Before we begin our examination of where Westport, Connecticut (we use our community as a metaphor) might be a century from now, we need to ask ourselves where America’s zeitgeist is going. We’ll start with the assumption that over the next 100 years the changes we’ll witness in the human condition will far outweigh all of the changes humanity has experienced over the last 100 years. These changes will be both primal, i.e., affecting the basic biologic aspects of individual lives and collective, impacting how we live together as family, friends and community. But whether primary or collective, these changes will have a ubiquitous impact on our lives and the shared public collective life of Westport.
Imagine for a moment that you are your parents, your grandparents or your great-grandparents. Imagine that it is 1899 and you have just been born. Think of what surrounds you and more importantly what awaits you. The Civil War, the war that will prove to be the bloodiest and – in terms of loss of American life – costliest ever fought in the next 100 years has been over for just 34 years. The world is holding its first peace conference at the Hague while in South Africa Great Britain has gone to war with the Boers and in what will come to be known as "Asia Pacific" the Philippines are demanding their independence from the United States. The first magnetic recordings of sound have been captured and Oscar Wilde, Leo Tolstoi, Henrik Ibsen, Rudyard Kipling and Andre Gide have just published new daring novels and plays.
Ahead of you lie two World Wars, the Cold War, the Korean Conflict, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the long nightmare of Vietnam, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo and dozens of smaller military engagements unknown or forgotten. Over the course of your lifetime you’ll see the electrification of America, the construction of the interstate highways system, the triumph of first the automobile, then the airplane, and finally manned space flight. Polio, smallpox, typhoid, tuberculosis and dozens of lesser but equally lethal diseases will have been functionally eradicated although some – like tuberculosis – will have begun to return. Scientists will split the atom, map the universe, reduce the mind to a series of chemical and electric reactions and finally clone life. The absolute control of churches over their flocks will be washed away by a typhoon of moral and ethical relativism. God will be pronounced dead and 70 years into your life resurrected by longhaired, beaded youth gobbling traditional salvation along with large doses of Eastern mysticism and recreational drugs.
Before you reach 100 years old the word "families" will commonly come to mean either one adult and some children, or same sex partners with or without children or countless variations of serialized relationships. People will be "guided" by angels and worry about being abducted by aliens. American presidents will be murdered and disgraced. Entertainment will move from the family piano to cable networks bringing everything from instructions in how to bake the perfect soufflé to soft core pornography into the home. You will see the birth of the computer and witness the first man to walk on the moon. Mysteries will be created and destroyed. Einstein will prove that time is relative and Freud will see monsters buried deep inside the mind. All of this lies ahead of you as you lie in your crib in 1899 and the truth is, as they will come to say, "You ain’t seen nothin’ yet."
Over the next 100 years the changes in the human condition will dwarf those seen between 1899 and 1999. Embedded technology will create the first "cyberpeople" whose sensory ability, physical strength and mental agility are augmented by technologies grafted into or onto them. Human genome mapping will have progressed to the point that the average Westport resident will be able to "program" the kind of child they want. At the very least they will have a complete "genetic blueprint" of their child’s life before the child is born. And that may be the beginning. Many scientists believe future parents will opt for "GenRich" or genetically enriched children who will be altered by the deletion or insertion of genes into a fertilized egg before it is planted in the mother’s womb. Some scientists also believe the technology of genetic manipulation will create a diversity of human-based species, but that remains to be seen.
Among the general population there will be fixed and immutable term limits imposed on life based on our ability to pay for ourselves. Such laws will have less impact on affluent communities such as Westport than they will on the sprawling new barrios of New York, but their impact will still be felt.
21st Century Westporters will have sure knowledge that they aren’t alone in the universe and Westport may well have a "sister city" at the end of today’s known galaxy. The United States may still exist but will function more as a corporation than a "pure" 20th Century government. Whatever its exact political structure America will cease to be a Caucasian-dominant nation and the national language is likely to be, "the language formerly known as English."
There will be new models for the way that wealth is created. Sometime between 1999 and 2099 the last vestiges of the late Industrial and Information Age economies will finally collapse. Wealth based on ownership and control of fixed, physical assets will have long ago given way to wealth created through the manipulation of networks and intellectual property. This shift in wealth formation will disproportionately benefit Westport since its residents will find among themselves more than enough "wetware" resources to address any potential business opportunity.
