Urban Planning in the Future

[SpringTX]

Imagine a sunny day someday in the future, many decades from now. You wake up. You look around your home. It's 3,000 square feet, which is average for the time, just as it is average today. Your home is located on a quarter-acre of land, which is also average for the day. It even looks almost indistinguishable from how an average home looked decades earlier.

You walk out of your house and look around. You see what appears to be a suburban golf course community, only you don't see a golf course yet. You see houses, with trees all around, and a bike path winding among them. Off in the distance you see what appears to be a lake. Sloping down the hill to the lake, you see more typical suburban houses, with a bike bath in front of them. Everything looks it could be from an upscale golf course community from back in the year 2006.

You hear a noise overhead and you look up. It's the engine of a helicopter passing overhead. It's flying just above the trees and it appears to be headed down just out of sight, past the trees a few hundred yards behind you. As you look in the sky you notice another helicopter in the sky half a mile away, headed somewhere else.

You walk down to the lake to get a better look around. You pass by a resident headed out of her home. You pass by a couple kids headed off to school. It's a typical suburban community and the people look the same as they would in any era. You see more average-looking houses, and more bike paths. And you hear another helicopter taking off a minute later. You might guess that you're near some sort of local commuter airport.

When you get to the hill beside the lake, you enjoy the fresh air and take in the view of the hillside. You see more of the same: green grass, bike paths, trees, houses, and some occasional people. And another helicopter passes by overhead. It would appear to be a golf course community that extends on for miles and miles. Or maybe some other kind of vacation resort community. Far off the distance, you see a clearing in the trees with a large building complex with a large parking lot, and trees all around it: maybe a school or a hospital.

You enjoy your brief pause but now it's time to get going. You walk back to the clearing where helicopters were all headed. It's a small airstrip, with dozens of helicopters lined up on it. But unlike an army base, the helicopters aren't all green. Some are black, some are silver, some are white, etc. They're different shapes and sizes. It looks sort of like a depot for helicopters from an air show you saw as a kid. You see a few people walking around with briefcases. It's obviously a commuter airport. It's noisy, too.

You walk up to your helicopter, unlock it, and you get in. You get on the radio. You're told that it will be an estimated 5 minutes before you can take off. You wait until signaled and then you launch into the sky.

As you fly into the blue skies, you think back to when you first got your helicopter pilot's license. You look down and see you another helicopter flying right below you. And it passes you. Just like in the George Jetson cartoons you remember seeing as a kid. In fact, looking across the horizon, you can see that the sky is dotted with small aircraft coming and going in all directions.

You look around the land below. You're passing over rivers, farmland. You see office parks, retail parks. You see lots of airstrips. In fact, if you counted, you'd see an airstrip every couple miles. There's one next to every major commercial and residential complex. You see helicopters taking off and landing all over the place. It's another busy day for air traffic. Luckily, the weather is nice.

You look down and you see an old highway cutting across the countryside. It doesn't surprise you, because you see one of these every ten miles or so. Frankly, they're considered kind of ugly these days. You see only a few cars on it. They're mostly large trucks and old buses, carrying freight or low-income passengers. You remember back to when you were a kid when roads were everywhere, and always clogged with people. Now most roads have been closed, torn up, or converted to air strips. Many of the ones still in operation are in a questionable state of repair. Service stations are rare.

Roads are a relic of a bygone era, like railroads and steam ships used to be were when you were a kid. These days, private automobiles are mostly for collectors. Or residents of third-world nations where air travel isn't commonplace yet. Cars aren't mass-produced any more like airborne vehicles now are.

You pass over a shopping mall with an airstrip on its roof with hundreds of helicopters parked on it. Nearby, you see what appears to be a large private residence with a helicopter parked on its roof.

You finally see your office building in the distance. Welcome to the Galleria area in downtown Houston. You look down at your controls and you see that you've flown over 100 miles from your home in Victoria, Texas, which is an up-and-coming suburb of Houston. It's taken you about 60 minutes, which is a typical commute time for the day. You were considering buying a house in Lufkin, Texas, another up-and-coming suburb of Houston, but that area is now kind of pricey because of its proximity to Dallas. And you remember back when all that area was just country. Now it's suburban sprawl. With the population of Houston now at almost 25 million residents, all those people need somewhere to live.

You land on the roof of the office building, waved down by the air traffic controller. You lock up your vehicle, walk out onto the runway, and head into the building for another day at work. As you sit down at your desk, you think back to what life was like back in 2006.

[Rehan]

Flying helicopters might be ok for going to my job, but will I have the luxury of a new loop so that I can drive to an almost identical town equally far away from the CBD?

Edited May 3, 2006 by Rehan

[MaxConcrete]

CBS's 60 Minutes did a report a year ago about the potential for personal aircraft in the future. NASA has developed software for air traffic control of the the swarms of personal aircraft. Right now most aircraft designs are very preliminary and who knows when we'll have a viable design.

