Wiring Megalopolis : Two Scenariosby Mark Hinshaw

It is becoming increasingly evident that we are in themidst of a tremendous societal transformation . Stu-dents of social change have begun in recent years to ex-amine its form and substance and to make predictionsas to its consequences for human existence . In an effortto give it an appropriate historical identity, scholarshave christened this systemic transformation out of theindustrial era variously as the arrival of post-indus-trialism, the coming of a super-industrial age (Toffler,1970), the Age of Discontinuity (Drucker . 1968), thedawning of a Universal Civilization (Ribiera, 1968), theevolution of Consciousness III (Reich, 1971) . andemergence of the Technetronic Age (Brzezinski, 1970) .At least two authors have identified this social phenom-enon as revolving primarily around the invention, use,and proliferation of new communications technologiesand processes. Robert Theobald (1970) maintains thatwe are entering into nothing less than a full-blownCommunications Era, while L. Clark Stevens (1970)applies the title of Electronic Social Transformation .

In the area of urban affairs and planning few attemptsbeyond those of Richard Meier and Melvin Webberhave been made to analyze the impact of com-munications on urban change . Among the myriad ofconferences, symposia . books, and journals examiningcurrent and future urban development, planners havegiven virtually no recognition to the consequences ofcommunications for alternative urban life styles . AsJerome Aumente (1971) has noted: "Professional plan-ners who should know better persist today in conven-tional predictions of future land use and populationmovement without sufficiently examining the new set ofcommunication variables that turn their predictionstopsy-turvy ." Indeed many planners may well feel thatcommunications technology will have little or no effectupon urban development . Virtually any recognition atall of the relationships between urbanism and com-munications has come from academicians and profes-sionals outside the fields most directly involved inurban analysis and policy development. Most of the lit-erature coming from such sources, however, treatscommunication and information-generating hardwareseemingly as the means of solving most of the urbanproblems with which we are presently confronted .

It is imperative that communications resources, goals,and potentials be included in the urban planning pro-cess, taking into account local, regional, and nationalneeds . The development of communications tech-nologies and communicative structures is intimately re-lated to housing, transportation, social services, and thepolitical economy . Communications systems must beconsidered a major component of the urban infra-structure, both as a public resource and as an integralpart of urban movement systems involving people,goods. energy, and information . There is a clear needfor substantive analysis and synthesis of urban changein terms of concomitant communications develop-ments . . .

Cable communications has particular import for urbanchange in that it has the potential for radically alteringthe very concept of the urban community . Entirely newperceptions of community life may develop . In addi-tion, it may well he a key to determining the ability ofurban inhabitants to understand their individual andcollective problems and deal with them effectively .However, it should be pointed out that predictions ofthe emergence of "the wired-city" arc clearly short-sighted in that they fail to realize that with such exten-sive a communicative system, the very term . "city",will no longer be a useful term for symbolizing urbanway of life . Indeed, as Melvin Webber (1968) has al-ready pointed out, we are even now in a "post-city

Fourth of July Parade in Saugerties cablecast on Public Access Television .

Nicholas Johnson (1970) has commented that com-munications will be the primary technological deter-minant of urban life in the next several decades . "Com-munications will be to the last third of the twentiethcentury what the automobile has been to the middlethird." Such a statement is as foreboding as it is prom-ising . Forecasts of the development of communicationsmedia already range from eloquent prose about thetremendous potential of new media (Youngblood . 1970 :Shamberg/ Raindance 1971) to horrifying suggestions ofa future society unprecedented in the degree of controland repression (Gross. 1970). Cable communication inparticular has probably as many potentially negativeconsequences as it has positive ones . Cable technologyis so imminently powerful that it deserves immediateassessment with respect both to its effect upon urbaninstitutions and related technology and the effect of theinstitutions and technologies upon cable itself .

