Thursday, September 24, 2009

Picturing DC in 2209

It is so hard to imagine what DC will look like in 200 years, because everything from lifestyle(food, clothing, housing, transportation, consuming habit, relationship with environment) to technology(energy supply, manufacturing system) will be totally different from 2009. There will be minimum park or green area in DC. The population of DC will increase enormously as any other state will be. Then there must be some form of residential complexes and stores that would serve the population. Theses complexes would be taller than any building that was ever built in Washington DC. However, each unit in the complexes would be very small in order to accommodate as many people as possible. I believe no buildings are shorter than the Washington Monument in 2209. Also I think large stores such as Target, Costco, or Best Buy would be reduced in physical size. The highly developed technology could transform large stores into something like banding machine that would only take up minimum area but provide what people need. In addition, it would be hard to see cars run on oil. In other words, there will be less use of oil but more of other alternative energies such as hydro, wind, solar, biogas or thermal energy. The size of vehicles will be reduced as well to be more energy efficient.
What I hope Washington DC to be in 200 years different from what I assume it to be. I want the big stores to be minimized as I assume them to be. However, I do not want thousands and thousands of small stores to take up all DC area. Then it is not any different than current situation. As the stores, factories or business complex reduce in size, I hope green area would expand. We not only should preserve the green area that we currently have but also try very hard to make more green areas. I also hope that by 2209 we have much greener technology that would help us to consume and spend in environmental friendly way. What I really like to see is kids running around and playing with their pets in their backyard. I wish we all could live in small but beautiful house with a garden rather than living in a tight cell in tall residential building.

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