[URBAN NOTE] "What will Toronto be like in 2067? Probably not like this"

[rfmcdonald]

blogTO's Chris Bateman reports on a 1967 set of predictions by The Globe and Mail about Toronto in 2067, two centuries after Canada's formation. Frankly, this future sounds terribly dystopian.

"North American cities may face nuclear demolition or cultural collapse," John Burchard, dean of the school of humanities and social studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ominously warned at the start of the story. "If, however, they escape both, they might become beautiful."

"Might."

"Toronto will be totally urbanized by 2067," reporter Betty Lee wrote. "The majority of urban-orientated Torontonians will prefer the inbuilt efficiency of the mile-high apartment building or the 20-mile long, continuous metro building of fused apartments, factories, roads, universities, hospitals, and shopping facilities."

(Lee seems to have been talking about Metro Centre, the later aborted plan to redevelop a large swath of abandoned downtown railway lands that gave rise to the CN Tower.)

"About a million persons will choose to live in pre-packaged, one-family dwelling units," many of them located in 100-floor towers near the water front.

In 2067, buildings, all built on stilts for reasons for some reason, sit among landscaped lawns and parks, she writes. Downtown is home to a "three-harbor hydrofoil" port and air terminal, but most people get around via "electrically powered hovercraft," which are stored in skyscraper garages. (That classic sci-fi invention the people tube makes an appearance, but only for inter-city travel.)