Two Possible FuturesIt is obviously difficult . if not hazardous, to attempt tomake forecasts about changes in the nature of urbanismbrought on by such a rapidly changing area as cablecommunications. Peter Drucker (1968) has noted thatin the future "the unsuspected and apparently insignifi-cant (will) derail the massive and seemingly invincibletrends of today ." Nevertheless, it is important to en-gage in an anticipatory delineation of first, second, andthird order consequences of various alternative develop-ments. Of the many futures that are possible . I willelaborate on two .

The first alternative is essentially an extrapolation intothe next few decades, the events, developments andvalue systems of the present . This assumes a continua-tion of current social trends . Thus we will witness arapid growth of megalopoli possibly developing into

Doxiadis' world of ecumenopolis : a continual globalcity. We will, in addition, continue to see the flight ofupper income groups. together with industry and theeconomic base, to exclusive suburban areas . Olderurban centers will then become massive human sinkswith palliatives being perenially applied through quasi-benevolent welfare-state policies . Complex bureaucraticinstitutions will continue to proliferate, becoming dif-fused and interwoven throughout all areas of society .Finally, with social disorganization increasing, environ-mental degradation reaching a new high, and clamorfor security and control mounting from all sides, gov-ernment and its corporate cohorts will look to researchorganizations and academia for solutions in systematicapplications of a new and powerful union of the social .behavioral, and technological sciences .The second alternative assumes that the forecasts of in-creasing exponential change are wrong; that we are in-stead entering into an historical era in which exponen-tial curves begin to flatten into logistic or S-shapes-anera of evolutionary change into a fundamentally dif-ferent level of societal existence . This future assumes aneventual emergence of a corresponding shift in values,with voluntary reductions in overall consumption levels,a redefinition of individual rights and responsibilities,an acceptance of cultural diversity, a recognition ofecological interdependence. and a critical attitude to-ward the possibilities and the problems of technology .There will he simultaneous undertakings to create a va-riety of new pattterns of urban habitation, with access tolife support systems and services being increasingly seenas a basic human right . Cable communications and itsattendent services will be recognized as a medium forthe creation of wholly new communities as a tool forexchanging socially useable and useful information .

The scenarios below attempt to expand upon these twoalternatives in terms of an overall societal Framework .

Scenario ISix months after the end of the Viet-Nam War in mid-1973, it seemed fairly evident that the much hoped-fordiverting offunds from military expenditures to domes-tic social problems was not going to materialize in anysignificant amount. Dissidents began to turn their ener-gies to the inefficiencies and insensibilities of corporatepractices and headlines were soon occupied with newsof several coordinated, large scale explosions and com-munications disruptions in factories and corporate of-fices around the country . It did not take long for Neo--Luddites to coalesce around the goal of bringing themegamachine-society to a standstill .

Within urban areas the crime rate had reached an alltime high in June of 1973 with the vast bulk of crimeconsisting of thefts of personal property and streetmugging, much of it violent . There also was an ex-ponential increase in the number of apparently sense-less crimes: random shooting and knifing of people inall major American cities .

By 1974 blacks essentially had control of two majorcities, and militants in at least one other large city anda half dozen smaller ones were in the process of tryingto wrench control from bureaucrats and civil servantswho lived outside their communities. Demands for im-mediate community control came not only from blacksand Spanish-speaking peoples, but from poor andmiddle-income ethnic white areas as well . Many react-ed with violence at attempts by decision-makers tochange the character of their areas . The chief concernof many politicians was the very real prospect of wide-spread social disorder occuring before and during theupcoming Bicentennial Celebration . Most people re-gardless of their race, income, or ethnicity felt such acrisis demanded immediate and drastic action .

So it was that in 1976 a President was elected on a "Se-curity and Stability" platform and together with a sym-pathetic Congress instituted a number of swiftly imple-mented measures. The National Internal SecurityAdministration was created and under the Urban Com-munications Act of 1977 the Department of Com-munications was added to the Cabinet . DOC was em-powered and given funding to immediately establish aNational Communications System, or NATCOM forshort. Each megalopolitan complex was to see to theconstruction, by public or private means, of intra-urbancable networks to feed into NATCOM . The scheme de-veloped by national communications planners was mul-tifold.

