Imagine if the city of London was built not around commerce, culture and tourism but instead built around health care and stopping the flow of disease. In the latest copy if the UK issue of Wired magazine, architectural and landscape futurist Geoff Manaugh, blogger and author of The BLDGBLOG book, has done just that as part of the magazine’s cover feature on ‘Unlocking the digital city’. His short story depicts a London in 2047 following an outbreak of flu in Holland. The outbreak has completely shifted society – ‘doctors, surgeons and chemists are the elected MPs’. Designing the city is about stopping the flow of germs and infections – walls are made from ‘microbe-resistant plastic and have built-in air filters and blood-testing checkpoints’. Congestion charges to pedestrians, watchtowers, body scanners and written permission from GP’s to cross into London boroughs are all ways to stop the widespread flow of flu. Parts of the city are now built to cure, ‘Space itself is on subscription’; and the cities parks used to grow ‘genetically engineered flowers for pharmaceuticals’. It’s a case of ‘If you have a condition, there was a district for you’. Is this simply Sci-fi or is it fully plausible? It certainly makes you re-evaluate the places we live in time when flu is very much a part of everyone’s agenda.

Read the full story on Wired online of pick up the magazine in store at £3.99

Wired is a Condé Nast publication.

Image Source
Wired UK Official Cover, courtesy of Condé Nast press office

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 7:55 am and is filed under One to Ponder. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.