Home_____Popular Mechanics Magazine, Feb. 1950: The World In 2000
Transportation. Passengers may fly from New York to San Francisco in rocket ships.
The network of aerial transportation will have an effect on population distribution. People will commute from Chicago to New York, for example.
Huge aerial busses will carry 200 passengers from city to city.
Highways will have few curves, and run fairly straight. Highways will be double-decked. The upper deck carries fast traffic.The lower deck will be like a business avenue, with stop lights and shops. This will be the deck for shoppers, trucks, and other business vehicles.
Cars will be teardrop shaped for better economy and will run on cheap, denatured alchohol.
Families will go for Sunday outings in helicopters.
Environment. The air will be clean because it is against the law to burn raw coal and pollute the air with smoke and soot. (The word smog, a blend of smoke with fog, has not yet been coined.)
Factories burn gas generated in sealed mines. The tars are removed from the gas and sold to chemical industries.
Cities will be lit by electric "suns" suspended from steel towers 200 feet high. Light will draw from atomic energy.
Weather will be predicted with the Zworykin-Von Neumann weather forecaster. The machine will calculate thousands of separate equations a minute. Storms will no longer be a problem. It will be easy to spot a budding hurricane off the coast of Africa.
Urban planning. The airport will be the heart of any town. Surrounding the airport will be businesses, factories, and hotels. In concentric circles behind these one will find residential districts.
Homes. Houses will be built in a few days by pouring concrete into standard forms.
Cities will grow into regions, and it will be hard to tell where one stops and the other begins.
Housewives will dump dirty dishes down the drain. Cheap plastic will melt in hot water. Thus, no dishwashing machines. Two dozen soluble plastic plates will cost a dollar.
Houses will cost $5000 and will be built to last only twenty five years.
Housewives will not vacuum or sweep. They will use a water hose. Furniture, rugs, draperies, are made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic. They will dry the house with blasts of hot air.
Men will not shave. They will use depilatories, just as women use on legs. They will apply a chemical and wash it off with water.