As in all of my predictions, the basic assumptions that I am making is that trends that are presently happening will continue. I don't assume any paradigm shifting innovations beyond the success of current research projects. I also am not brave enough to predict beyond a few decades. These are changes that I expect to see in my lifetime.
The first thing I want to say about the future is that things will look very much more the same over the planet than they do now. The wealth of the poor is increasing much more rapidly than the wealth of the rich on a global scale. By this I don't mean to suggest that there won't be multi-billionaires and the relatively poor. I am suggesting that the wealth of Botswana will be similar to the wealth of Spain within a couple of generations, forty or fifty years. This may seem remarkably unlikely, but those who have read this blog will hopefully be familiar with the statistics of the world through the presentations of Hans Rosling. My prediction may well be conservative.
The second thing I want to say about the future is that there will be a lot more people in the world, but a lot less than you probably think. UN predictions suggest that the world population will level out at around 9 billion people somewhere between 2050 and 2075, with the present population at around 7 billion people. So there will be something like 130% of the present population in the world, and most of this increase will happen in the poorest places in the world, so mostly sub-Saharan Africa. This means that in the USA and Europe the density of people will be about the same. The continent mostly densely populated is Europe, and so at a maximum there will be no area more densely populated than Europe, which is often very beautiful and has wilderness, parks, fields etc.. The future will not be a mega-city. However, I fully expect the current trend of movement from rural areas to cities to continue. People like a dense amount of opportunity to do things, and cities are really the only place to physically do those things. It may be that technology makes physical location less important in the future, but I don't know if and when this will happen.
The third thing is about age demographics. Family sizes are shrinking and life expectancy is rising. Basically the average woman will have something like two children in her lifetime, but will live at least ninety years. Even with the increase in time that children stay in the home it is very unlikely that parents will spend more than thirty years raising their children. The default position of people in the future will not be the family unit, it will be couples and single people in good health. My parents and parents-in-law are both around seventy. When I was born that was the life expectancy of a white person in the USA, when my parents were born life expectancy was in the low sixties. I am glad to report that none of my parents and parents-in-law look in any way likely to die soon, and can all walk, talk, think, and travel. Life expectancy estimates have been consistently low (actual average age of death now is about eighty in the USA). Not only are people living longer but they are able to be active for a longer proportion of the time.
I have previously said that people will continue to be more wealthy, both in absolute terms and in the quality and efficiency of their belongings, although with a slower rate of increase than was true in the last fifty years. People will also be working fewer hours as technology becomes more efficient than people in more and more areas. People are also increasingly migrating to different countries, and this will happen increasingly in different directions. Not everyone will be coming to America, Americans will also be going to Thailand. While culture will become more and more the same wherever you go, that monoculture will be worldwide in the diversity of its elements. A Buddhist temple by an Argentinian restaurant in an Italian Piazza populated by people wearing jeans listening to a live band playing Moroccan music.
So, people around the world will live in more similar conditions. The norm will be single people or couples living in cities, working in what would now be considered part-time service jobs, who are healthy and active. What does this look like? Imagine the sitcom Friends, but for most age groups. Circles of friends and acquaintances living in nice apartments in the city with money to spend and time in which to spend it. The lives of people in their twenties, and increasingly, their sixties.
What will those cities look like? What has happened in the last fifty plus years is sprawl. Cities have spread out along the ground after an initial period of spreading upwards as transportation moved from walking to cars.
What will happen with more people in cities? Let us look at the trends that are going on now. If you are unfamiliar with urban renewal, gentrification, then you are missing out on the major trend in the architecture of cities. Relatively poor areas are being reconstructed as multi-use areas, with offices, retail, community spaces (parks, squares, art centers etc.). These are very dense, with the ability to walk to everything you need being considered vitally important. They are essentially urban villages, and a major attraction of such places is having public transportation (particularly light rail) close by. Suburbia will be changing from a uniform concrete sprawl to a web of interconnected "villages." Here's an expert on the subject, of course from a TED talk. Each of these villages will have a localized theme or feel. People don't want cookie-cutter, they want a neighborhood, and a neighborhood requires character.
With similar populations and areas of increased density inevitably there will be areas with reduced population densities. What will these areas look like? Well, they will be areas that provide services that people want. What do people want when their basic needs are met in an urban environment? They want parks, fields, wildlife; ecologically friendly areas that are accessible. So, mini-city environments surrounded by rings of green spaces.
Finally, as technology increases and the pressure of climate changes increases, these city areas will become more and more sustainable. They will also be designed to be increasingly people friendly. If you have a choice between living in a Manhattan block or around an Italian town square, which would you choose? Walking friendly community areas (squares, pedestrian streets, parks) surrounded by cafes, shops, restaurants and bars, decorated with flowers, bushes, trees etc.. Here is an excellent talk by a Danish architect about future projects that really demonstrate this process.
This process will be incremental, piece by piece. You will probably not even really notice that it is happening. This sort of thing is the environment in which "hipsters", the cool people of the present, want to live, and are constructing. The hipster meme is spreading throughout the USA like spores from a fungus. Even in Houston, Texas, there is an old area being retro-fitted to be a modern urban environment, with the opportunity to walk and bike to places, with parks and squares integrated into the neighborhood. It's called Montrose, and even the politics and values are those of a West Coast city, it's where you can be gay and unafraid. It is also one of the more expensive neighborhoods in which to buy a house or apartment in the area. These sorts of environments are among the most desirable available.
I know this may seem utopian. A world of modern European villages, full of parks, squares, trees, cafes etc. surrounded by farms and parks, where wealthy, healthy people, with plenty of free time live. However, this just requires present trends to continue. This really is what will probably happen. This is really what the future will probably look like.
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