From low-rise, downtown buildings with parks and playgrounds, to subways operating to UT and the Capitol advanced: How correct had been the consultants?
AUSTIN, Texas — Years in the past, what did you think about the long run would appear like? Maybe like “The Jetsons,” “Blade Runner” or “Back to the Future Part II”?
Those views of the long run are removed from what we see as we speak.
As we method the 12 months 2025, we wished to see what native consultants prior to now thought life in Austin would appear like. We took a deep dive into the KVUE archives and located a information sequence from 1980 that peered into the long run to forecast how Austin would change by the 12 months 2000.
Former KVUE reporter Rick Hull interviewed some consultants to listen to their predictions about Austin. And though we’re virtually 25 years previous that date, we found issues in 2000 and as we speak are fairly a bit totally different than folks thought they’d be.
In one report, Hull explored what Downtown Austin may appear like within the 12 months 2000.
“Architect Sinclair Black sees this as a piece of our downtown space, the place the buildings are not any extra 4 tales tall, constructed proper to the sting of property traces however open within the heart for the general public, with parks and playgrounds and public areas,” Hull stated.
It was an intriguing imaginative and prescient for a future downtown. But, as we all know, high-rise buildings and a seemingly limitless variety of cranes dominate Austin’s skyline as we speak.
In one other story from 1980, City of Austin transportation planners made predictions about how folks residing in suburbs would get downtown in 2000.
“The individual would most likely be picked up by a really small bus which served that residential space, and they might be introduced into a neighborhood or space terminal,” the planners predicted. “And from that terminal, they might board a bigger bus, which might then carry them into the Central Business District.”
City planners additionally predicted that mild rail transit would grow to be an financial practicality to maneuver massive numbers of individuals to and from common areas.
“We might both assemble these in order that they ran within the air like a monorail system, or in areas just like the University of Texas and the Capitol Complex, they may run below-grade underground like a subway system,” in accordance with the information report.
A couple of of these predictions had been usually right. Buses nonetheless play a big function in Austin’s transportation system, and we have now a restricted mild rail. But a subway system? Not but.
Not each prediction was improper. Hull stated computer systems would possible take over our day by day lives by the start of the twenty first Century. Personal computer systems – solely of their infancy in 1980 – have certainly grow to be an important a part of our lives as we speak.
But different predictions, just like the guess that many people can be residing in spherical homes with tiny kitchens and shag carpeting? Well, many are most likely grateful that one did not come true.
