Joel’s jeremiad: The levees of the D.C. Mall–and our own e-book angle

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By David Rothman

The TeleBlog for the most part is a hyperspecialized read. Earthquakes happen, government tumble, thousands starve, or die in wars, but our focus remains on e-books, libraries, copyright and related topics. Still, we can’t consider even specialities in a vacuum. Here, on the cusp of the New Year in the States, is a cheery set of predictions from futurist and urban affairs expert Joel Garreau at the Washington Post–who, I hope, is writing with tongue at least partly in cheek:

Our Washington area of 2030 is so much smaller than that of 2005 that it is sometimes hard to understand how our ancestors made such laughably wrong growth projections 25 years ago. They ignored three vital forces: the rising water, advances in communications technology and the crumbling of the federal government.

The good news has been the way the major world powers, China and India, have competed to expend some tiny fraction of their vast wealth and technological expertise on preserving the quaint historic districts of Washington. They view the District in the sentimental way Americans at the turn of the 21st century regarded Venice. That’s why they have surrounded the tourist core with towering dikes.

The Asians originally viewed rescuing some D.C. real estate as a fiscal necessity. As the U.S. government’s vast debt made Treasury bonds worthless, they started looking for tangible assets to claim. The melting of the south polar ice cap inundated Maryland’s Eastern Shore and much of Prince George’s County. So fearing a loss like that of New Orleans back in ’05, the Asians enclosed the Mall with 200-foot levees. Engineered by the Dutch, not the Army Corps of Engineers, these new dikes work. At least so far.

OK, assuming such joys become reality by 2030–well, allowing generously for hyperbole–how would the role of e-books and libraries change? I see both problems and opportunties. In Joel G’s new world, the pipes will probably be much thicker; and as I see it, books with embedded holographic files could be common. But what about the role of e-text itself amid all this sensory stimulation? Yo, contributors and commenters! Turns out we could be in TeleBlog territory after all. Speak your mind. Hello, Branko, over in Amsterdam? You think those Mall dikes will hold? And if you want to comment on the e-book angles, so much the better.

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