhere?

Will the City of the Future still be a center for entertainment and the arts? Will the divide grow between the commercial and independent art and music industries, such that one takes over the suburbs and the city is left with the other? Will city people regularly come together for group socialization/therapy, or will they seek elusive solitude in meditation?

That's all I managed to come up with by the end of the bus ride. Sorry it's not more opinionated; I have a tough time deciding how I think things will turn out.

Filly

2004-12-16T01:29:00.000-05:00

The city of the future will be a mixture of light and concept. Since we will have devastated much of the Earth, including other animals and raw materials, we will have to find a way to maintain the lifestyles so carefully developed through our ancestries. Clothes, personal belongings, houses, and all other things will be made by light projection. The apparent weight of the item will be an illusion produced by varying light densities. Advances in technology will enable our highly visual tendencies to unite with our love of concept to provide us with any typical object desired. "In the long run," we are told, "we will see that this is the better way to live. It saves time, eliminates unnecessary jobs that no one wants to do anyway, and grants one the ultimate freedom – the freedom to surround himself in any fantastical environment he wants. One may also change his environment to keep up with his inevitable mood swings by merely flipping a switch or pressing a few buttons."

Despite the persuasive force of science, people will develop a new longing for the material world as society once knew it. They might even claim that the material world was better than the current world. Their argument will go down in anthropological history as "the materialistic fallacy."

Nostradumbass

2004-12-15T09:51:00.000-05:00

What of the city of the future? The city of the future will be dark. Immense monoliths will tower tens of thousands of feet, obscuring the sky above. And who will be able to see this sky? The rich, of course, whose penthouses will allow only them access to the light of the day and the splendor of the night. And what of the poor? In the dreary depths, all they will see above them will be far off multicolored lights, which refuse to fall to earth. Yes, the city of the future will be filthy, as the consumption of the teeming masses will turn the air a blackish-brown, and clouds of noxious fumes will engender misery in all those unlucky enough to have to step outside. For the bridges will be built at a level only the rich will be able to access. And the elevators, my friends, will not go all the way to the top floors. Unserviced, and without proper ventilation, the elevators of the future will be nasty. They'll barely have proper counterweight!

And don't even ask me about the windows of the future.

Low Key Like Loki

2004-12-13T19:05:00.000-05:00

Excerpt from Appendix B of Inefficient (and Unorthodox) Usages of Communication for the Purposes of Interstate Commerce:

I will someday be walking in an urban area, but cities will no longer be a useful concept. Urban centers have lost their usefulness when they can hardly be distinguished themselves from the surrounding urban-side. Part of this stems from the numbers after the founding of the people’s republic of Wal-Mart. Everyone will see the Great Wal from their personal satellite in space, but obscure scholars will blog about its origin elsewhere (though these unauthorized rogue scholars will lack state funding and thus, without the graphic potential of their state funded colleagues, few webbies will get this message.) Congressional representation will be determined by annual sales figures of the various corporate branches; voters receive a 10% discount on that day’s sale. Voter registration levels of 97% legitimize the police state; the Supreme Court hears if offering rebates to entice early registration is a violation of the 57th Amendment.

The police states that rule will inevitably fear large crowds and open spaces (following the Cultural Revolution model, not the standard Stalinist urban preference) and thus will prefer to distribute people evenly; efficiency models will perfect the movement of people by a priori product differentiation (all consumer goods preferences will be decrypted/determined at birth, and reinforced by state-subsidized ‘learning programs.’) Handicapped children will be readily embraced by the corporatized orphanages, as these offspring will be essential in the development of alternative marketing approaches.

Terrorism will likewise be more manageable away from urban centers (where it can really hit big numbers) and, by equalizing the danger to all areas, people will be of one harmonious mind against terror. As the terror attacks occur in greater frequency, they get about as much interest as a 2004 Yahoo headline about a suicide bombing (that kills less than a dozen) in Gaza. Detachment will be the ultimate result of the inability to even distinguish good terror attacks (suspected terrorists killed) versus bad terrorist attacks (the innocent people who are killed but not called suspected terrorists). Inundated with advertising, onslaught with complexity, the widely embraced officially recognized political institution will be the Sloganaires, for whom personal style connotes ideology.

