All language subtitles for The.Experimental.City.2017.EN

Welcome to the World of Tomorrow.

You are about to take a journey
out of this world

into the world of the Future.

Forget the world around you.

Forget the people around you.

You are entering

- When I grew up, in the
Minneapolis Paper,

there was the cartoon series
called "Our New Age"

by Athelstan Spilhaus.

And every week it would be

on a different aspect of the
future.

On Sunday morning you'd read it
and you could dream.

What became important was the idea

that every invention had been
perceived

as outside the realm of reality
at some point in history.

And they all became real.

- Two, one.

- You were going to be on the
moon.

You were going to be flying cars.

This was what was supposed to
happen.

And this idea of doing an
Experimental City –

it must be real, it's in the
newspaper.

- Really the essence of the
Experimental City

is to try to build complete new
controlled-size cities

with new technologies, in the
open lands

of the United States. Looking
toward 25 years from now.

- I think Spilhaus wanted to
believe

that you could do this on a scale

which would allow results to be
utilized worldwide.

Not the idea that it would scare
the dickens

out of whole regions of Minnesota

and become public enemy number
one.

- Well, is it working right?

Doesn't seem to me that light's
winking,

isn't it supposed to wink?

Yeah that's about right, isn't it?

If I put it, if I put it down
like this...

- Ladies and gentlemen,
distinguished colleagues,

I'm going to talk about
experimental cities.

And at the outset...

- Athel and I met after he came
down to

the University of Texas

to work on the accretion of an
underwater city.

That grew out of his Experimental
City project.

They would take, it was like a
chicken wire or something

as simple as a chicken wire

and form rooms and houses and
buildings.

And then they'd shoot an electric
current through it.

It was almost like a coral
calcification

that would form around these
electrified wires

and actually build buildings.

He definitely felt it would work.

It's not like, you know

some crazy off-the-wall spaceship
kind of thing.

I made, maybe the mistake one day
of saying

"Athel someone has to record your
life."

I just kept saying Athel somebody
has to do this,

this has to be put on paper.

And finally he said, "alright,
then you do it."

Chapter one.

- Is it recording?

- Yes.

- Now what do you want me to do

just when we come to something
that...

- If something stirs you up with
a story

then go ahead and tell it.

Okay?

- I told you I don't look
backwards.

Why are you writing it down

when the damn thing is getting it?

- I was more pleased and
flattered than I can say

about being invited to introduce

Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus, until I
saw his biography

when I realized: how do you
introduce the speaker

who has done everything?

He's a mighty intellect.

A student of our times, a
futurist.

And I can assure you is a most
unusual person.

He evidences a kind of
Rabelaisian brilliance.

- Are you offended by being called

a 20th century Da Vinci?

- I don't like the "a" – "the."

I always get an answer, I'll say
that.

- Dr. Spilhaus is a native of
South Africa

and obtained his masters from MIT.

- Massachusetts Institute of
Technology

1936, 37.

- Now that's '35. I was 24 years
old.

I invented a thing called a
"comfortometer."

And God did I get kidding about
that –

a thing that tells you if you're
comfortable or not.

- You start with observation,

observation leads to
understanding.

Understanding leads to prediction

and after prediction, control.

An engineer should not merely sit
back

and predict the inevitable result

of carrying on present practices.

He should design the future.

- And even now scientists and
planners

are shaping the lives of our
children

who will live in the 21st century.

- Now if what I say seem like
dreams to some of you,

I remind you that you and I have
had dreams

and seen them rapidly become
reality.

In fact, dreams are indeed the
stuff

that practical progress is made
on.

- His life became a whirlwind of
activity and adventure.

Never was he still for a moment.

- It's gonna make a hell of a
movie script.

- Can you imagine?

I wonder who they'll have do you.

He was a showman, I mean he was

in the middle of everything there
for a while.

He liked to be head of the
committee.

- Dr. Spilhaus, I want to thank
you, sir

for coming to Science in Action
to tell us

of your committee's work in this
field.

- A moment ago you said that we
Americans

often seem proud of wasting so
much

and I'm afraid this is very true.

Often we even seem to measure our
economic success

and prosperity by the number of
manufactured things

that we throw away.

This kind of thinking is
dangerously close to insanity.

- Inefficiency did not suit Athel
at all.

- Yes that's very true.

