The Hazards of Predicting the Future of Cities

Envisioning cities of the future can sometimes be more at home in science fiction than urban planning. Optimism generally looms large in these visions. At the 1939 World’s Fair, the exhibit, “World of Tomorrow”—with its motto “For Peace and Freedom”—featured an elaborate futuristic model city called Democracity, a tribute to the reigning techno-utopian hopes of the time. Millions of visitors were awed by it. In a dark twist of irony, the model was melted down only a few years later to provide four thousand tons of steel for making bombs in World War II. This was only one of many 20th century futuristic urban visions that failed to materialize.

The New York Times columnist and George Mason economist Tyler Cowen has produced a vision that no one can accuse of being techno-utopian. In Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, Cowen sees reason for cities to accept some grim realities of the present as they plan for their future.

Cowen’s argument centers on the labor market. He points out that technological development and increasing foreign competition have decreased the demand for middle-wage workers. For the last twenty years in the U.S. as well as sixteen European countries, low-wage occupations rose as a share of the total labor market while middle-wage occupations declined. The recent 2008-2009 recession only solidified this reality, as many of the middle-wage jobs were replaced by new low-wage jobs.