First NATCOM was devised so as to enable govern-ment, military, and police operations to function swiftlyand effectively in a widely dispersed pattern. Informa-tion about potentially dangerous people or groups wasdata-banked and made instantaneously available. Com-puters were utilized to collate personal information andactivities and to predict by simulation the probability ofa particular disruptive action . Thus those potential dis-sidents who could not be coopted or otherwise cooledout could be closely monitored. A proposal made backin 1971 for mobile transmitters implanted in the brainsof habitual criminals was being implemented experi-mentally .

The personal crimes in urban areas that were not eli-minated by local heroin distribution programs, NAT-COM sought to minimize by installing miniature videocameras at strategic points on streets . One of the majorreasons for the popularity of two-way cable televisionwas its burgular protection service. It thus came to bethat privacy from electronic surveillance ceased to be-come a major concern; after all, it was felt, no decentcitizen had anything to hide .

Second. NATCOM could help satisfy public demandsfor greater localized control through the establishmentof intracommunity cable systems within urban areas .By the end of the 70's almost all urban places over 2500were fully wired. Planners maintained that by encour-aging intense involvement in local cable systems a senseof control over local affairs and participation in localmatters could be produced . (Behaviorial research byseveral prestigious institutions had shown that only asense of participation was necessary to satisfy mostpeople.) With attention so intensely focused on localdevelopments, higher levels of government could thusbe freed to pursue their activities unharrassed .

Third, NATCOM facilitated the formation of eight re-gional superagencies to control urban population dis-tribution, housing, transportation, environmental re-sources, land use, and internal security . The formerlysticky issue of metropolitan government was skirted byinstituting not a new level of government but rathertechnical service agencies empowered to set policy with-out the chaotic process of public involvement that hadbogged down the implementation of so many plans inprevious decades . Possible objections to such an ar-rangement were largely forestalled by the strategy ofincluding into the agencies potential dissidents .

Finally, cable communications was seen by NATCOMplanners as a means of eliminating the propensity ofmass media for unnecessarily inflaming emotions aboutparticular events and for raising aspirations and expec-tations of people beyond what corporate enterprisesand government could practically provide . This led inthe early 1980's to the custom tailoring of packaged in-formation and entertainment to fit the unique charac-teristics of particular cultural and social groups . Notthat this was unwelcome; the previous decade had seena widespread clamoring for programming more rele-vant to the experiences of specific racial, ethnic, andeconomic urban subcultures . NATCOM enlisted theaid of former advertising and public relations special-ists, social and behavioral scientists, video artists, andcommunications experts to research the needs ofvarious publics and to prepare carefully designed piecesof programming for distribution by cable and cassettes .NATCOM operated in close partnership with the threeformer broadcast networks which by the mid-80's hadturned their investments entirely from broadcasting tobroadband communications . These corporations discov-ered entirely new areas of profit-making by marketingcable hardware and producing programming for videocassettes (particularly with the tremendous demand forviolent sports and pornography) .

By the mid-1980's the results of the Emergency Hous-ing Act of 1978 were being seen . The Act has providedfor the simultaneous construction of forty-five newtowns and twenty linear megastructures within megalo-politan areas entirely by rapid industrialized methods .Such a massive urban development effort was unpre-cedented in scale and scope.

