Here are my predictions as to the medium-term future of (European at least) society in terms of economic geography. My base year is 2050, so only 28 years away - as distant to us today as 1994.
So - here we are, it's 2050. Our cities are hollowing out; populations are finding new a space in which to live - the near countryside. I'd define this as being still within comfortable reach of the city, a ring beyond today's exurbs - the ring's shape defined by rail networks radiating from each city. The more lines out of a given city, the broader the area that will experience this effect.
Covid-19 has served to accelerate the move towards remote work, working from home, and e-commerce with home delivery, parcel lockers and fulfilment centres also ironing out differences between the city and the sticks.
The remote countryside will have its enthusiasts, but this will be a hardy minority that chooses a more challenging life, three or more hours away from the nearest major city and its amenities.
An hour, an hour-and-half's journey time door to door by train into the city centre is sufficiently far away, and yet remains comfortably close for occasional visits rather than daily commuting.
The city itself will endure - of course it will - but its role will be more focused. Conurbations of 500,000+ will act as governmental and corporate hubs, centres for regional and national authorities and big-business HQ and shared-service centres. Their reason for surviving is above all their role as a creative hub, where people get together to share ideas and generate new thinking. Universities, theatres and concert halls need a critical mass which doesn't exist in smaller communities. Administration itself can be distributed geographically. The experience of working from home suggests that routine tasks (at least the ones which won't disappear because of advancing technology) can be handled from anywhere. Creativity, however, burgeons when people meet in groups.
Business will change. The notion of sustainability will have sustained. While climate change remains humanity's biggest problem, sustainability will not have been eclipsed by more faddish notions. Investors' horizons will stretch further in time. Many large corporations that we know today will have disappeared, many others will have survived - mainly those that focus on the long term rather than on quarterly results. Shareholder pressure for profits and dividends will ease, again; short-term greed will be less powerful as a driver of corporate performance. A new generation will be content to live in comfort rather than striving for luxury, mindful of the environmental cost of a possessions-based lifestyle.
The presence of medium-sized businesses - strong in their local regions - will become more visible. They will take the place of corporations that no longer have a purpose.
There are things that local enterprises can provide - food and shelter (agriculture and construction are suited to small teams), furniture, clothing. Craft skills will become popular - courses in carpentry, bricklaying, knitting. Making things, mastering tools and techniques. And not just making things - repairing things. The circular economy will have gained a foothold; the first generation to be materially worse off in absolute terms than its parents' generation will be far better off spiritually and mentally, having turned its back on conspicuous consumption and the economics of built-in obsolescence.
Imagine cars, refrigerators, laptops, being designed with a use-life of 100 years; modular construction with parts which wear out can easily replaceable or upgradable. Given that there are still many aircraft in active service with air forces around the world that are 50 or even 60 years old - this is possible from an engineering perspective. I believe that consumers will want to buy products with extremely long life-cycles, even if the purchase price is higher, total cost of ownership will be lower - with less damage to the environment.
There will remain many things that only the largest multinational corporations can provide - semiconductors, gene therapy or arrays of photovoltaic panels for example. Wherever economies of scale kick in, this is where the corporation will remain strong. Advanced manufacturing needs access to huge amounts of capital to develop new technologies. But whilst hardware will remain the preserve of larger firms, software can be written by small teams from anywhere. Corporations processing food - Kraft or Unilever, for example, or brewing, such as AB InBev - will find it harder to compete with nimbler local firms trading on regional traditions and authenticity.
We'll still need our storytellers and entertainers too - not bland, global megastars filling stadiums for hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop, but authentic local acts, relevant to their communities. People will want to go out - expect an upsurge in small restaurants, cafes and bars in small towns that today have few or none.
Tomorrow I'll look at a return to the diversity of human geography that I predict will happen - an antidote to the homogeneity of Europe or North America.
[See also How does a 'better tomorrow' look?]
This time last year:
New phone, new laptop
This time two years ago:
Longevity and Purpose
New bus stop for Karczunkowska
Who should pay for railways?
[How America built an electric railway line over the Rockies - over 100 years ago!]
This time 12 years ago:
Grunwald - the big picture
This time 14 years ago:
"Take me right back to the track, Jack"
This time 15 years ago:
The summer sublime
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