CITIES OF FUTURE

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 February 1927, Page 12

CITIES OF FUTURE

GREAT INVENTOR’S FORECAST.

The city of to-day has outgrown its usefulness, in the opinion of Mr Thomas Edison, the inventor. Time saving, he thinks, will be of prime importance in the city of the future. Traffic congestion will be solved by the mathematician, who will supplant the traffic policeman. Crime will decrease before the advent of the scientific policeman, and taxes will become astonishingly low with government of cities by experts. Noise in the city of the future, however, will increase, but human beings will become sufficiently deafened by nature so that their nerves will be able to withstand the increased din. Two methods of regulating traffic are advanced by Mr Edison. One is the creation of express and accommodation streets, and the other the depressing of cross streets. The roofs of buildings, now generally unused, will be converted into landing fields, especially with the perfection of the helicopter for vertical risings. This will bring on an era of new catastrophes,'but will not prevent the general use of air-craft. The loss of acute hearing forseen by Mr Edison will be a benefit, rather than a handicap, to the city dweller, he believes. He points to his own almost total deafness, and says that it has given him steady nerves which even the greatest noise of the cities cannot jar.