New York City should have been destroyed 33 years ago.
A bunch of really smart people got together in 1880 to predict the future, according to Jeff Stibel in his intriguing book Breakpoint. These experts were called on to predict how the rapidly growing Gotham would manage into the next century and beyond.
The prognosis was not positive.
NYC was a major source of American innovation in 1880. Skyscrapers, subways, stock exchanges — and it was doubling in size every 10 years. The experts were concerned by this growth, because they projected by 1980, you’d need six million horses to transport all the people who would live there.
Six million horses. That’s a lot of literal crap, and that’s why New York City was doomed. The horse exhaust was more of a concern than greenhouse gasses at the time.
Things obviously turned out differently. But in all fairness, how could those smart people have known how — and to what extent — technological change would occur?
The most frequent question I’ve gotten lately is
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