At the same time, national obsession with the au-tomobile was being gradually replaced with an equallyif not more intense obsession with personal com-munication systems. Status began to be measured bythe number and type of equipment one could wear oraffix to home cable terminals : wall-sized plasmascreens, quadrasonic sound systems, biofeedback units,

cameras and video recorders, colorizers, CAI termi-nals, facsimile attachments, and other parapheranalia.Waiting on the horizon, holography promised yet an-other addition to personal "telecoms". Not that the au-tomotive corporations simply disappeared; they likeformer broadcast networks transformed themselves .Megalopolitan living in the 1980's demanded newforms of transportation -personal rapid transit, gra-vity-vacuum carriers, "people-movers" . aerobuses- allof which required both sophisticated transport techno-logy and highly developed and coordinated cyberneticcommunications systems .

Other corporate institutions were transformed underthe impact of universal cable communications. It didnot take long for marketing analysts to discover thatvastly greater profits could be made by designing infor-mation about products and services for particular con-sumer groups. Even channels devoted entirely to con-sumer reports, at first resisted by corporate structures,eventually resulted in greater sales, because they furtherencouraged high consumption patterns . Electronichome shopping with instantaneous credit accountingproved to be a particular boon to commerce as impulsepurchases soared.

The 1980's also saw the advent of educational cable ne-tworks. Experiments conducted by a number of in-dependent academic centers, and research sponsored bythe Department of Communications had proven conclu-sively that cable communications learning consoles uti-lizing stimulus-response and reinforcement patternscould significantly increase certain computational andreading skills . It was found particularly suitable forstudents who showed, through early testing methods,little capacity for more than basic skills . By putting theearlier theories of B . F. Skinner into practice, educa-tional psychologists found that such learning unitscould also be structured so as to produce a certaindegree of satisfaction with a particular role in society .Frustrations and anxieties due to unmet expectationscould thus be minimized .

Two-way cable was soon recognized by social, behav-ioral, and demographic scientists to be a blessing. Notonly was a continual census possible, but researcherswere afforded a means by which to gather wholly newvarieties of information about the activities, behavior,and characteristics of people. Never before had such ac-curate statistical data been available to social scientistsand planners. Government and corporate decision--makers, seeing the enormous potential of such statis-tical data gathering, defined this as a major element inpublic participation in policy-making, a method bywhich government could continually determine theneeds of its people . This was deemed much more effec-tive than the mere voting on issues and candidates .Therefore, 1995 was set as target date by which time allhomes would be required to have at least one basic,two-way cable terminal .

In America the beginning years of the last decade ofthe twentieth century saw an unprecedented era of socialstability brought about by strictly-imposed govern-ment policies . Although conflicts and disturbancesperiodically arose they were largely localized, short-lived and had little effect on society as a whole . The1900's also saw the gradual formation of a new typeof social stratification based upon differing degreesof access to certain types and qualities of information .The Kerner Commission and political scientists who inthe late 1960's had warned of a racially divided societyhad not foreseen the impact of localized communitycommunications . This permitted urban communities todefend themselves against intrusion by people they con-sidered undesirable, resulting in a vast array of exclu-sive subcultural urban enclaves. Many communitiesformed around economic levels, while others formedaround ethnic, racial, or work-role distinctions . Localcable systems facilitated the emergence of rigid in-group/out-group attitudes within communities whilehelping to legitimize and reinforce their particular be-liefs and values. Such community atomization permit-ted government to identify and isolate potential troublespots and deal with them without upsetting the largersociety. The degree of social stability within Americawas, however, in sharp contrast to the increasing inten-sity of social, political, and ecological chaos in manyother parts of the world.

Scenario IIUrban America in the last quarter of the twentieth cen-tury was the locus of a series of widespread social andinstitutional changes . The mid-1970's saw the breakingdown of restrictive zoning laws in suburban areas whilethe general movement to outlying urban areas con-tinued . Increasingly entropic conditions in central citiesdue to an overload of population concentration anddiseconomies of overly complex institutions gave rise todesire throughout all economic, social, ethnic, and ra-cial groups for alternative environments and live styles .Even while the popularity of suburban living continuedto grow. however, it too was beginning to be seriouslyquestioned as a suitable choice .

