Abstract

Emerging Technologies in First and Third-World Cities Joseph F. Coates ECHNOLOGY has been a dominant factor in shaping the modern city. John P. Eberhard identified eight key inventions of the last quarter of the nineteenth century which made the city what it is. Steel construction, the elevator, electricity, central heating, delivery of clean water, the telephone, the automobile, and the subway have given the modern city its organization, shape, physical Eberhard 1966,1988 structure, and much of its economic and population base. It would be tempting to scan the present and peer into the future to identify the comparable technologies which will shape the next 50 years of urban structures. Unfortunately, that approach will not work as cleanly as one would wish. First, the big eight have primarily affected the cities of the advanced nations and the principal cities in the rest of the world which have grown in imitation of the advanced nations' cities. However, the growth of old and new cities is no longer in the advanced nations. Growth is now in the Third World. The majority of the world's population, early in the next century, will be metropoli- tan. Cities will range in size up to and