On April 3, 1988, the Los Angeles Times Magazine published a 25-year look ahead to 2013.
Here’s the cover of what they thought 1st Street would look like 25 years hence – that is, today:
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Here’s what they got:
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They also thought they’d have domestic robots, there would still be laser discs, and crime would still be high. But they got some things right too – like a subway from Universal City.
Perhaps more importantly than just a focus on technology and urban form, there’s also this:
20 Years Later: Legacies of the Los Angeles Riots
Conclusion:
If the demographic trends of the past two decades continue, we can reasonably expect South Los Angeles to be about 20 to 25 percent African American by the next census, in 2020; at which point there may no longer remain any visible legacies of the riots of 1992.
One might find instead an extraordinarily diverse and highly integrated community of Californians for whom the anger, despair and violence of 1992 seem as antiquated as the days of Jim Crow.
