Six futurists examine the challenges facing tomorrow's human habitat planners.

Unfortunately, in the United States, Europe, and even parts of Asia, our great cities are showing signs of age. The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that the cost of bringing U.S. infrastructure up to acceptable levels will equal $1.6 trillion over the next five years. Events like Hurricane Katrina and the terrorist attacks in New York and London (and elsewhere) remind us that our cities are vulnerable to disasters new, old, and as yet unimagined, in addition to the problems of crime and pollution that have always plagued urban centers.

The automobile revolution allowed individuals to seek a life outside of the busy metropolis, in the suburbs. The dream of a little house and a manicured lawn remains an appealing one to this day, perennially promising a stress-free life that is close to work but also close to nature. The reality of today's suburbs is somewhat contrary to that idyllic vision. Millions of people commuting to work via dangerous freeway systems is neither a particularly stress-free nor an especially natural way to live. The environmental aspects of unrestrained suburban sprawl in terms of smog, greenhouse-gas emissions, and even noise pollution are monumental. The economic benefits, in terms of real GDP growth and high real-estate prices, are increasingly being offset by rising external costs: Americans waste more than 2 billion gallons of gas idling in traffic jams each year. The social effects of sprawl are no more desirable. Suburbanites have long complained of feeling socially uninvolved and isolated. A sense of real community is inherently lacking in most of today's bedroom suburbs. Is there no other way?

We may be on the verge of an answer. Our special urban planning section begins with a piece by Robert McIntyre on reestablishing rural villages. As part of THE FUTURIST's continued efforts to inspire, encourage, and lead a dialogue on the future and all its possibilities, we have asked a number of cultural critics, urban planners, and futurists about the major trends shaping the human habitats of tomorrow. Their responses, in the essays that follow, are critical, dissonant, and imaginative. We are especially grateful to our contributors and are extremely proud to present their findings to you. As you read these pieces by thinkers such as Joel Garreau, Douglas Rushkoff, Mitchell Gordon, and William J. Mitchell, we hope you will cast a glance to the side of each page, where excerpts from L. Gene Zellmer's book A Town Primarily for People form a continuous narrative. Allow yourself to tour Zellmer's prototype as it constructs itself before your eyes.

We present these ideas solely for the purposes of furthering a debate on how we might use science—and common sense—to create new and superior habitats for future generations. The greatest accomplishment of our technological resourcefulness may be its capacity to liberate us from obsolete technologies and dysfunctional ways of thinking. Once we make up our minds to live differently, we may well discover a new way of life that promotes better interaction, that is truly stress free, and that is, authentically, closer to nature.

About the Author
Patrick Tucker is the assistant editor of THE FUTURIST and the director of communications for the World Future Society.

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