What's a Futuristic City Without Dive Bars, Graffiti, and Sex Shops?
Every great city has shady areas. Cities of the future should have them too.
We’re about to enter a golden age of futuristic cities. It’s a special moment where both governments and private billionaires are stretching the limits of the human imagination to build the types of civilizations that previously only existed in sci-fi novels.
There are numerous futuristic cities in some stage of development—from The Line in Saudi Arabia to floating cities in Asia. In America, billionaire Marc Lore is planning to develop Telosa, a futuristic smart city based on enlightened principles of equity. Even Disney is getting in on the action with Cotino.
Although I’m broadly in favor of humans building cities of the future, I have a lot of problems with them. You can hear me rant about my concerns on a recent episode of my podcast Team Futurism. But there’s one issue in particular I want to elaborate on here: the inevitable lack of seedy but culturally rich red-light districts in future cities.
A lot has been written about the way parents are Nerfing the world for children. The fallout from this has been well document by Jonathan Haidt and others. But not so much has been written about the equivalent Nerfing of the world happening for adults.
The world is our playground. Playgrounds, psychologists tell us, are most fun and provide the best learning experiences when there are elements of danger. While it’s great to have safe sidewalks, clean parks, welcoming libraries, and fancy shops and restaurants, it’s equally important to have some low-brow street art painted on the side of a dive bar next to a liquor store and a sex shop. Of course you want your city to have a high-end tequila bar for a Saturday night date. But you also need a place to stumble into with your dirtbag friends who only drink Pabst to the sweet, sweet sound of raging punk rock.
What is a city without a certain level of seediness, a certain level of illicitness and danger? It’s a playground with no slide or sandbox. It’s a coffee shop that only serves decaf. It’s a highway with a top speed of 25 mph.
This is what I fear will happen with Telosa and all these other overly-planned cities of the future. The brains behind these places (from what I can tell) are leaning fully into the most sterile conception of the future imaginable. That means lots of white walls and glass. It means not much brick, wood, exposed beams, and graffiti. And almost certainly it means no dive bars, hookah lounges, strip clubs, adult book stores, or back-alley massage parlors.
Even in our old cities, where grimy areas feel baked in, the future of adult-playground districts looks bleak. Dive bars are closing. Strip clubs are slowly dying. Even Amsterdam’s red-light district is getting pushed out of the city center.
We do have the internet, of course. With us in our pockets at all times. Even while standing at Telosa’s hypothetical most sterile street corner. No liquor stores or sex shops in sight. But take out your phone and do a little gambling. Sell a little sex. Buy some drugs. Go wild. …And just try to not think too hard about how lame this sounds.