It's really interesting to read this, genuinely prescient, starkly logical analysis that seems quite liberal and self-aware while also deeply soaked in un-acknowledged bias.
The time this was written was around the peak of the suffrage movement a couple years after the 19th amendment. That, perhaps, contributes to the placating tone in the author's description of how little progress the movement will have made by 2022.
I think especially noteworthy is the apparent blind spot towards the speed of information. He spends a lot of space articulating the physical characteristics of a City of Tomorrow but no consideration of what it might mean to quickly and easily read anything that has ever been published.
Really interesting article.
EDIT: Another note regarding his whole segment on work, production and leisure: he seems to only conceive of work as labor. Where, for example, an additional hour spent shoveling coal means another hour's worth of shoveled coal while forgetting to consider the possibility of "critical thinking" production where an additional hour spent working does not necessarily mean an additional hour spent being productive. A good prediction here would have touched on what careers in more "creative" production might look like.
It's really interesting to read this, genuinely prescient, starkly logical analysis that seems quite liberal and self-aware while also deeply soaked in un-acknowledged bias.
The time this was written was around the peak of the suffrage movement a couple years after the 19th amendment. That, perhaps, contributes to the placating tone in the author's description of how little progress the movement will have made by 2022.
I think especially noteworthy is the apparent blind spot towards the speed of information. He spends a lot of space articulating the physical characteristics of a City of Tomorrow but no consideration of what it might mean to quickly and easily read anything that has ever been published.
Really interesting article.
EDIT: Another note regarding his whole segment on work, production and leisure: he seems to only conceive of work as labor. Where, for example, an additional hour spent shoveling coal means another hour's worth of shoveled coal while forgetting to consider the possibility of "critical thinking" production where an additional hour spent working does not necessarily mean an additional hour spent being productive. A good prediction here would have touched on what careers in more "creative" production might look like.