JF Ptak Science Books Post 2098 History of the Future series
"If a city can be unmade, it will not stay so."
That's the hopeful outcome in the opening paragraph of this urbano-centric tale.
In the piece of speculative fiction, "The Man who Unmade Cities" by George Holmes (found in Illustrated World, May 1916), a Mr. John Watterson becomes the ultra-Ford of aviation. Watterson introduces massive reform in airplane design and production such that the new machines are available to, well, everyone--instead of selling thousands of the new planes, millions are sold.
The story begins with Watterson in childhood, developing his flying interests and, by 1950, andhe becomes a world-beater, and destroyer of cities. The plane allows people to fly off, leaving the cities in swarms, and "within three years the motorcar was on its way to oblivion".
The revolutionary planes were "flimsy-looking", "dwarfish contraptions", "spindle-shanked", and so light "that a man could carry it" and "sold for a song of one's own singing", and were collapsable, carry-able, and capable of reaching speeds of 70mph.
And at the outset of this triumph "the great city was killed; John Watterson was triumphant".
But the article, reporting from somewhere in the near-future, reported that the city would return, benefiting from the need for closer stores, and the want for a walk, and the plummeting prices of evacuated city spaces--people were drawn back into the city in much the same way they were drawn out to the suburbs.
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