Though immersion in electronically propelled bits will progressively reduce our reliance on bodily presence and material exchange … there is no reason to think that this novel condition will make us indifferent to our immediate surroundings or suddenly eliminate our desire for face-to-face human contact in congenial settings. We will still care about where we are, and we will still want company. So cities and towns will probably find opportunities to restructure themselves – to regroup housing, workplaces, and service facilities into reinvigorated small-scale neighborhoods (both urban and rural) that are effectively nourished by strong electronic links to a wider world, but simultaneously prize their differences from other places, their local institutions and hangouts, and their unique ambiences and customs.
Predictor: Mitchell, William J.
Prediction, in context:In his 1994 book “City of Bits,” MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell writes: ”Does development of national and international information infrastructures, and the consequent shift of social and economic activity to cyberspace, mean that existing cities will simply fragment and collapse? Or does Paris have something that telepresence cannot match? Does Rome have an answer to ‘Neuromancer’? Most of us would bet our bottom bits that the reserves of resilience and adaptability that have allowed great cities to survive (in changed form) the challenges of industrialization and the automobile will similarly enable them to adapt to the bitsphere. Though immersion in electronically propelled bits will progressively reduce our reliance on bodily presence and material exchange, thus altering the ways in which we use physical space and weakening many of the activity linkages that now hold large urban agglomerations together, there is no reason to think that this novel condition will make us indifferent to our immediate surroundings or suddenly eliminate our desire for face-to-face human contact in congenial settings. We will still care about where we are, and we will still want company. So cities and towns will probably find opportunities to restructure themselves – to regroup housing, workplaces, and service facilities into reinvigorated small-scale neighborhoods (both urban and rural) that are effectively nourished by strong electronic links to a wider world, but simultaneously prize their differences from other places, their local institutions and hangouts, and their unique ambiences and customs. A community’s capacity to connect globally can yield renewed opportunity for its citizens – freed from the need to seek employment and services in distant urban centers – to know their neighbors and to participate in local affairs.”
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: Relationships
Name of publication: City of Bits
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 7: Getting to the Good Bits
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-books/City_of_Bits/index.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney