Asimov's own biases shine through pretty clearly in the initial bit:
One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.
Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.
He was, rather famously, an acrophobe who disliked heights and open spaces and never flew when he could help it, so apparently he'd prefer a future without windows and sunlight.
There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. if its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the "scenery" by changes in lighting. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common. At the New York World's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. The surface, G.M. will argue, will be given over to large-scale agriculture, grazing and parklands, with less space wasted on actual human occupancy.
This depiction of life pretty much exactly mirrors the completely walled-in life of The Caves of Steel, which many readers found dystopian, but for him was more of a utopia.
Maybe it's because of biases like these, but we tend to vastly underestimate the timespans in which cities can be radically remade. 50 years? Commercial buildings being built in 1964 would have been expected to last 50+ years. Much of Chicago's lakefront is buildings from the turn of the 20th century or earlier. A skyscraper taller than 47 floors has never been demolished peacefully [1]
One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.
Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.
He was, rather famously, an acrophobe who disliked heights and open spaces and never flew when he could help it, so apparently he'd prefer a future without windows and sunlight.
There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. if its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the "scenery" by changes in lighting. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common. At the New York World's Fair of 2014, General Motors' "Futurama" may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. The surface, G.M. will argue, will be given over to large-scale agriculture, grazing and parklands, with less space wasted on actual human occupancy.
This depiction of life pretty much exactly mirrors the completely walled-in life of The Caves of Steel, which many readers found dystopian, but for him was more of a utopia.
http://stason.org/TULARC/education-books/isaac-asimov/2-11-I...