Another way of putting it is, the
way I would put it

is that waste is just a resource

that we don't yet know how to use.

- He was busy doing something at
all times,

brain was being engaged.
Inventing, tinkering, in control.

Sorting out the world and making
it function better.

And if he couldn't, he'd get
quite irascible.

- Now I have gained the
impression that the future

perhaps of our entire nation
might be dependent

on the way we look at this waste
problem.

Well I believe that this is
profoundly true, Earl,

I think we should get away from
waste

and I think waste can become a
serious danger.

We seem to have been sort of
chicken

in the United States about our
efforts

to attack this massive problem.

We know how to do things better

in the control of pollution.

But we have no opportunity to
experiment.

We knew from our waste studies
that there were excellent

new technologies for the reuse of
waste.

But you can't introduce them into
the old cities.

Who's going to float a bond issue
for an entirely untried

brilliant new technology?

For without exception, our cities
are hopelessly bound

by tradition, restrictive
legislation

and their unplanned, unhealthy
growth.

It's time to look at alternatives.

I've sounded rather pessimistic
so far

and I don't want to leave this
impression with you,

the picture is not all black.

I'm an incurable optimist about
science

because I've read the history of
it.

Sometimes if we look hard enough
at a problem scientifically

we can find an answer even to
seemingly impossible things.

And I thought about having a
little city

and trying waste management
things in that city.

We will try to build a noiseless,
fumeless city

where you can take the same
technology

that has caused the smoke and the
grime

and the polluted rivers

and use this technology to clean
it up.

Then I thought, but heavens this
applies to mass transit,

it applies to most everything you
do in a city.

Why aren't we able to do these
things?

It's too experimental.

That was the beginning of the
idea.

We must be prepared to step
boldly out

and experiment with new and
radical ideas

for improved urban living.

We must utilize the most advanced
methods

of building construction,

the ultimate in transportation,
in communications,

in waste removal, and in city
management.

And the place to try them is an
Experimental City.

- Alright, chapter two.

When I began to study the
Experimental City,

there had been lots of writing
about pollution

but the issue hadn't reached any
serious levels yet.

Radical ideas, however, have
difficulty gaining acceptance

and what I was proposing was a
completely new concept.

Fortunately I didn't have to sell
the idea.

Otto Silha of the Minneapolis
newspapers did it for me.

That's S-I-L-H-A, isn't it?

- Yeah, Silha was the Publisher
of the Minneapolis Tribune.

- I was a friend of Otto Silha's

and had worked with him in
Republican politics.

He was a progressive kind of a guy

and interested in ideas that
might improve things.

And in our culture at that time,

newspapers were one of the
leading institutions –

not only to report the news but
to influence civic activity

and bring to the attention of
people

new ideas and progress.

- Newspapers were important.

I know I read two or three a day.

Sometimes even the St. Paul paper.

If you're Publisher of the
Minneapolis Star & Tribune,

you're an important person in the
community.

- He could sit at dinners at the
Athletic Club

and raise the issue and be taken
seriously.

And once Otto put his mind to
something,

Otto was unbelievably persuasive
and successful.

- There's no question, it's true
that technology

is ahead of our ability to absorb
it.

The scientists, the technologists
–

they have what I think is
increasingly becoming

a moral obligation to act

in a situation of domestic crisis.

- Otto was not an engineer, he
was not a scientist.

But he had seen decay and blight
and rising crime

in his own city of Minneapolis.

He'd witnessed the flight to the
suburbs.

He had great concern about the
future of American cities

and he figured the Experimental
City

could be a guide throughout the
country.

- This is a program about what
cities will be like

in the year 2000.

It is a call for action, the time
is already late.

- Americans have never liked the
cities or trusted them

but now we're afraid of them.

- 30% of the space in our cities
is devoted to the car.

In Los Angeles, it's 70%.

- No Metropolitan area has been
able to work out plans

to solve more than a fraction of
its problems.

- I mean there is no other system
today

for what we're talking about
trying to change.

- Otto was a believer.

Otto had decided this would be a
good thing

for Minnesota and the United
States and the world.

And Otto –

he was the person you wanted on
your side.

- The Minnesota Experimental City

is the brainchild of Athelstan
Spilhaus,

dean of the Institute of
Technology

at the University of Minnesota.

He found that new technologies
couldn't be tested

in old cities.

He conceived of the Experimental
City

as a laboratory for urban
technology.

