Urban visions: Back from the future

Florida A&M University, School of Architecture and Engineering Technology, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

Abstract

The persistent growth of the human civilization, fueled in large part by technological progress has brought upon us a series of very serious challenges. The quality of our overall environment, energy and food supply are subjected to increased pressure, while access to decent employment, housing and medical care remains broadly unequal. According to the current trends most of the world’s future population growth will occur in cities, therefore positioning the city as a key component to solving challenges associated with human development. Based on that assumption, it seems crucial to think about what the city of the future should be and look like. If we look for existing and graphically convincing representation of the city of the future, we are inevitably drawn to popular culture media such as movies and graphic novels. For almost a century, movies in particular have proposed realistic constructs of future urban settlements along with the life associated with them. Based on a number of ideas expressed in motion pictures over the years about urban life in the future, one can argue that both past and recent predictions tend to be technologically optimistic but socially and environmentally pessimistic. This paper proposes to identify and discuss a number of challenges as well as opportunities associated with urban development in the next 100 to 200 years and present a series of urban visions to illustrate both positive and negative trends.