Issue 015: The Transportation Issue

At the 1939 New York World’s Fair, despite a rapidly worsening global crisis, the focus was on the future. In particular, an exhibit called Futurama dazzled visitors with a vision of sparkling suburbs, massive highways, and a car for every American. The exhibit was sponsored by General Motors and its predictions have largely come to pass.

Seventy years later, in the midst of another crisis, there has been a sudden realization that GM’s model is not the best option—indeed,
by the time you read this, GM might no longer exist. Futurama’s idyllic vision became a future of traffic, pollution, and inefficiency, problems so deep that we cannot fix them by simple incremental improvements. We need new models; the old ones are obsolete.

In these pages you will find drastic rethinking of how we move around, how we design our cities, and how we power our vehicles. Consider this our 21st-century Futurama.