Concern for the environment and the quality of goodsand services, initiated at the end of the 1960's . had bythe middle of the 1970's expanded to a greater concernfor the total living environment, including housing,transportation, services . community, and social inequi-ties. Demands for a more humanely organized societywere echoed by feelings that megalopolis had passedthe point of diminishing returns and that differentchoices were sorely needed .

Moreover, people began to realize in the last few yearsof the decade that full and responsible participation indecisions affecting their lives and their communitiesdemanded access to means of generating, receiving, andexchanging ideas and information . Only in such a waycould common areas of concern be discovered and co-operative efforts at problem-solving be attempted . Ade-quate and easily available methods of inter-communityand intra-community communications were necessaryfor effectuating mutually beneficial change .

By the end of 1976, cable communications systems hadbeen installed in enough areas that people in manycommunities began to see their potential for facilitatingcollective action . Awareness of the potential of commu-nity cable resulted not only by the increasing availabil-ity of the medium, but from educational campaignsconducted by universities, video groups . and citizens or-ganizations which explained that the cable was notmerely an extension of further refinement of television,but an entirely new means of communication .

Andy gets a haircut--shown on Public Access television .

With an acceptance of the value of subcultural diversitywithin the larger society. the abundance of cable chan-nels and inter-networking of community systems per-mitted sharing of experiences, customs, and artistic ex-pression among various urban groups. Local cablesystems and portable video recorders helped fostercommunity awareness and self-development . With thesteady proliferation of switched two-way systems in theearly 1980's. cable communication was gradually seenas an indispensable tool for local planning .

By 1977 the shift from employment in primary and sec-ondary economic activities to employment in serviceswas virtually complete . Fully seventy-five percent of thework force was engaged in such tertiary service activi-ties. It was also becoming clear that the single term"services" was inadequate, for cybernation had begunto reduce employment even in many service categories .At the same time, there was a dramatic increase in theneed for people engaged in human care and communitydevelopment activities such as health services delivery .education. and child care . Simultaneously a desire forperforming socially useful roles which permitted morechoice and flexibility instead of a single lifelong occupa-tion were pervading all sectors of the population . More-over, the very concept of' what activities constituted"work" came under intense criticism, with a wide rangeof people from housewives to students at all levels, ar-guing that they performed functions that made a valu-able contribution to the resources and development ofsociety . Finally, the awareness of the fact that Ameri-can society had decades ago shifted from an economycentered around competition for scarce resources to oneof an abundance, gave rise to a wide-spread belief thatthe provision of basic goods and services required for alife of dignity should be a right of citizenship . The col-lective force of such events and demands resulted in theinstitution in 1978 of a guaranteed annual income to allpersons .

The cumulative effect of such structural changes in so-ciety as a more equitable distribution of goods and ser-vices, a reduction in levels of consumption . a morecareful use of resources, a blurring of distinctions be-tween leisure, work, and education, and concurrentchanges in technologies of information, energy, trans-portation. and housing was to diminish the necessity formegalopolitan concentrations of people . Two-way cablecommunication services played a vital role in facilitat-ing the formation during the 1980's of a great variety ofurban environments . "New" towns, medium-sizedurban areas, community clusters, communal settings,and former small towns and rural areas were receivingemigrants from the denser urban complexes . This ex-panded range of different environments encouragedmore involvement with alternative social relationshipssuch as extended families, family clusters, learninggroups. group marriages, and religious groups that hadpreviously enjoyed only limited experimentation . In-teractive cable systems with ownership having been sep-arated from programming in the mid-1970's permittedpeople to maintain linkages within and between differ-ing types of communities; some geographically concen-trated, some spatially diffuse, others transient andbased solely upon temporary convergence of interest .

