Wright understood that automobile and airplane technology was bringing about a deep change in the way places could be linked to one another. However, Wright did not foresee the other networks that have both amplified the tendencies toward decentralization, and also made new kinds of density possible.
Wright still thought in terms of individual family farms and of workers commuting to small factories. While he correctly foresaw the impact of the automobile, he did not foresee the impact of bulk air and sea freight that would allow manufacturing and farming to be located far from points of consumption and linked into complex networks that were both more productive and more complex. These undermine Wright's self-sufficient farmer-worker-homesteader.
Nor did he foresee the continuing need for large office buildings and administrative control centers.
While the decline of small farms and small manufacturing, and the growth of the service economy, doom his specific proposals, Wright's overall argument about mobility, the creation of linked places, and the effects on cities remains valid.
(c) David Kolb, 1 August 2001