Amazon took over Seattle?s downtown and virtually every aspect of U.S. city life. | Shutterstock.com

We let big tech take over and dragged our feet on climate, but it?s not too late for change It was 2010, and for U.S. cities, the future was just starting to look bright again. Crawling out from the recession that decimated the housing market, and buoyed by the wide-eyed enthusiasm of tech companies that pledged to connect us in revolutionary new ways, American cities showed so much promise.
Unfortunately, that optimism was smashed to bits over the next decade. Cities underwent a tremendous amount of change in the 2010s, and not all of it was good. The boom of economic growth left many residents behind. That tech that promised to make our lives easier delivered a multitude of new problems to our doors. The real-life effects of the climate crisis?decades before most leaders expected them?swept entire communities off the map. The 2010s might have crushed our collective urban spirits?but all is not lost. Think of this list as the Ghost of Christmas Future coming back to warn cities everywhere of the potential missteps they might avoid in the 2020s. It?s not too late...
Nextdoor paranoia
At first it was a novel way to meet the neighbors. Then it became a hotbed of racial profiling. A place to organize against affordable housing projects. And a shadow network for plotting retaliation against homeless residents. Now Nextdoor?s paranoia has given wings to apps like Citizen...