For the first time, people were able to enjoy both thebenefits of smaller, intimate communities and theaccess to and participation in larger. more culturallydiverse urban environments : national, trans-national .and global. By the mid-1980's the former model of theurban-rural dichotomy had all but disappeared fromsociological theory : participation in urban ways of lifeno longer depended upon habitation within an area ar-bitrarily defined by population, density, or politicalboundaries but was instead determined by the access tocommunicative and informational nets .

The maturation of cable communications and its an-cillary services aided in the emergence of a full-blownpost-mass-consumption/production urban economy .Advanced cybernation with computer operations capa-ble of rapid reprogramming was permitting a return tohigh quality crafted goods designed and produced to fitunique criteria . Housing, for instance, could be built tomeet the specific needs of particular communities oreven individual families . Urban planners and designerssaw cable as a means of receiving information aboutthe needs and preferences directly from potential usergroups . Cable was also seen as a medium of presentingsimulated alternative environments and housing config-urations and eliciting reactions to them. Outcomes ofvarious policy choices were projected and compared interms of their possible long-run ecological con-sequences . Thus it served as a valuable tool for the cre-ation of more responsive and responsible designs .

Interactive cable systems permitted the development ofmore individualized inter-personal . intra-communityand trans-community communicative services as well .People involved in kinetic and visual arts used cableand related technologies or portable video and cassettesto introduce other people to the process of expressingimages and ideas . Many people became involved in theproduction and distribution of entertainment for spe-cialized audiences. Still others engaged in gathering, ar-ranging. and presenting widely varying types of infor-mational materials to meet the demands for moreuseful and useable knowledge . Multiple-access retrievalsystems via cable gave rise to large groups of people en-gaged in reading. reviewing, cataloging, and abstractingliterature and research documents for users who hadbeen suffering from an overload of data and were inneed of more manageable forms of information. Com-pletely new forms of exchanging and presenting infor-mation were created, centering around methods for un-derstanding interrelationships of societal changes . Stillother people became involved in various types of com-munity development, organization. advocacy. individu-al and group therapy . and the analysis of problems .goals. and potential areas of conflict and cooperation .Finally, others engaged themselves in the com-munication of customs, beliefs, events, and culturalcontributions of the particular communities of whichthey were a part . Members of communities which weremobile used cable to form ties with those which weregeographically stationary . With the realization thaturban communities were socially interdependent, cablenets enabled the creation of shared pools of informationand ideas and the joining together of disparate groupsof people in collective attempts at bringing about de-sired changes .

During the 1980's an indirect by-product of a univer-sally-accessible urban communications medium was thegradual replacement of the former two party politicalstructure with a political environment containing a mul-tiplicity of active interest groups each possessing differ-ing value patterns and community myths . In some casespolitical associations coincided with physically iden-tifiable communities, while others cut across separatecommunities . Interactive broadband communicationsnetworks permitted these groups to coalesce . separate,and recoalesce around particular issues as the need foreffective action demanded cooperative group efforts .

One of the many proposals for government reform thathad enjoyed public popularity during the Great Debatesof 1976 was a voter response feedback system . As inearlier proposals, it had been suggested that the systemcould he implemented through two-way cable . At thattime. however, cable linkages had been made with onlya small proportion of the total number of households .An argument at that time against the system was thatsuch a readily available access to a voting mechanismwould effectively discriminate against those who did nothave cable. By the late 1980's, however, cable penetra-tion had approached ninety-five percent and the votersystem became politically practical . By that time sincethe hardware was essentially in place. all that was nec-essary for full implementation was a computerized ac-counting apparatus . However. once the system hadbeen in operation it soon became clear that a simpleyes-no response to proposed policies and candidateswas entirely inadequate . Such a system of "feedback"had been based on the notion of "feeding" reactionsback up to representatives and administrators involvedin public policy-making. What was needed, it wasclaimed, was an interactive, truly participatory struc-ture that would give individuals and groups the oppor-tunity to originate and present proposals . This sub-sequently brought about a movement during the early1990's to replace the system of representation withmore direct and cooperative decision-making mecha-nisms .