The finer institutions of learning will still, though, churn out state-sanctioned apologists. These intellectuals will be essential to maintaining a regions’ comparative advantage vis-à-vis its competitors. Convicts, dissidents, terrorists, (i.e. those who save in excess of their federally mandated ‘purchasing quotient’) will be assigned to mountain duty; mountain duty entails the chipping of mountains to flatten the earth for the purpose of extending land (in areas above sea level) or building dams (in areas below sea level.) Some become dissidents (or eco- apologists*) for the sole sake of getting away from the urban landscape. Travel companies will cleverly market ‘mountain duty’ as a unique getaway as well as reinforcing the notion that mountain duty is a noble gesture in rehabilitation on the part of the state. Oh wait, I am currently engaged in mountain duty, but I’ve been here for so long that I can’t remember through which venue I ended up here.

Hmm...interesting: The Supreme Court just ruled that companies must also use product placement during the work breaks of mountain vacationers. I wonder what effect this newly legislated inability to distinguish between the two mountain groups will have on our total economic output.

*eco-apologists are not a recognized political entity, as per the U.N. Green Earth charter of 2076; parties wishing to register for ‘mountain trips’ must state on application “land distribution apologists”

Bete Noire

2004-12-13T18:30:00.000-05:00

The City of the Future will be the hamlet of the past. People will live in smaller communities, yet families will be more expansive -- encompassing multiple parents and many generations under one roof. Technology will be more advanced, but life will be much simpler. The family dog will live longer than the heart could ever dare to dream, making the cherished pet's death even more heartbreaking. Children will be able to drive motorized vehicles along electric roadways, yet will have more time to play and explore than ever before. In the City of the Future, Wendy will finally tell Peter Pan to get a clue, and take off for her own adventures.

Eku Mukai

2004-12-13T10:27:00.000-05:00

I walk rapidly, dodging others. All the others are like me, too. Everything seems fine. I turn the corner and see the orderly bushes greet me, and I watch a neon-green uniformed ‘person’, reminiscent of superheroes of yore, approach me, sweeping up the small bits of leaves and debris that dot the otherwise immaculate cityscape. Glowing slogans surround us all, and appear peripherally, from all angles, from above, as satellites beam them down to our fading, blue sphere. Vehicles clog the pathways during this morning rush hour. It is much like the cyber-images I’ve seen of places from before – like New York, Tokyo, London. The city always watches us. This city is disguised as public space, but what of danger, of dirt, of ethnicities, of difference, of disobedience? Where did this thought come from? I forget it, worrying about how I can think such nonsense, in my safe, affluent city-state, where I feel perfectly at home. I continue quickly to the food disbursement shop, before I head to my place of employment, The Shelter – it is the 100 story wall that encloses my metropolis – I will again stand guard atop one of the thousands of towers that stretch into the heavens, which no longer interest us.

Nicholash

2004-12-13T10:19:00.000-05:00

The city of the future will include, but not be limited to: hoverboards, jet backpacks, inefficient solar and wind power that only wealthy people can afford, mp3 players that come in cereal boxes, more subcultures, more "choice", less carbs, an "anarcho-punk" shoe brand by Nike, and another Rolling Stones come-back tour.

Thrasymachus

2004-12-13T09:38:00.000-05:00

I started thinking about the city as the epiphenomenona of agriculture, the natural ground of political transformation (how can you gather to peacefully redress your grievances in the suburbs?), the embodiment of ideology. The city as having a physical and cultural memory. Every city, as Plato said, two cities, a city of the rich and a city of the poor, each eternally at war with the other. The city as where most of us now live. The city as slum, as mall. The city as outdated? In space?

