In the year 2000!
Transistors and communication satellites will make telecommuting from Tahiti or Bali just as practical as working from London. If worthwhile, any executive, administrative and physical skills could be made independent of distance.
Brain surgeons in Edinburgh will be able perform operations in New Zealand. There will be no commuting only communicating.
For this reason, cities may not exist at all.
Travel only happens for leisure.
Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke
Year of prediction: 1964 on the BBC TV show Horizon. (You can see Part 1 and Part 2 on the You Tubes.)
Accuracy: Good old Arthur C. was never short on speculation about the near future, not unlike Robert A. Heinlein. He is right that telecommuting has become possible, he just missed that it hasn't replaced regular old commuting just yet. He breezes over a lot of difficulties with his prepositional phrase "if worthwhile". Cities still exist because cities make it easier for people to get the stuff they need to live and work.
If you want a clever sci-fi story, you can read Arthur C. Clarke. If you want to understand cities better, Jane Jacobs is a better source.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! Friday is Antique Postcard Day! Yes, both French and German postcards will be our Friday fare for many months to come.
French postcards! The kind men like! Especially men not interested in looking at nekkid ladies, but instead forward looking men hungry for knowledge about... THE FUTURE!
Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!
Actually, he's exactly wrong about cities, because he did not take the 'stickiness' of our reliance on non-renewable energy. I guess he anticipated nuclear and solar to be fully worked out by now.
ReplyDeleteBecause of limited resources, however, we should be reducing our subsidies for suburban development and reliance on roads and cars, and walkable, denser communities will continue to be on the upswing. Zombie Architects know these things!
Zombie Rotten! Nice of you to stop by.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the obsolescence of cities was a big swing and a miss in this group of predictions. I live in Oakland and I haven't owned a car in about six years. All my shopping and commuting is either by foot, by bike or by public transportation, mainly BART. That would be harder to do if I lived in one of the suburbs, even the ones close to BART.
To ACC's credit, he hoped that if we weren't living in cities, we wouldn't all be living in suburbs.
Zombie Rotten! Nice of you to stop by.
ReplyDeleteThis blog is like a big ...blog-like thing...of zombie-bait.
I may even send the link to Smut Clyde, and then you'll really be in trouble.