WorldFuture 2009 in Chicago

What will be the future of the city? I like to think it will be vaguely utopian—like Jane Jacobs re-written by David Harvey, but in my less optimistic moments I can’t help but think of fantastic, dystopian spaces like Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”. But this betrays my own preconceptions--the instinctive way I discount culture (even though I'm a cultural anthropologist).

Google has just launched its much-anticipated Google Voice service and the song of cellphones floats upon the air. Suckers that we are, my wife and I are already signed up. The nifty features are these: You get one number that attaches to all of your other numbers. When someone calls that number, it rings on your home phone, your cell, and any other device you choose to connect.

Locally and globally, we continue to see that the nature of jobs is profoundly changing, and what we do in order to earn our incomes, and how we do it, will never be the same. Importantly, none of this will ever again conform to what were the norms or rules or expectations across companies or through the years.