There will be robots, and no one will do any physical labor, but instead be part of the idea-based post-industrial economy. There will also be clones, but they aren't people. Unleashed market forces will make everyone rich! Invest now!

Churches and faith-based programs will take the place of Big Government. Everyone will be an entrepreneur, in the ownership society. Security will always insure the unclean are scrubbed away.

Cars that run on hydrogen made using lots of oil, with body armor, just in case. Billboards with Jesus shooting real bullets. Soldiers everywhere. Giant highways. Big-box realtors. Constant terrorism. New! New! New! New diseases! New apocalyptic cults! New jargon based academic irrelevancies! New clothes! New bugs! New robots! New robot bugs! New robot bug diseases!

I love my Country and I believe in God. History is done, bitch. I can't wait. Can you?

I wonder if Fallujah will get to be a city of the future?

PS: In the city of the future, little dogs carry guns.

Josh Saltzman

2004-12-11T14:00:00.000-05:00

“Most blues are subtitled either no sense of wonder or no sense of scale.” -- Gastr Del Sol

He points upward, leading the eyes of the child to the spire of the Eiffel Tower. “It is in Paris,” he says, “and someday, perhaps we’ll see the real one.” The Tower is 1/3 scale, and next to it are 1/3 scale pyramids –- “Egypt” says the child -- a 1/3 scale Empire State Building, 1/3 scale Ziggurats.

There is a 1/3 scale Magic Kingdom, whose rides do not move, but at a 1/3 scale Wailing Wall, 1/3 scale Orthodox Jews sway in prayer. Flashes erupt as a tiny celebrity arrives at a 1/9 scale Chinese Theater in the 1/3 scale replica of the Hall of Replicas.

In the museum, the child must bow under the doorway to accompany him into a room of Impressionist paintings; he scratches his head in front of a small, badly painted Boating Party. “Maybe some day you’ll see the actual painting," he says, "which I hear is really something!” “Perhaps,” he adds “your real father will take you there.” There is silence, and he winces a little as the child grips his small, frail hand.

Sidney Eugene Bream

2004-12-11T13:56:00.000-05:00

The idea of what the city of the future holds leaves more questions than answers—at least as far as I am concerned. The first concept I imagined involved a more crowded, noisier, higher paced, higher stress environment where all humans would need a medical procedure performed that would remove the nasal cavity and sense of smell all together. The smell of this city would be a delicate mix of juices found in large garbage dumps, pungent urine, and a new cleaning chemical invented so that the huge population of humans could walk the streets without getting deathly ill. The smell would be lethal. This neo-cleanser would make present day bleach appear as a Ralph Lauren fragrance, truly volatile.

Then I remembered current trends of the evolution of cities in the modern age and thought that in the future, the city would be so expensive, it would be unpopulated. No one could afford to live there. While in the 80's many city working Americans moved out of these cities and into "near by" suburbs to conserve money, they thought they were ahead of the game by performing a task called commuting. What they never imagined is their "high paying" jobs being taken from them. They left this to the factory workers, those who wore blue collars. But as we have seen recently, no job is safe from outsourcing. As technology, the buzzword for this future city, continues to increase, so does the corporations’ need for someone far away to perform the labor at a cheaper rate. This will force even more people to migrate to the real future city: the suburbs.

This means that the city of the future will have courts, cookie cutter homes made by K. Hovnanian on .5 acres of property complete with a 2 car garage, and neighboring father figures competing to see who can get the holiday decorations up the fastest. Subways, penthouses, and "old neighborhoods" are down; soccer moms in minivans are up.

This is your city of the future. What is the country of the future going to look like?

Oh yeah, one more thing: There is going to be a "great import car war" where Toyota will put their robots against Honda's. The good news is, all the robots are destroyed and no one will know how to make more.

Stephanie, aka Listen to Aldous

2004-12-10T13:54:00.000-05:00

I hope I'm wrong.

