Nineteen people from diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds participated in FCT DC. The first and third deliberations were held at CSPO’s Washington DC building. The tour began at the National Building Museum, an affluent area located near the Capitol Building, and ended in Anacostia, a low-income neighborhood in Southeast DC. Along the way we visited the following sites:
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DC City Center (The construction site of an environmentally sustainable combined housing/retail complex)
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U.S. Department of Transportation/Canal Park
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Navy Yard/Anacostia Waterfront (a site of urban renewal)
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11th Street Bridge (site of park project that will traverse the Anacostia River)
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Anacostia Public Library (LEED Certified Building)
The tour was designed around participant’s interests in environmentally sustainable technologies, transportation infrastructure, transparency in policy decisions concerning emerging technologies, and equitable distribution of emerging technologies. In particular, we structured the site sequences to tacitly call attention to disparities in the distribution of new technologies. Our speakers were asked to speak about how emerging technologies in their area of expertise would affect our participants in the near future. In turn, our participants were encouraged to challenge these future visions in relation to their own experiences. The photos we see here tonight highlight the complex and ambivalent ways that DC residents see the future of their city. In general, the participants were hopeful, but cautious about the promise of emerging technologies to positively influence the future.