I talked with Spilhaus this
morning.

- That is one function of the
Experimental City,

it's not only to be a viable city
in itself

but to be a laboratory for the
testing

of both technological and social
innovations

that once proven can be
introduced into the older cities.

- So I wrote about the
Experimental City

and I began going on a speaking
rampage

and I suppose when you speak
enough about your own ideas

you convince yourself it's a good
idea.

- ...Let's have some
improvisations and new things.

In fact this gets to the real
crux of the situation.

Do we want the city of 2000 A.D.
to grow

as a kind of a cancerous
organism? More of the same.

Or do we want it in a new spot
with new technologies

instead of doing it in the old
fashioned ways?

There's a good question.

Well now, couldn't we invent the
city as a machine

for a certain production?

That's how anybody builds
machines.

And then you don't overload the
machine later on.

When you get to that size, you
should build another one,

not just let it spill over and
jerry-rig the machine

so that it has to take an
overload.

- In other words, to definitely
hold it

to a certain population.

- Each year in the United States,

we're building the equivalent of
a dozen new cities

of a quarter-million every year.

We're mass producing cities.

And if we're gonna mass produce
cities,

we better make a prototype

before we go into mass production.

My guess is a quarter-million

would be a pretty good size

for a prototype.

- It had to be built at least a
hundred miles

from any great city, with lots of
land around it.

- Because without surrounding
reserved land,

it will be swallowed up and
cannot really develop

with enough independence to try
novel technologies.

The essence of an experimental
prototype

is that if you make mistakes you
can correct them.

That's the essence of the
Experimental City –

that it be continually changing,
because in experiment,

you must make mistakes so that
you can learn from them

and change them.

I don't know, I haven't thought
this through

but it sounds like a good idea.

- There used to be a persistent
dream in America

that somehow our cities would
inevitably get better.

But like the man with a broken
leg, nothing gets better

unless it's set straight.

- Gentlemen, I'd like to propose
a toast

to the Vice President of the
United States.

- To the Vice President

- Cheers. - Cheers.

- Thank you very much my friend
Otto.

Of all the subject matters

that are discussed in recent
years,

the most frequent discussion

is on the subject of urban life.

How do we make our cities better
places in which to live?

Now that's where I come in

with my good friend Dr. Spilhaus.

I'd like to see my state, the
North Star State,

be a guiding light for
discoverers and explorers.

Somebody has to have the vision
and the daring

and the courage and the plain
unadulterated guts

to look ahead and to see what
could be done.

- They had started something

and they needed to continue to
make progress.

So they put the Steering
Committee together

to enhance the stature of the
project

by bringing in people with
significant reputations.

- I think the key thing to keep
in mind

is that human beings are smart.

They act instinctively but they
also use their heads.

And human beings will act in
their own interest

if they know what their interest
is.

- The tasks ahead are obviously
enormous.

However, the project has a
certain magnetic quality

attracting brain power from all
over America.

- Man has be so relatively
ignorant

and has made so many mistakes
that he tends to think

that man is supposed to fail.

- Buckminster Fuller.

- He thinks it's sort of
illogical and preposterous

to think about something called
utopia

or that things are working. I
don't think so at all.

We're going to catch on that the
new norm is that

man is supposed to live in utopia.

- Dr. James C. Cain,

Professor of Clinical Medicine
– Mayo Clinic.

Mrs. Muriel Snowden, Associate
Director of Freedom House.

Walter W. Heller, Regent's
Professor –

Department of Economics,
University of Minnesota.

And Whitney Young, the Executive
Director

of the National Urban League.

- Otto knew how to put people
together

and get the best out of them

in terms of political support for
the project.

General Schriever, for example

was very, very highly thought-of

and a very skillful fellow

in terms of how you make things
happen.

- (Two, one, zero).

- And in terms of political
influence,

a Four-Star General opened a lot
of doors.

- I did say nine years and Otto
said 10 years

and I said, "why not make it
nine."

But I think if you set a time
schedule

that's slower than that,

the problems of the next decade
are gonna be so bad

that I don't know whether we'll
do any good.

- Athel, I have a comment to make
on this.

It seems to me that there's no
question

that this Experimental City

will still have a hell a lot of
skeptics.

But I don't think we should come
up with a plan of action

that will be looked at as being
completely ridiculous.

Now I think you've got to...