The religion of Inevitable Progress will beat its mindless rhythm. The possessors of minds will continue to wish, perversely, for the wrong things. They will not care about understanding why human beings are on earth. They will use micro-this and micro-that to make their lives a long, unreal dream of pleasure. They will be able to feel what it’s like to have another body. The ultimate goal: to be someone else. The power of the human intellect and soul reduced to paying a thousand dollars in order to simulate what it’s like to be a sex god(dess). Almost no one will question the equation: progress = material advancement. They will have a form of godliness but deny its power. Who needs God when technology is God, and we created it? Every so often, they will feel a pang of...what? Suspicion. Are they missing something? But then, there are so many pleasures they haven’t yet had. Perhaps the really satisfying simulation is still waiting. Best to keep experimenting.

Ayko

2004-12-10T13:38:00.000-05:00

I am, by all means of the word, a pessimist. When I look to the future, I don’t see anything wonderful. It seems that over the history of human existence, one of the steadiest and most cutting edge industries has always been the development of weapons of war. Humans are hasty beings with volatile temperaments, willing to fight for the beliefs that they perceive as right, whatever the cost. In a few hundred years, we have gone from swords to guns. In the last century we went from guns to atomic bombs. Now we work on Tesla coils, among other things. It’s all very well to research better communications, safer buildings, and cures for terminal diseases, but what good is that going to do anyone once a few nuclear missiles have been launched? It’s a cloud over our heads that grows ever larger as we continue to eat through the Earth’s natural resources at an increasing pace – it can’t sustain our current rate of consumption forever, and whatever happens at the breaking point, I can’t envision as good.

On that note, when I look to a city of the future, I see it in a post-apocalyptic sense; small gangs of weary survivors trying to eke out a living on the radioactive rubble of a once great civilization. Electricity would be rare, if existent, and a steady water supply would be a thing of the past. People would be trying to cultivate and nurture new plant and animal life as best they could, while designing and implementing efficient ways to filter and purify contaminated water sources. It wouldn’t put an end to conflict of course, as now people would be competing on a smaller scale for scarcer resources – so defense and weaponry would still play a large part in every day life for protective purposes.

There is something breathtaking about the imagery of vines and plants growing over the rubble of what were once impressively large and beautiful buildings. It makes me think of the ruins at Machu Pichu; I’ve always wanted to see them. Don’t get me wrong though, I am not a violent and evil person, wishing for the destruction of the world. In fact, I am quite the pacifist. It’s just that I have very little faith in human nature in general – I suppose you could call me jaded.

w_nightshade

2004-12-10T11:22:00.000-05:00

My most anticipated future development is didactic imprinting. Basically, the optic nerve is used as a conduit directly to the brain to imprint information (e.g. memories in long term storage) "instantly" via laser (probably will take a short amount of time, perhaps over several sessions). The rote absorption of facts is the most tedious and awful part of the education process, but conversely the easiest to understand and implement in a school system. Therefore instead of teaching children how to think critically, or expand creative horizons, we make them memorise times tables and historical dates. Pish posh, I say. Imprint that crap didactically, then let 'em be kids for a few years!

Hagar

2004-12-10T10:19:00.000-05:00

My feature for the city of the future is that every building will have its own ecosystem built in, which basically means it will have a garden that will produce all the oxygen for the inhabitants. There will be materials that are a hybrid of organic and inorganic, intelligent materials that will know when to decay.

Randy Tyler

2004-12-10T10:07:00.000-05:00

The future can be classified in several ways: the near future (like tomorrow) and the next future (the future that's not happening right away; it'll happen next). There are lots of next futures, considering that as things happen, more futures pop up. With each present, there's a new near future, and a whole bunch of new next futures. We need a whole archiving system to keep track of everything.