In 2099 New York City will remain, as it is today, the most important city in the world, a Mythopolis that people will come to to transform their dreams into reality. We believe the allure will increase bringing even more people into the area. While telepresent media will allow anyone in the world to "visit" a "virtual New York" at any time, we believe the desire to experience the "real" New York will continue. And, then as now, the elite of those attracted to New York in commerce, academia and research, politics and the arts will find their way to Westport. Of course, some things will change a bit. A high-speed magnetic subway that will transport residents from Westport to the New Grand Central in seven minutes will replace the traditional train commute into the city. For those preferring more traditional transport, Interstate 95 will have three decks to accommodate surface traffic. The costs of this expanded transportation infrastructure will be partially underwritten by a communal tax arrangement impacting every citizen and municipal government within a 100-mile radius of New York City proper.
For those choosing to remain in Westport life in 2099 will look quite different from life in 1999. Westport will have been one of the first communities in the world to have every home wired into its own intranet. Every home will have a real time connection to every "business" and municipal facility in the community. "Business" has been put in quotes because every home will in effect be at least one business. The profile of the average Westport resident will be so desirable (both as a marketing "target" and as an indicator of future trends) that marketers will gladly pay for what will become known as "WHIP" or Westport Household Intellectual Property. "WHIP" will chronicle, catalogue assemble store and recall all of the details of a Westport resident’s life. By 2099 the information surrounding transactions conducted in the city will have a value in excess of the aggregate transactions themselves. Westport residents will be paid to "screen" advertising and other media content. Because of the relative affluence of Westport residents it is anticipated most "WHIP" royalty checks will be donated to improving the educational and social infrastructure of Westport and its neighboring communities. Most "WHIP" content will be generated passively through embedded technology.
One of the primary beneficiaries of "WHIP" payments will be the unified Westport school district. "Home schooling" will be the rule rather than the exception. Unlike the home schooling movement of the later 20th century 21st century home schooling will involve teaching by the school district in the home. Students will be allowed to learn at their own pace and independent directed studies will be encouraged. Westport’s schools will employ "faculty" from all over the world. Since most classrooms will be "virtual" it will not be uncommon to see a comparative religion course taught by the current Pope and Dali Lama or an astronomy course taught by the 21st Century’s equivalent of Stephen Hawking. While most formal learning will take place via the home media center and Internet, physical schools will still perform an important educational role serving as socialization centers. In keeping with Westport’s history of public service and social concern, excess physical educational plants will be turned into hospices, homeless shelters or related-use space.
Consistent with the 21st century model of education as the process of "learning, unlearning and relearning" the Westport schools will offer extensive adult education and re-education programs. As part of this curriculum successful Westport residents will share their experience and insights with younger students and in turn will gain new insights from them. One of the major "socializing" benefits of the school system will be to unite all of the generations of Westport residents into a common sharing and growth experience. We may well see 85 year olds attending public schools whose "re-education" is paid for by local 12-year-old billionaires who have just made a killing day trading the hottest new interactive-Web games.
The RTM will not be elected but will literally be made up of every legal Westport resident. Governance will move from a representative democracy to a directly participatory democracy. Political participation will be viewed in both a global and local context. Westport residents will vote on both local and global issues. Given the relative importance of its population, the First Selectman of Westport will have more political influence than either U.S. Senator from Connecticut. As mentioned earlier it’s more than likely our notion of the current nation-state will be replaced by the idea of a new city-state or dominant Mythopolis. Westport’s First Selectman is expected to be a "shoe-in" to be the head of the New York Mayor’s Council.
So, why would anyone choose to live in Westport in 2099? For that matter, why would you choose to "live" (in a physical sense) anywhere since it will be possible to "live" one’s entire life in what we now refer to as "cyberspace"? In a word the answer is "values." People will choose where to live less for economic necessity or family tradition and more because the place they live allows them to participate with people who share a common belief system. In a world where one can create any environment they choose, a premium will be placed on communities with unique and strong belief systems. In a move to what we call "neo-tribalism" people who for example organize their lives around spirituality will gravitate toward communities that exude spirituality.
Our guess (and that’s really the best a futurist can do) is that the future of this community will be built on the base of creativity. A culture is, by definition, the thing you are willing to pay your reverential homage to. Westport will pay its highest respect to the creative spirit and its many and varied manifestations. Westport will be the crown jewel of the New York Mythopolis by virtue of the critical mass of its creative expression in the performing, physical, literary, intellectual and commercial arts – including a number still undreamed of.
Westport is perhaps one of the ten communities existing in the world today with sufficient human resources to define the future of community itself. The combination of talent, wealth, creativity, power (both economic and political), compassion, inspiration and thirst for innovation that characterizes Westport and its residents today suggests that this is and will be the best place to live today or a century from now.
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