I remember the 1964 Worlds Fair in Queens, mostly because of the black felt hat with a huge bright purple feather coming out of it. The theme was “Peace Through Understanding”, dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe,” but to a kid, it was a vision of the future, all the cool things that would be our world.

A few years later, there was sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, but no flying cars. The word “groovy” found its way into our lexicon. It’s not used much anymore.

Efforts to predict the future, and to promote the notion that we should dedicate our efforts to creating the infrastructure, both physical and intellectual, to support it, have not panned out well. The problem seems to be that people are remarkably opposed to having change rammed down their throats, and change happens, but in its own way and at its own pace. Change happens, whether we like it or not.

MIT urban design prof Alan Berger writes of his vision of the suburbia Millennials will desire.

In sustainable new suburbs, house and lot sizes are smaller — in part because driveways and garages are eliminated — paving is reduced up to 50 percent and landscapes are more flexible. The plant-to-pavement ratio of today’s suburb is much higher than that of cities, but the next generation of suburbs can be even better at absorbing water.
House and open community spaces are set among teardrop-shaped one-way roads, which encourage predictable, safe separation of pedestrians and moving vehicles. New suburban developments will utilize technology like autonomous electric cars (parked at solar-powered remote lots) and smart street lighting, which minimize energy use and harmful environmental impact.
Communities will share neighborhood amenities like public access areas, drone ports for deliveries, car pull overs (a wider shoulder in the road for pickup and drop-off) rather than private driveways and open common spaces.

Packed into this vision are a lot of assumptions. Will people get along so well that they want to live closer to their neighbor? Music still blares. Dogs still bark. Will autonomous cars take over the roads, or will people still want to get behind the wheel of a Healey and go for a spin?

As these Utopian suburbs will be on the fringes of urban areas,* where suburbs already exist, does Berger think we will tear down every structure built since Levittown, seize the realty and re-establish property lines to achieve these smaller house and lot sizes? And rebuild all the roads, or just slice off some of the frontage and build those “pull overs,” since there won’t be driveways anymore?

But did you notice the two words Berger slipped in there, the “drone port”?

The use of drones will reduce the need for many car errands — and their emissions: With their unrestricted air space, suburban communities are likely to be first to receive package deliveries from the drones being tested by Amazon. They would be either hub-based, at Amazon warehouses, within 15 to 20 miles of customers, or truck-based, as with U.P.S. or Workhorse, in which a truck stops and a drone deploys. Small to medium packages — 86 percent of Amazon deliveries are under five pounds — can be handled by current drones and deliver to covered areas at doorways or at shared car pull-offs.

Ironically, tech has created a sense of immediacy, from our news to our interpersonal communication via an ever-expanding collection of emojis. But need a new energy-saving light bulb for the one that was supposed to last 20 years but burned out in one and you’re going to be sitting in the dark until Amazon’s drone arrives two days later, provided you have Prime. And doesn’t every suburbanite look forward to the constant buzzing overhead as commerce rules the sky?
Even more ironically, houses built more than a century earlier have drone ports, except they called them carriage ports back then. It’s unlikely that love beads, bell-bottom pants and maxi-coats will make a comeback anytime soon, but you never know.

*Yes, I know what suburban means, but let’s not forget suburban sprawl. Suburbs are now hours away from metropolis. Get over it.