2007 Map of the Decade [SR-1065]

The coming decade is the embarking. Spurred by unavoidable signs of a planet at risk, we begin to look for new ways of living, new ways of measuring and valuing the world around us. What was marginal begins to look mainstream, as people who have been tending the edges of our global culture demand our attention and capture our imagina- tions with unexpected templates for what is possible when the familiar order isn’t quite so orderly.

Ours is an undertaking of a new generation. Where boomers “unplugged and tuned out,” where they trekked to the backcountry to celebrate autonomy and the wild earth, the digital natives of the next generation are plugging into an urban wilderness where sociability is expressed not in rural communes but in the participatory panopticon, where commons are not green but rather virtual—and one’s citizenship is measured in contributions to YouTube.