From: Eric Watt Forste (arkuat@idiom.com)
Date: Thu Sep 23 1999 - 16:51:37 MDT
Lee Daniel Crocker writes:
> I imagine, then, that flying over a modern city in 2050 will be
> like flying over a current wealthy suburb of golf courses and
> stables and sparse glass-front houses on grassy hillsides. Only
> the thriving metropolis will be below instead of 20 miles away.
Ugh! No window shopping? No pub crawls? No pedestrian activities
other than hiking in parks? No spontaneous exploration on foot of
dense districts of used bookstores and restaurants? Or are we
supposed to do all these things in the basement? I generally do
not enjoy living in cities where things are so far apart that I
cannot function without an automobile, and I doubt I'll have become
much more acclimated to that kind of setup by 2050, unless my
physical form has been changed enough that I can just jump into
the air and fly whereever I want to go.
Also, people on the streets at all hours are an effective deterrent
against crime. (ref: Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great
American Cities, 1962.) This does not happen in the suburbs because
of the low dwelling densities (and low business densities also),
so people tend to stay indoors at night in most suburbs I've
observed. This would be a very unpleasant lifestyle for me.
-- arkuat@pobox.com
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