Dystopian Dream
This video comes via Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic Blog - always worth a visit.
This vision of the future is portrayed as some sort of Promised Land, but it looks more like a vision of hell to me. And I can only assume that with all this extra "leeesure" time that people will have, they’re spending it all at the gym. There can be no other explanation as to why the car-dependant citizens of the future aren’t all wider than they are tall.
So no thank you. I’d rather live in a future where it’s easier to ride than drive.
Oh god, it’s a Faustian nightmare! Great clip, thanks for sharing.
What’s interesting is how much of this has come true! Neatly stacked produce in the holds of ships (@6.31) is exactly what containerisation is and that’s one of the key props of today’s ‘global economy’.
Also, if you visit places like Los Angeles or Sydney for example (@2:44) the shape of those cities have indeed changed. The video describes it as ‘expanded highway transportation de-centralising our population centres into vast urban areas’ We brought into ’suburbia’ lock stock back in the 60s and 70s - sadly with hindsight we now call it ‘urban sprawl’ and there’s nothing worse than HAVING to use a car to get from home, to the office, to school, to the shops etc - let’s face it, driving in any urban area is pretty hellish.
They guessed right about teleconferencing, rear-view cameras and GPS too. Not sure about driving my car using a punch-card system though….!
You mean to say that your car doesn’t have a punch card system?
Nope. But my head feels like it sometimes.