2048

(image source: Pbase.com)

Due to neglect and a variety of other reasons, most of Somerville's 2- and 3-family homes are crumbling. A series of collapses kills dozens, and hurts dozens more.
(source: Tim Devin)

Click on a decade or year above to read about the future.

Introduction to the 2040s

After abolishing class and religion, and evicting all non-townie residents, the fascistic state that rose from the ashes of the Great Somerville Quake of 2036 begins to mellow. Although people now have chips in their hands, by the end of the decade, all other traces of the police state are gone. Non-townies are welcomed back, and the wall separating Cambridge and Somerville is removed.

While peace may have been established at home, a nuclear war begins abroad in 2041. The fallout from the bombs, coupled with decades of ecological neglect, causes people to seek shelter underground. However, nuclear winter passes remarkably quickly, and mankind soon returns to the surface-only to experience a Class 4 hurricane in 2045. This hurricane, forever remembered by its name Igor, causes significant loss of life and property.

As there are no more cars in Somerville, all highways are torn down. People get around on foot, on public transit and bikes, as well as on city-provided scooters. By the end of the decade, all streets are torn up and planted with crops. A monorail opens. Pollution and waste are done away with.

But not all is changed for the better in Somerville. The city's aging 2- and 3-family homes, completely renovated by the beginning of the 2030s, begin to crumble--due to the combined effect of owner neglect, the Quake of 2036, the Nuclear War of 2041, and Hurricane Igor. Dozens are killed and injured.

Besides nuclear war, the globe sees a number of major changes. Paper money is now obsolete, as are cars. Computers have surpassed us in intelligence, and have begun designing other machines and computers. This leads to an explosive growth in technology. Robots do most of the manual labor worldwide.

The planet's human population has stayed relatively stable since the 2010s; there are now 7.7 billion of us, 350 million of whom live in the US. Unfortunately, the ocean's population hasn't fared so well; all forms of seafood cease to exist in 2048, the victims of overfishing, and nuclear war.