That, in fact, leads me to my analysis of cities in the nearest next future. I believe it will serve as an unintentional archive of all things past. First off, we'll always be reminded of our horrible history, as slaves will be reintroduced, in the form of chimeras. The chimeras will have started as a result of a failed science experiment that plugged human brain cells into mice and pigs. Intended for research purposes (they'd hoped to gain insight into Parkinson's and Alzheimer's), the brain cells will have separated off, and will have created hybrid creatures: pigs and mice with human mental capacity. Their small size, however, will doom them to a life of second class citizenship. As a result, they'll be treated as subhumans--which, I guess, they technically will be--and they'll serve in the permanent "city cleanup crew," cleaning the sewers and the streets. The cities will be cleaner than ever.

Old people and the disabled will all have robots to assist them. The AI in the robots allows them to think and act human. In addition, they'll be able to experience the range of human emotions. The robots and the chimeras will not get along, and they'll form the new gangs: the robots and the mutants. It'll be like "Transformers: Beast Wars."

The tomato children in Boston, the ones Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer warned of during the medical marijuana arguments in 2004, will no longer be cause for alarm. They'll have been eaten by the chimeras.

In addition, as a result of the tremendous power of the radical religious right, morality will take center stage in the cities, in the form of public execution. Intended to force people to live moral lives (at the risk of being beheaded by a laser-beam guillotine), it'll turn into a form of entertainment. The chimeras will serve as executioners, and they'll also be fed the bodies of the executed.

Eventually, the robots and the chimeras will tire of serving as second class citizens. During the dawn of the 22nd century, they will rise up against the humans.

Hieronymus Squash

2004-12-09T20:19:00.000-05:00

Ink has been spilled, thoughts tilled, and wishes willed (ne'er fulfilled) of the sight of the City of the Future. What, though, of its sound? When futuremen focus their sight-modules 'pon the futurpolis, what will slouch towards their sound-modules to be heard? Beeps? Squeeks? Bleeps? Creaks?

Not a creak, guesses this presentman, for the City of the Future got mad oil.

The Iconoclast

2004-12-09T20:10:00.000-05:00

Alright, alright: aside from being difficult to concentrate, the city of the future will be absolutely mundane. I will wake in the morning without an alarm clock, wrap up in a bathrobe and stumble into the kitchen to feel the warmth of the sun through the window and the smell of the coffee some early-riser has made. I will put two slices of buttered bread into the micro-oven and gently press the static-sensitive "on" button. I will heat up my tea water in some new tea-water-heater gadget. I will quickly urinate in the toilet in the bathroom while I wait for my breakfast. Then, while sitting at the dining room table, I will eat my toast and drink my tea (with milk and sugar) while staring out the window, watching the sun slowly rise over the city making the buildings sparkle in its light.

I will probably be late to work, again. But it will be a beautiful morning.

Megrimlock

2004-12-09T19:42:00.000-05:00

It depends what period of the future is specified, as I think the evolution of cities will be somewhat spiral. In the near future I think there will be a greater convergence of the main metropolises, with New York, Tokyo, Rome, Beijing, Bombay and London coming to resemble each other more and more closely as cities around the world all take on a multi-cultural slant incorporating bits and pieces from each other.

In time, though, as the rate of improvement of technology slows at least insofar as optimising urban convenience is concerned, the purpose of urban evolution may change. A reclamation of the unique characteristics of each particular city will occur, so that Rome builds a new Coliseum, London a new castle, etc. In the far future I think the future of cities will depend on the extent of interplanetary colonisation, which despite the restrictions currently on space programmes (not to mention the diminution of political capital to be gained from them in the current climate) is ultimately inevitable. Sooner or later interstellar colonisation will occur as some circumvention of the light barrier will be found. Unrestricted by the practical limitations of room and resources, cities will be able to develop organically and independently again, with less convergent influence from other settlements light-years away. I think that conscious cultural choices will then dictate how cities develop when the technology exists to pretty much build them to order. People will be able to live in a bustling uber-techno metropolis or a lazy quasi-medieval farming town. Obviously certain universalities will persists, as even those who wish to return to simpler times will be likely to retain medical technology and space travel to enable at least a minimal trade and communication level. Possibly the most popular would be a balance where small rural settlements were arranged around a pristine metropolis, with an agrarian theme but with all the benefits of pretty much invisible technology in the background.

