Scenarios for Sceniuses

 Architect Robert Venturi in Las Vegas in 1966. Photograph: Denise Scott Brown/VSBA

Suburbia is always conjoined with the city center, even if it is opposed to it 180 degrees. Suburbanites live in a particular kind of bubble that cars make possible. Cars actually gave birth to suburbs so the circularity is perfect. A car is in a sense a way to have the best of both worlds: “I don’t want to live in a city, but I can easily get there if I want.” But once you’ve moved out, the baby is tossed with the bath water.

Suburbs are the plywood and vinyl siding to a city’s steel and terracotta--the placeless strip malls and office parks of suburbia, to the city parks and neighborhood festivals.

These corollaries can exist with ideas as well, and the best ideas need to be placed in the hotbed of cities, even if they originated outside of it.

Some of the scenarios for the future based around self-driving cars make the car the actual place, and it won't matter whether the destination is a city or a suburb, and will just be a generic place that may or may not be cosmopolitan in nature.

See: Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead