AEROTROPOLIS
A book just crossed my desk called AEROTROPOLIS: the way we’ll live next. Quick, what the fuck could an aerotropolis be? Will we live in the air? Cities with hovercraft and skyways, vertical glass needles full of people, pets and things? No, it’s a book by a couple of businessmen about organizing the city of the future around airports. Instead of placing airports at the periphery of the city, the airport will be at the center, to convenience business people. From the flap:
“Not so long ago, airports were built near cities, and roads connected the one to the other. This pattern—the city in the center, the airport on the periphery—shaped life in the 20th century, from the central city to the exurban sprawl. Today, ubiquitous jet travel, round-the-clock workdays, overnight shipping, and global business networks have turned the pattern inside out. Soon the airport will be at the center and the city will be built around it, the better to keep workers, suppliers, executives, and goods in touch with the worldwide market….This is the aerotropolis: a combination of giant airport, planned city, shipping facility and business hub.â€
Oh fraptious joy, oh utopian future, where all humans will live to be a hundred, and we will work and play within sight of our beloved airports, and all are interconnected, from far flung Tortuga to nearby Knoxville.
This just in: what the fuck will those airplanes use for fuel? Just as no one will live to be 100 because antibiotic resistant bacteria are proliferating throughout the global community, including appearing in New Delhi’s tap water, no one will be flying on our bankrupt airlines if they don’t have fuel.
I distrust any vision of the future that doesn’t include nihilistic civil war, fuel and food shortages, starvation, widespread incurable infectious disease and environmental collapse.
Paul Ryan for President! We don’t need no stinkin’ healthcare. We got Aerotropoli!