Afsimola

2004-12-09T19:32:00.000-05:00

In the city of the future, not only will everything look different, but life will be completely magnificant. Nanotechnology will be the main study and it will be used in everyday life. People will not only be able to live longer but live healthier. Medicine will reach no boundaries and artificial organs will save dying people.

I think that every house will have a robot. This robot will do work such as cleaning and cooking. TVs will be no longer exist because holographic images will be used. Cars will have an autopilot feature and teleportation will be used for some circumstances. Artificial life will be everywhere and could possibly be more efficent than humans. And one day I believe that intergalactic travel will be possible.

Honest Bob

2004-12-09T19:14:00.000-05:00

Not to sure how far into the future:

I see walled cities I'm afraid, policed in an ever agressive manner. Recreationally people don't do the whole social thing any more; virtuality is all but dominant.

Until you get to the core: an oasis, if you will, inside a sprawling metropolis--glass domed, gardens, flowing water, almost your ideal Eden--but at a price to the ultra rich, industrialists, or Technologists. The classic social divide: the rich getting richer and the poor working harder.

Marty

2004-12-09T17:12:00.000-05:00

The city of the future will have an enormous, multi-trillion dollar stadium that officials will use to attract the 2068 Olympics.

Once the 2068 Olympics are over, it will house NASCAR events (everyone in the future agrees that auto racing is a legitimate sport) and do little except create traffic for the area surrounding it.

By 2076, the debt the city of the future has incurred thanks to the stadium will have required it to drastically up taxes (forcing the city's last working class family, the Hendersons, to move to the suburbs of the future) and cut spending (laying off policemen and firefighters who will take jobs as tour guides in a giant, naked statue of Sam Walton, which is the first thing immigrants coming to the city of the future see as they enter its harbor).

Tim

2004-12-09T16:15:00.000-05:00

The way we are going, the city of the future will be a global agglomeration. There will be pockets of wildlife, probably, but all minutely managed and controlled, in just sufficient quantities to balance the global ecosystem. The majority of the people living in the city will be Chinese, and its most prestigious project will be the space elevator.

Equilibrium management skills will be its most highly valued economic commodity. At the personal level, communication and information systems will be so integrated with normal everyday functioning that the borderline between the virtual and the real, the abstract network and the concrete surroundings, will have become irreversibly blurred.

Gavin McNett

2004-12-09T13:31:00.000-05:00

The city of the future will be entirely digital, and will be built with nanotechnology and genetic technology. 'Technology' will be the watchword, for the city of the future.

And 'data' will be the city's concrete, its asphalt, its very lifeblood as a humming nexus of interactivity. Wireless wi-fi will enable gigabyte-speed transmissions of data of all sorts, species of data unimaginable today. Everything will be interconnected, in a non-linear dataspace matrix of pure digital information. People in the future will 'interact.'

Technology will be driven by nanotechnology. Pairs of scissors will be made of billions of tiny pairs of scissors, while shoes and toothbrushes will be made of billions and billions of tiny shoes and toothbrushes. Objects will be fractal in this way, infinitely recursive and self-resembling. Nanobots will work to produce smaller and smaller nanobots so that one's eyeglasses or keychain will become 'eyeglasses' or 'keychains' *all the way down*.

Thus God will be discovered, in the details, through technology: it will be turtles upon turtles, butter dishes, park benches, hydrants, eyeglasses and wireless WiFi devices unto the very infinite throne of Creation.

And that's not all we have to look forward to in the city of the future.

Thomas Fallow

2004-12-09T13:25:00.000-05:00

The City of the Future--

America: Rubble. The apocalyptic war will have destroyed all major cities. The worthwhile ones (in the blue states) will, after having obliterated those fuckers in the red states, turn their rage back onto themselves and finally do themselves in.