I don't expect to see widespread personal aircraft it in my lifetime (I'm 39). Keep in mind that they will always be dangerous (think power lines), they are almost surely less fuel efficent than autos, and bad weather keeps them on the ground. If in fact hydrocarbon fuel becomes increasingly scarce and expensive, you can write off any possibility that it will ever happen.

[dp2]

Silly fan fiction. Helicopters/flying cars will never be used for mass personal use because it is too dangerous and too invasive of privacy. The chances for a wreck on a ground plane are manageable, in the air they are multiplied, as is the destructive power to hit innocent bystanders/houses/schools/playgrounds/etc. How do you put up a fence, curb, and guardrail in the air? Control of an aircraft is one thing, shielding from out of control/errant crafts quite another (in fact effectively impossible.)

Not to mention the noise and visual clutter issues, these crafts would be a NIMBY screamer's dream target.

Roads are here to stay, as they have been throughout recorded history. Deal with it.

C'mon, do you really want hopped up male teens or your average female on a cell phone behind the controls of these things?

[zaphod]

i imagine that all personal flying crafts would be piloted by a computer and one would only need to input their destination. Thats pretty much an obvious solution.

Of course, then again how noisy it would be and bad weather or computer bugs would make it dangerous. Also with lots and lots of things flying around a crosswind that comes out of nowhere and surprises the computer could cause a pileup in the air.

[RedScare]

Imagine a sunny day someday in the future, many decades from now. You wake up. You look around your home. It's 3,000 square feet, which is average for the time, just as it is average today. Your home is located on a quarter-acre of land, which is also average for the day. It even looks almost indistinguishable from how an average home looked decades earlier.

I so look forward to the monotony of an oversized home on an oversized lot with so many helicopters thumping overhead that I feel like Anderson Cooper reporting from the 9th Ward in New Orleans.

Shoot me now.

[Gary]

You guys are way behind the times, The Jetsons we're doing this 30 years ago.

[musicman]

You guys are way behind the times, The Jetsons we're doing this 30 years ago.

closer to 40

[jghall00]

Silly fan fiction. Helicopters/flying cars will never be used for mass personal use because it is too dangerous and too invasive of privacy. The chances for a wreck on a ground plane are manageable, in the air they are multiplied, as is the destructive power to hit innocent bystanders/houses/schools/playgrounds/etc. How do you put up a fence, curb, and guardrail in the air? Control of an aircraft is one thing, shielding from out of control/errant crafts quite another (in fact effectively impossible.)

Not to mention the noise and visual clutter issues, these crafts would be a NIMBY screamer's dream target.

Roads are here to stay, as they have been throughout recorded history. Deal with it.

C'mon, do you really want hopped up male teens or your average female on a cell phone behind the controls of these things?

I'm with you on this one. Talk about visual blight. We complain about billboards now, I can only imagine what people would say about a proliferation of personal aircraft. I think our future looks more like the fifth element then the jetsons. Unless high fuel prices expedites the use of ultra-light and strong materials like carbon fiber and nanotubes in transportation, we'll be making the switch to smaller vehicles very soon. Just think, India and China are just beginning to ramp up demand for fuel. Our consumption pattern is unsustainable when it is exported. Honestly, I'd prefer the atmosphere of Key West or Miami Beach anyway! Not everything has to be so large; 3000 sq ft, I'm not cleaning that!

[Houston1stWordOnTheMoon]

I'm with you on this one. Talk about visual blight. We complain about billboards now, I can only imagine what people would say about a proliferation of personal aircraft. I think our future looks more like the fifth element then the jetsons. Unless high fuel prices expedites the use of ultra-light and strong materials like carbon fiber and nanotubes in transportation, we'll be making the switch to smaller vehicles very soon. Just think, India and China are just beginning to ramp up demand for fuel. Our consumption pattern is unsustainable when it is exported. Honestly, I'd prefer the atmosphere of Key West or Miami Beach anyway! Not everything has to be so large; 3000 sq ft, I'm not cleaning that!

This is Texas, we do everything bigger in Texas :):)

[lockmat]

Didn't want to begin a new thread and just decided to put this article here becasue of its futuristic theme. Although this is of the present in Portland, it could be in the future of other places.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/29tra...amp;oref=slogin

[musicman]

Didn't want to begin a new thread and just decided to put this article here becasue of its futuristic theme. Although this is of the present in Portland, it could be in the future of other places.

it sure worked well at astroworld for 40 yrs..

[mpbro]

I did a calculation a while ago, and a Cessna 172 gets about 12 miles/gallon. That's better than a Ford Excusion, and at twice the speed. Unfortunately the AVGAS costs over $3/gallon, if I am not mistaken.

You've got to either be really close to the airport on both ends or have cars on either end. And with weather, I'd be reluctant to rely on flying on a daily basis. But the president of my company is a private pilot, and he flies to work engagements from time to time (though in California).