Future Geographies

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Future Geographies
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The future

• The future is already here embedded in
• the worlds institutional structures and in the
  dynamics of its populations.
• New and emerging technologies that are likely to
  have the most impact in reshaping human
  geographies.
• inevitable bring some critical issues, conflicts,
  and threats.
• Unintended consequences

Tokyo waterfront gt
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The Future

• Optimists
• Technology
• Human ingenuity
• Capitalism
• Bio-ecological harmony
• Pessimists
• Finite nature of Earths resources
• Fragility of the environment
• Carrying capacity
• Continued conflict

Royal Ontario Museum
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Dark Age Ahead?

• Dark Age Ahead Caution Jane Jacobs believes
  the U.S. is in a downward (but not inevitable)
  spiral in regards to the five pillars of society
• Community and family
• Higher education
• The application of science and technology
• The integrity of the professions
• The role of government in relation to societys
  needs and potential

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Dark Age Evidence

• The roots of Jacobs concerns are based on
  evidence of
• corporate immorality in the marketplace
• universities that serve employers and act as
  credential factories
• scientific research increasingly and immorally
  being bought by corporations and
• a neoliberal political economy intent on
  abandoning the stewardship of urban and regional
  development.

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Mapping Our Future Conventional Worlds
Balanced Growth
Persistent poverty
Homelessness in Leeds, England
Grade-school children, Welkom, South Africa
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Mapping Our Future Barbarism
Social Breakdown
Fortress World
Iraqi Kurd refugees
U.S. air power
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Mapping Our Future Great Transitions
Great Optimism
New Sustainability
U.N. General Assembly
Wind farm
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The 2020 Global Landscape
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Resources, Technology, and Spatial Change

• What new technologies will most reshape human
  geographies?
• Transportation Technologies
• PBKAL web (in western Europe)
• High speed rail (180-250mph)
• Florida, Texas, California
• Intelligent transportation systems (ITS)
• smart highways smart cars
• Real time traffic management
• Automated driving
• Quiet supersonic aircraft technology (QSAT)
• Impacts on globalization and transportation of
  people, resources, food etc.
• e.g., New Zealand apples in upstate New York are
  more sustainable than apples growth in New York

European Airbus 380 853 Seats
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Transportation Technologies
High-speed rail in Europe
Cities that are connected to this rail network
are likely to grow faster that those not
connected
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Resources, Technology, and Spatial Change

• Biotechnology
• Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
• Crops, pharmaceuticals
• Also, animal husbandry,
• frost resistant tomatoes
• Fish farming using cell-fusion technology to
  produce algae in systems that are 350 times more
  efficient that other ways of raising brine shrimp
  (for fish food)
• industrial production, renewable energy, waste
  recycling, and pollution control
• Bacteria that digest fossil fuel wastes
• Complete closed cycled production

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Resources, Technology, and Spatial Change

• Materials Technologies
• New metal alloys, specialty polymers,
  plastic-coated metals, elastothermoplastics,
  laminated glass, fiber-reinforced ceramics
• Produce goods more efficiently and cheaply
• With less pollution
• Less effect on the environment
• Nanotechnologies
• the next best thing to sliced bread or the next
  asbestos
• Information Technologies
• Information-based, computer-driven, and
  communication-related activities

Nanotechnologies
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Technological Innovation and Achievement
Impacts of these new technologies are likely to
be greatest in areas that are currently
technology leaders
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Regional Prospects

• Uneven Development (see next 3 slides)
• Global social hierarchy
• Elite Fast World
• Embattled Dependent roles, with fewer benefits
  and limited opportunities
• Marginalized Slow World

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Global Social Hierarchy
Elite (in the United Kingdom)
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Global Social Hierarchy
Embattled (in Mexico)
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Global Social Hierarchy
Marginalized (in Haiti)
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A New World Order

• The United States reigning hegemon
• In decline?
• Relative versus absolute decline
• Resurgent possibilities?
• The European Union advancing supranational
  political union?
• China and India potential technology leaders at
  the margins
• Wild zones
• Kleptocracies
• HIV/AIDS

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Wild Zones Sudan
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Critical Issues and Threats

• Globalizing Culture and Cultural Dissonance
• Material culture of the fast world
• Global metropolitanism
• Polarized communities
• Electronic surveillance
• Militarized urban space
• Hardened urban design
• Historical, geographical, and racial
  civilizations
• Security
• Al-Qaida (literally meaning the base)
• Drug cartels (e.g., Colombia and Mexico)
• Sustainability
• Environmental threats

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Security Surveillance Cameras
Citizen Law Enforcement and Analysis (CLEAR),
in Chicago, Illinois
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Sustainability
The Asian Brown Cloud
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Closing the loop on material use
Current Industrial System
extraction
processing
fabrication
consumption
waste
Closed Loop (eco) Industrial System
processing
fabrication
consumption
extraction
Waste
remanufacture
reuse
recycle
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• Loop Closing
• Industrial waste by-products
• Linkages separate industries
• Industrial symbiosis
• By-product linkages
• geographically proximate firms

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