Futures of the City/Cities of the Future

Catalog description

If all design can be read as attempts to predict and to shape the future, then no one looks further into the future than the urban designer and the urban planner. The work in which they are involved often does not materialize in their lifetimes; in fact, the duration of the projects are so long twenty, thirty, fifty and hundred year timeframes, it is more than likely that he or she will pass on before the project reaches fruition. The trouble with predicting the future is that it is so uncertain, so undecided, so unknowable. A brief look backwards reveals that we are not the first generation to consider the future. History is replete with predictions, some of which were actualized, the vast majority of which were not. Today's forecasts for tomorrow vary wildly. A handful of optimists view the future through rose colored glasses, whereby humanity is delivered to salvation via technological wonders and the widespread adoption of common social values. A larger group predicts the end of the world as we now know it, but even they cannot agree on the cause of our demise, with those arguing that climate change will kill us clashing with those convinced that we will be destroyed when robots achieve technological singularity. Shy of total extinction, however, any vision of the future requires designers, and will likely occur in urban (or formerly urban) locations. As of this decade, for the first time in history, more than half of the world's population, almost three and a half billion people, live in towns and cities. Estimates suggest that by 2030 this number will swell to almost five billion. Prerequisite: 48-205