What if no one had to be homeless? What if we gave out vouchers for charter housing/neighborhoods instead of for charter schools? What if we stimulated a number of culturally and ethnically distinct neighborhoods that preserved and celebrated different cultures? What if we required all neighborhoods to be economically diverse — no segregation of the wealthy, the poor or any other group?: What if preservation of our heritage and architecture was a priority? No more demolish for parking lots. What if we made use of existing infrastructure by growing vertically instead of more sprawl?  What if housing and other development were driven not by the developer’s profit motive, but by the public good, and all development were piloted by urban planners and architects? What if housing and development were transit centric, with no address being more than 500 yards from public transportation?

How do we train the focus of the lens of our cameras on this kind of future? How will sustainable and fair housing, and the necessary housing policies, have an impact on our characters and their motivations? Obviously, budget will force us to show sparingly pieces of the visual future we imagine. Also, we believe our cameras we will be shooting mostly at human scale in anthropometric dimensions.  Our characters will be mostly in walkable urban villages or neighborhoods. Our -50 | 0 | +50 careful futurism predicts that much will look the same in 2064 as it does in today. Just as much of St. Louis – at human scale – looks the same today as it did in 1964. That will leave a lot of city locations for us to use. This careful futurism strategy will keep our creative conceits in check and be an interesting challenge for producers, writers directors and actors.

Yes, we also have a social point of view. That is that systemic change in our economic and political systems are necessary if we are to survive the clear and present dangers of our times — global warming and biosphere destruction; the new gilded age, and the massive inequality of wealth and opportunity it imposes; corporate capitalism and the plutocracy it has created; and the destruction of our delicate representative democracy.

All the world’s a “sustainable” stage. In developing the series concept, we asked: What would it be like to live in a future more like Roddenberry’s Star Trek than Huxley’s Brave New World? What would life be like in a sustainable city? What would it be like to live in a place that practiced good old fashioned conservation of resources and at the same time developed advanced technology to do the same? A place that practiced “New World Business.”

Stories, film and television can help people bridge the gap between what is now and what is possible. Gateway: the City’s Reason envisions a future with mostly positive outcomes – where good old American optimism touches everyone. That’s the stage on which Gateway stories take place. And we think it’s a stage that citizens should see more of today.

Your ideas?

 

A series Bible is a reference document used by writers, directors, producers and actors for information about characters, settings and other elements of the show. In many ways, we are only beginning our research into what a sustainable city will be like in 50 years. Even so, we’ve decided to publish portions of the Gateway-TCR bible in order to share the foundations of Gateway: the City’s Reason with you. We want to describe “the stage” upon which our stories will be told and we welcome your ideas.