Elsewhere in the West: Odd mix of utopia and distopia, really scary infrastructure of cold, sleek, souless architecture, but pockets of awesome culture. You know, the future underground, people devising badass schemes to flee earth to "the planet on the hill" in awesome underground lairs with super cool James Bondesque technology.

The Third World: First off, it will now be called the Fourth World, because having long ago abandoned the capitalist-communists dichotomy, then moving on to the whole "developing nations" thing, bad future historians will have come across documentation of first and third world references, misinterpreted it, and believed the backwards ass people of the past thought our world was ACTUALLY divided into multiple worlds. They then jokingly revive this usage, but later discover that it actually is divided into multiple worlds, and there is yet another world, (discovered by archeologist extraordinaire, Samuel Bucketts Futurtingly) located between Africa and Frusica (Frusica havinng been discovered the previous decade). The cities there will be nice, with cool cafes and what not. And oh yeah, aside from small pockets of resistance, all cities will be ruled via a bullshit buerocratic front for democracy in the form of a counsel overseen by George Bush XXXVII.

Olde Wyche

2004-12-09T11:50:00.000-05:00

In the city of the future, the walls will be electric, and the electric will be made of water. Fabulous wheels will spin and dot the horizon with their slow, methodical, and lethargic churnings. Vast wastelands of polished chrome will cover the ground, and high school kids will crash their bikes at every street corner to protest the curvature of those long beautiful avenues. Tall men will grow enormous hands and reach down from their balconies to clutch at passersby. In the city of the future, deep within the apartments of men too tall to leave them, all will be revealed. In the city of the future, revelations will come a dime-a-dozen, but will not be for the faint of heart.

In the city of the future, the women of the future will be born with gorgeous flowing gray hair, and most of the men of the future will remain the sons of the past, unable to appreciate the ways that the tall buildings of water curve languidly up from the ground to cradle and nurture all doubts and fears. In the city of the future, the cities of the past will be mocked and longed for by the intelligentsia, and the workers will have won the right to wear slick bodysuits and use telekinesis instead of machinery pulsing with electric water to raise up the great monuments of the future. Everyone will have a dog, maybe two, in the city of the future.

In the city of the future, the favored pastime will be watching the skies, and the people will delight in the reflections of clouds on the fields of chrome. Visions of tremendous cogs and wheels, made slick by hyper-refined sugars and sugar substitutes, will fill every view screen, and lunch will be the single meal of the day. In the city of the future, the sidewalks and curbs will remain damp, despite the triumph of forward thinking that has since convinced the sun to shine every day. In the city of the future, we’ll get a long just fine. In the city of the future, there will be a change of scenery.

Sean Carcinogen III

2004-12-09T10:49:00.000-05:00

The City of the Future. By Luke Periwinkle, a.k.a. Yowzer the Prowler, a.k.a. kid carnivorous, a.k.a. Sean "buns" Carcinogen III

The city of the future will be one of pure imagination. People will imagine they go to work everyday. They will imagine dropping out of high school and living in a Buddhist commune in Vermont; they will imagine airplanes being late for take off. The reason for this is simple. In the year 2000 (2000 years after Jesus comes back to earth to vote for Ralph Nader in 2008) scientists discover that nothing in fact is real. Humanity is left with one option besides continuing the tried and true course of apathy on a grand scale... Pretend everything is just fine. It's the same as it ever was, same as it ever was! So people imagine the world as it was just before Jesus voted for Nader, because at this point the whole world is a red state and Nascar becomes the dominant religion, therefore it's Ralph's fault (sorry bud, the truth hurts) that stuff isn't real. People imagine traffic jams even though they know they aren't real and they could just as easily be living in a Marxist Utopia or Teaneck, New Jersey. There exists a fear among the people that if they imagine something other than what they already know the world may cease to exist as they know it. But eventually everything winds up being made out of stainless steel and neon anyway.