THE FUTURIST: What are the economic, social and cultural visions we want in our future?

Everyone has heard the line about looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. That everything used to be a lot better than it is today.

This is, in fact, one of the underlying themes of the past few columns; that Sarasota and the Gulf Coast were “paradise” decades ago, but that we have lost our way. Yes, that is true to a significant degree, but maybe the past wasn’t as good as we are seeing it through a pair of rose-colored lenses.

I just finished a book by John D. MacDonald, arguably the best writer who ever lived in Sarasota. I first came to his work via his fabulous Travis McGee series. I think there were some 20 books with him as the protagonist. A man who lives on a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale, taking his retirement in chunks. I have read every one, some twice.

I have also read some of  MacDonald's non-Travis McGee books. He wrote more that 60 books! A great writer. Some comments about him from folks whose pedigrees say it all:

• “The best novelist in America” – Pete Hamill.

• “The Great American storyteller” – Richard Condon,

• “To diggers a thousand years from now … the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen” – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

So, a few weeks ago, I went into my favorite bookstore, the Goodwill Bookstore on Clark. (Why favorite? All paperbacks are $3 and most hardbacks are $3.49). I found a hardback book of MacDonald’s called “Slam the Big Door” that was published in 1960. This means that the book took place in the late 1950s. It takes place in Sarasota, Siesta Key, Long Boat Key and a fictional neighboring town called Ravenna.

Here is a lengthy quote from that book, a description by the protagonist of driving to and into Sarasota, circa the late 1950s:

“Though the peak of the tourist season has passed, the Tamiami Trail was thick with cars from Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan. The cars were dusty from travel, the rear window ledges cluttered wit Kleenex boxes, fruit, seashells, coconut masks, children’s toys, yellow boxes of camera film.

"As he neared Sarasota the tempo of the traffic slowed for the long, tawdry, dangerous strip of commercial slum – juice stands, beer joints, drive-ins, grubby motels, shabby sundries stores, tackle shops, shell factories, gas stations, trailer parks, basket shops – all announcing the precariousness of their existence with big, cheap bright signs imploring the passerby: STOP – BUY – EAT – SHOP – CUT RATES – SALE – BARGAIN – SPECIAL. Here and there were trim, tidy attractive operations, lost in the welter of potentially bankrupt anxiety, in the dusty flavor of a dying cut-rate carnival. Tires yelped and horns brayed indignation as people cut in and out of the lines of thirty-mile-an-hour traffic.”

Where is the rose-colored hue in that description?

So, 60 years ago our area was more tawdry perhaps than the overbuilt, high-end, polished glass-clad buildings of the 2020s. There was noisy traffic and there was a lot of low-rent businesses selling to the car tourists.

So, why all this in a column titled “The Futurist”?

What was is gone. What is, is now. What will be is ahead. Much of the overwhelming reader response to recent columns has been mourning about what has been lost amidst the current run-up in real estate costs, and at times gridlock traffic. The past through rose-colored glasses.

It is in the present that the future gets created. It is the eternal NOW in which the possible paths into the future present themselves.

President John F. Kennedy said it well:

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future”

In my series of books about the 2020s, "The 2020s,"  I said this decade is and will be disproportionately more historically significant that any other decade of the last 100 years. That the 2020s will shape the trajectory of humanity at least through 2050, if not the entire century. Another theme is that, on several big topics, such as climate, technological intelligence, genetic engineering and the need to update democracy and capitalism, major work will be needed by 2030 to avoid long-term, unprecedented crises. That we have within us and within this moment the opportunity to create the future we want.

What is the future we want? How can we create a rose-colored glasses future?

Well, in recent columns I have touched on these things that will need focus and attention if we want to be proactive and not simply reactive when it is too late. These are areas where the Gulf Coast needs to develop and focus on in the next five, 10 and 15 years:

• Prepare for long-term sea level rise (1-1.5 feet by 2050, 4-9 feet by 2100).

• lowering barriers to clean energy at the local and individual house level.

•  Redefining what the residential housing needs of the area are and will be, not what they have been.

•  Developing the charging infrastructure for EVs.

• Embrace businesses wanting to set up autonomous car fleets and create private and public partnerships.

• Develop a compassionate, affordable plan for homeless people that will work.

• Making sure that citizens can find high-speed, free Wifi in all public places, including government buildings, libraries, schools and parks.

• Redesign all the vacant shopping center and big box stores for optimal use such as for agriculture, education, daycare centers, and residential and office real estate

• Reconsider all zoning laws to reflect what we want in the future and not protect and maintain what we have.

• Develop electric and autonomous public transportation, including jitney and water taxi services.

• Construct beach parallel “piers” with artificial and artistically designed reefs.

• If we can address this list, then develop a new “brand” for the area that is of the future and not of the past.

This is just a partial list of things to develop as we move further into the 2020s decade. The problem we will have is the reality that people will act from just history or personal vested interests and not for the future benefit of us all.

Of course, developing a highly ranked state and national K-12 education system and a superior public library system must continue to compliment the numerous colleges and universities located here. What are the health care, education, economic, social and cultural visions we want in our future?

Sarasota resident David Houle is a globally recognized futurist. He has given speeches on six continents, written 13 books and is futurist in residence at Ringling College of Art and Design. His websites are davidhoule.com and the2020sdecade.com. Email him at david@davidhoule.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: DAVID HOULE: Your 2020's to-do list (without rose-colored glasses)