I'm at the N.C. State University's Urban Design Forum and speaker Susan Piedmont-Palladino
just quoted a quote from the 1893, as recounted in a 1994 book by Claude S. Fisher, America Calling.
The 1893 writer was envisioning what the telephone would do to life in America a century later – that is, by 1993:
"Families would live on scattered homesteads, neighbored only by people of like 'sentiment and quality,' would conduct their work electronically, and would meet one another only on ceremonial occasions."
Let's see: half-acre lots in single-family-home neighborhoods all built at the same price point, tele-commuting, and a social life that depends on private gatherings such as parties, neighborhood festivals, social club galas, and other sporadic social outings.
It's not a perfect prediction, of course, but holds more truth than many "future" predictions I've heard and read over the years. And note, it's about a communications innovation, the telephone.
For the record, I am still waiting for the jet-cars we were supposed to get by 1984, according to those Weekly Readers of my childhood.
just quoted a quote from the 1893, as recounted in a 1994 book by Claude S. Fisher, America Calling.
The 1893 writer was envisioning what the telephone would do to life in America a century later – that is, by 1993:
"Families would live on scattered homesteads, neighbored only by people of like 'sentiment and quality,' would conduct their work electronically, and would meet one another only on ceremonial occasions."
Let's see: half-acre lots in single-family-home neighborhoods all built at the same price point, tele-commuting, and a social life that depends on private gatherings such as parties, neighborhood festivals, social club galas, and other sporadic social outings.
It's not a perfect prediction, of course, but holds more truth than many "future" predictions I've heard and read over the years. And note, it's about a communications innovation, the telephone.
For the record, I am still waiting for the jet-cars we were supposed to get by 1984, according to those Weekly Readers of my childhood.
