The prediction, in brief:

The tilt toward electronic asynchrony will have increasingly dramatic effects upon urban life and urban form … The distinction between live events and arbitrarily time-shifted replays becomes difficult or impossible to draw.

Predictor: Mitchell, William J.

Prediction, in context:

In his 1994 book “City of Bits,” MIT computer scientist William J. Mitchell writes:”The tilt toward electronic asynchrony will have increasingly dramatic effects upon urban life and urban form. In the familiar, spatial, synchronous style of city, there is a time and a place for everything. Gathering spots like restaurants and cafŽs are open, and people come together in them, for well-defined periods. Workers carry out their tasks during standard business hours, and there are predictable rush hours as they travel to and from their workplaces. Buses and trains have schedules, appointments and meetings are arranged for specific moments, theatrical performances, television programs, and university classes are slotted for particular times. Just as each city has its characteristic spatial organization, so it has its own daily, weekly, and seasonal rhythms – very different for New York, Rome, Delhi, and Tokyo. As there is prime real estate, so there is prime time. But now extrapolate to an entirely asynchronous city. Temporal rhythm turns to white noise. The distinction between live events and arbitrarily time-shifted replays becomes difficult or impossible to draw (as it often is now on the television news); anything can happen at any moment.”

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: Virtual Communities

Name of publication: City of Bits

Title, headline, chapter name: Synchronous/Asynchronous

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/SynchronousAsynchronous.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Allen, Crystal N.