The Net … will play as crucial a role in 21st-century urbanity as the centrally located, spatially bounded, architecturally celebrated agora did in the life of the Greek polis and in prototypical urban diagrams like that so lucidly traced out by the Milesians on their Ionian rock.
Predictor: Mitchell, William J.
Prediction, in context:In his 1994 book “City of Bits,” MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell writes: ”The worldwide computer network – the electronic agora – subverts, displaces, and radically redefines our notions of gathering place, community, and urban life. The Net has a fundamentally different physical structure, and it operates under quite different rules from those that organize the action in the public places of traditional cities. It will play as crucial a role in 21st-century urbanity as the centrally located, spatially bounded, architecturally celebrated agora did (according to Aristotle’s ‘Politics’) in the life of the Greek polis and in prototypical urban diagrams like that so lucidly traced out by the Milesians on their Ionian rock.”
Biography:William J. Mitchell was a professor and dean of architecture at MIT and the author of the predictive book “City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn” (1994). He also taught at Harvard, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon and Cambridge Universities. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: City of Bits
Title, headline, chapter name: Electronic Agoras
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/Electronic_Agoras/index.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Allen, Crystal N.