The development and proliferation of interactive cablecommunications as an urban information utility in-fluenced the development of more fluid, diverse, andparticipative social environments during the late 1970'sand 1980's. The 1990's began to see the impact of ubi-quitous information access on the physical environment .Static, fixed, and technologically obsolescent buildingforms were increasingly replaced by flexible, user-con-trolled environments . One manifestation of this was theconstruction of basic life support infrastructures provid-ing water, climate control, waste recycling, and com-munication services which would be designed to last fora relatively long period of time . Attached to these infra-structures or service grids could be virtually an infinitevariety of housing types which would either be designedintentionally with short life spans or with the capabilityof being modified when the needs of the inhabitantschanged . Many forms of shelter and community facili-ties even became entirely mobile, some entirely self-suf-ficient, others requiring links with service networks .Urban architecture like communications had becomemore process-oriented, individualized, adaptive and di-verse .

The last decade of the twentieth century witnessed ageneral trend toward more dispersed, polynodal pat-terns of urban habitation and away from large concen-trations of population . Several large urban complexeslike New York and San Francisco were maintainedbecause of their unique qualities, but were considerablydiminished in population, as they became simply alter-natives in a wide range of urban configurations . Loca-tional decisions and choice of lifestyle became basedmore upon preferences for different environmental orcultural characteristics rather than upon economic de-terminants. The majority of people were engaged insuch activities as interpersonal care and developmentand cooperative crafts and it was discovered that theseactivities could be performed well in smaller urbanunits .

By 1995, it was clear that many of the earlier predic-tions concerning the impact of communications werebeing proven wrong . Travel had hardly decreased :rather it saw a net increase as communication aboutdifferent urban cultures, subcultures, and environmentsencouraged direct experiential visitation . Predictionsthirty years earlier of people communicating ratherthan commuting to work had also not been borne out,for the very nature of work changed as it fused withlocalized community service and education . Routinizedtravel did indeed decline : but travel itself was trans-formed from mere movement from one point to an-other to an integral part of the total learning process .Finally, electronic communication did not, as had beenforecasted, replace such activities as shopping, for peo-ple valued the social function of the community mar-ketplace and recognized the importance of tactile, ol-factory, kinesthetic, and spatial experiences. Indeed,the proliferation of communication technologies result-ed in more direct human interaction rather than less ;there was a great increase in the demand for placesfacilitating direct human interchange . The interrelatedeffects of transportation and communication tech-nologies, economic change . and political decentraliza-tion was bringing about the simultaneous phenomena ofsocietal dispersion and integration -dispersion into amultiplicity of diverse communities and the integrationinto a national (and increasingly global) urban culture .

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ConclusionThe scenarios I have presented are only skeletalimages, verbal sketches of two possible futures. Thereare. I am sure, elements in each that could be consid-ered undesirable by someone . Indeed, the scenarios arenot necessarily mutually exclusive: a synthesis of condi-tions from both might well come to pass . Both might bedismissed as mere extreme utopian or dystopian fan-tasies, thought I believe both to be realistically possible .Neither "future history" is entirely probable, althoughI feel that the first alternative is more likely. (Anothermore probable future which was not discussed is one ofincreasing ecological chaos culminating in global devas-tation .)

Unforeseen innovations and events during the comingthree decades might explode all present projections .Nonetheless, the normative task ofattempting to arriveat desirable futures necessitates an ongoing analysis ofthe multi fold potentials, negative as well as positive, ofemerging broadband communications. Only in such amanner are we presented with effective charts for help-ing to guide urban change in the present .

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This article will appear as a chapter in Communications Technologyand Social Policy : A New Cultural Revolution?, edited by GeorgeGerbner, Larry P. Gross, and William H. Melody, and publishedby Wiley & Sons. Presently, in press.The author expresses his appreciation to Robert Theobald and Ron-ald Tatasciore for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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