In the past, when imagining the future, when fantasizing what life would be like, what our cities, homes, and cars would look like in the 21st century, we were often confronted with distorted images of concept cities, projected from scratch. As much as our human creativity and wits wanted to dress up a world that we could relate to, we were, nevertheless, consistently nudged to think otherwise – as movies, novels, and the classic futuristic lore bombarded us with images of scarce, arid, overpopulated, inorganic, dehumanized, individualistic societies; along with impersonal urban/built environments, and extremely polluted natural environments, almost at the verge of collapse. The eighties were very good at this – movies like Mad Max, Blade Runner, Dune, Space Odyssey, certainly made us wonder what the future would hold. What would it really be like past the year 2000?
And here we are – defying all projections – already onto the 3rd decade of this "new century", and living in the very same cities we did in the 20th century. Cities change and evolve as dynamically as we do. Urban planning and city development transform, hence adapt urban geography and city landscape to our social, technological and corporate needs, demands, and challenges. Exponential technologies come in as real drivers of transformation, as its wholesale deployment will allow us to enter the era of abundance. This is the future we want – one that is characterized by access, cooperation, and the openness we wish to experience in the world. As opposed to a centralized, linear, non-exponential, local and scarce planet.
Exponential technologies will sharpen our focus towards humanizing built environments, science and society. Moreover, will assist us in furthering our economic output and increase our wealth generation capacity.
This is the change we wish to see – the change that will inspire us to embrace social impact, circular economy projects, benefit corporations and social entrepreneurship initiatives. This is the New and Expected Normal.
