At the beginning of a TED Talks interview that took place earlier this year, TED curator Chris Anderson asks Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, "Why are you boring"" It's a joke that plays upon Musk's latest undertaking, The Boring Company, which is working toward a 3-D network of tunnels aimed at alleviating congestion in cities. But I'm more intrigued by the remarks that start just after 22 minutes, ones that sparked me to ask the question of this post's title, posed in the context of architecture and urbanism. (This embed is cued up to those remarks.)

According to Musk, "This illustrates the picture of the future, how I think things will evolve":

This suburban, single-family, "real fake" house has an electric car in the driveway, three Powerwalls sitting next to the house, and a solar-glass roof. I'm sure Musk's investors are happy that his efforts are moving toward affordable, sustainable solutions directed at consumers, but I can't help wonder how a guy who wants to dig tunnels under cities, lay tubes between cities, and build rockets in order to make life interplanetary does not have any apparent vision for dwelling on earth. His vision, if you want to call it that, is really just the status quo with some nearly invisible layers of technology added to it.
But why" Is this conservative view of our built future just a matter of making the solar/battery technology appealing to middle- and upper-class American consumers"...