(continued)

Cities will transform to accommodate those human activities that cannot be served by gadgets. Cozy coffee shops, live performances, venues for any manner of face-to-face encounters will thrive. So appealing will they be, in fact, that "live/work dwellings" will appear in urban settings-perhaps in abandoned office buildings. Meanwhile the suburbs, with pedestrian-accessible services such as child care facilities and health clubs, will transform into neighborhoods reminiscent of cohesive, self-sufficient 19th century towns.

Speaking from the technologically wealthy environment of MIT, Mitchell gives scant attention to problems of economic and social inequity. Will computers, as he claims, eventually become inexpensive and universally accessible? Or will they become a permanent wedge between the world's haves and have-nots? His book may err on the side of optimism, but he emphasizes that we needn't let negative possibilities overwhelm us. This book is an important call for architects to work proactively to strengthen the positive influence of technology on urban environments. As he says, "Our job is to design the future we want."

E-topia: Urban Life, Jim—But Not as We Know It. William Mitchell. The MIT Press, 184 pages,1999. ISBN 0-262-13355-5. Available at Amazon.com

B.J. Novitski is managing editor for ArchitectureWeek and author of Rendering Real and Imagined Buildings.

This article first appeared in Architectural Record, April, 2000.