Future Scenarios: rate their likelihood, desirability
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Below are a series of photos representing the future. Rate how likely (and desirable) they are to occur.
You can submit your own photos of scenarios of the future, to minnesotago@citizing.org. We'll add them here and ask others to rank them.
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1.
With gas prices being $25 per gallon, we travel less in planes and more in high-speed trains.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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2.
We access and borrow material online from one centralized library.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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3.
We are able to safely negotiate space and travel in flying cars.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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4.
We move goods underground through a network of elaborate tunnel systems to ease highway congestion.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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5.
Computers are embedded into our bodies, making the need for external machines. obsolete.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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6.
Cyber-warfare has shut down the Internet and we have returned to a less technologically-integrated world.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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7.
We live in a much more competitive world, and America is not as exceptional as it once was. China, India and Iran have emerged as global superpowers.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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8.
Humans have visited Mars.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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9.
With support from both the private and public sectors, management practices and technology have evolved, we work when and where we want to.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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10.
Medical advances have reduced disability and frailty which were once associated with aging.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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11.
Most of our food is grown and produced locally, mega farms are a thing of the past.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
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12.
We continue to enjoy plentiful access to clean water since most water sources originate in the state.
- Desirable and likely
- Desirable and unlikely
- Undesirable and likely
- Undesirable and unlikely
If gas was $25/gallon there would be massive investments made in alternative fuel development and alternative engines. It would be a race to see who can meet the demand for individual transport alternatives to the combustible engine car. Meanwhile planners will push for fixed transit and high-density development along fixed transit routes, and that will get put in place. But then there will be the transportation breakthrough and sprawl will be back in fashion. The high density housing stock will start to deteriorate and will have the potential to go the way of the projects from the 60's. However, the high density housing stock in MN will be "saved" by a mass migration to water rich states.
The Twin Cities metro area needs to do some serious scenario planning going out beyond 2030 or even 2050. The 2008 Census projections for year 2100 have the US at somewhere between 600 million and a bit over 1 billion, and some analysts have indicated that we are (as of 2008) actually shooting above the top Census forecast with a likely billion mark in population around 2078.
Gas (aviation fuel implied) at $25 today's dollar value, would certainly put an end to air travel for the masses. But I fear that we'll spend so much of our resources in the meantime trying to keep it going along with automobile dependency that a true high speed rail network will be put off until we'll no longer be able to afford building it. The rail speeds, routes and schedules of seventy years ago are what I think should be re-established.