The Danger in Transportation Fantasizing
"History is full of examples of the next great transport idea," writes Eric Jaffe. "Today it's the floating pod, yesterday it was Elon Musk's Hyperloop, last year it was intercontinental airless tubes, back in 1908 it was Thomas Edison 'perfecting' the electric car battery, and so on."
"But the truth is transportation has very rarely changed with a great deal of speed or spectacle," he contends. "The past is witness to mobility's incremental transformations."
"Psychologists have studied the human tendency toward fantasy, and they've found that imagining a crisply rendered future has the unintended effect of dampening our motivation to achieve it," Jaffe explains. "By editing out the 'obstacles, problems, and setbacks' we'll face en route to that goal, our fantasized futures might actually frustrate any real progress, as work from Gabriele Oettingen of New York University has found [PDF]."
"In other words, we're far better off with good expectations than great fantasies."
Topics
- America's Largest Suburb Flirts With Urbanization
- Gentrification, for Better and Worse
- Baltimore's New Bus System Comes With a Snazzy New Map
- The Scourge of Setbacks
- Seattle's New Seawall: An Experiment in Climate Adaptation and Habitat Restoration
- 'Plansplaining' and its Discontents
- Ramps to Help Ducks in and out of the Capitol Reflecting Pool Make a Big Splash
- Is Houston a City of the (Demographic) Future?
- Friday Eye Candy: A Mobile App That Provides a Historic Window Into New York
- Op-Ed: The Shortcomings of Matthew Desmond's 'Evicted'
- Court Ruling Could Be a Final Setback for Maryland Purple Line Extension
- As Big Box Retailers Fade, New Uses Are Springing Up
- Court Decision Makes it Final: Washington State Owes $2 Billion for Culvert Repairs
- Back to the Suburbs: Most Metropolitan Are Getting Less Dense
- A Change of Heart by Secretary Chao on California's Oldest Commuter Rail Line
- The Sky's the Limit for Washington, D.C.-Area High Rises
- NYC's Rental Market Returns to the Single Room Occupancy Model of a Century Ago
- As a Driverless Future Dawns, Should We Still Build Parking?
- Northeast is Next Market for Fuel Cell Vehicles
- Design Library: African-American Perspectives on Architecture
