Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thoughtWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
Anticipations of the reaction of mechanical and scientific progress upon human life and thought
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
Civilization; Communication and traffic; Social prediction; Twentieth century -- Forecasts
what will still be economically the "city," as distinguished from the
"agricultural" population, will probably be free to extend, in the case
of all the prosperous classes not tied to large establishments in need
of personal supervision, far beyond the extreme limits of the daily hour
journey.
But the diffusion of the prosperous, independent, and managing classes
involves in itself a very considerable diffusion of the purely "working"
classes also. Their centres of occupation will be distributed, and their
freedom to live at some little distance from their work will be
increased. Whether this will mean dotting the country with dull, ugly
little streets, slum villages like Buckfastleigh in Devon, for example,
or whether it may result in entirely different and novel aspects, is a
point for which at present we are not ready. But it bears upon the
question that ugliness and squalor upon the main road will appeal to the
more prosperous for remedy with far more vigour than when they are
stowed compactly in a slum.
Enough has been said to demonstrate that old "town" and "city" will be,
in truth, terms as obsolete as "mail coach." For these new areas that
will grow out of them we want a term, and the administrative "urban
district" presents itself with a convenient air of suggestion. We may
for our present purposes call these coming town provinces "urban
regions." Practically, by a process of confluence, the whole of Great
Britain south of the Highlands seems destined to become such an urban
region, laced all together not only by railway and telegraph, but by
novel roads such as we forecast in the former chapter, and by a dense
network of telephones, parcels delivery tubes, and the like nervous and
arterial connections.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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