- Well let's not discuss the
practicalities

before we discuss the desired
objective.

The desired objective to me is to
plan the city

for a certain number

and fill it as soon as possible
with that number.

- (I think we all should have in
mind, though...)

- If we're gonna get it done, we
need to do it now.

- With as many people as possible

in as short a time as possible.

- (...the available alternatives,

that can be put into the
experimental picture.)

- I mean that's – I wanna tell
you that

there's not great complexity in
these things.

Think of the mentality of the
people that were doing it.

And so you have hundreds of
different experts

coming into MXC to look at all
the elements

which might impact how that
system will develop.

- In the Experimental City,

it may be that many little things

that you'd get now on a mass
communication basis

you might dial up individually.

- The computers back in those
days filled walls.

They were huge.

But we were pretty sure that by
the time

the city started to be built,

there would be small individual
computers

that could be done in homes.

- Video terminals can provide
access

from any point, for libraries,
schools, hospitals,

entertainment centers.

And bring together electronically

the now separated functions

of shopping, charging, banking,
credit and business.

- And that's the picture that got
across

better than anything else.

That this world was coming.

I was not a technician

but I was fascinated by what my
colleagues

were talking about and doing

because I could see the
implications

for the learning system.

- You gotta keep up with the
times you know.

- Yeah but there's 3D and 4D, you
know,

what's next?

- What's next?

You never know, you never really
know.

- There had been a number of
suggestions

on the innovations that would go
into MXC.

So I was going to be looking at
architectural

and design aspects of the urban
problems of the day.

I was happy with that, I needed
the work

and I was looking for some income.

MXC would become a test bed for a
transportation system

that could perhaps substitute for

the interstate highway system
that Eisenhower started

because he liked the Autobahn
system in Germany

when he was there

which incidentally was started by
Adolf Hitler.

- A dual-mode system would take
cars

that could just drive normally on
streets

onto kind of an on-ramp, that
would test your car

for about 30 seconds worth of
diagnostics.

And then it would shunt your car
onto an electrified

and automated guideway.

Here we go on the high-speed
safety lane.

- Welcome to the World of
Tomorrow.

Climb aboard.

- And so if you have propulsion
in the track

and computer direction,

then you can have many of these
inexpensive little packages

as a mass transportation system

that takes people when they want
to go

where they want to go.

Okay, okay, we like what you say.

Take us that way!

- Under our present system, as
the amount of things

that people use goes up,

the amount of things they discard
goes up

and consequently pollution must
go up.

So that I think that in the
Experimental City,

one of the most important things

is what I call "industrial
symbiosis" –

planning combinations of
industries

so that any wastes of our
manufacturing processes

can be reprocessed and put back
in the factory.

- Things like that when you were
talking to Athel

and it's like,

I never thought about that my
God, you know, yeah.

There is no such thing as waste.

You figure out how to reuse it,

there should be zero waste.

- It may not be possible to
accomplish

complete recycling of wastes
immediately.

But this objective should always
be borne in mind

in all our city planning.

It's a question of pre-design.

- How big would your model city
be?

- I mean when I first proposed
the idea,

I just picked a figure of a
quarter-million.

I suspect that's too small to
give the number of choices

that people want in a city.

But the essential thing is that

let's build the networks to serve
that city

and not allow the growth of the
population of the city.

- Cities normally grow above the
ground

and as people demand services of
transportation,

power, water, gas, sewers –

the streets are dug up and these
services are buried.

In the Experimental City, we can
anticipate the population

we have to serve

because the city will be of a
controlled size.

And the whole sub-structure
beneath the earth's surface

can be pre-planned to carry these
services

before the city is built.

Now the sub-structure could
either be excavated

or you could raise the ground
level.

When I talk about underground,

I mean under the lowest level
where people will walk.

Underneath that would be a rabbit
warren

of tunnels – tunnels to take
out the wastes

to processing plants outside.

There would be fume sewers to
take off whatever gases

the businesses and factories
generated

and all these things would be
open underground

so one thing we'd get away from
is digging up the streets.

Much of the service end of the
city will be invisible

and inaudible underground.

Communication wires, power wires,
utility pipes and lines

can be underground, pre-planned.

Water and building materials
could be stored there.

Heat and cold can be stored there.

The parking of air-burning
vehicles that connect the city

with the rest of the nation can
be there too.

And the fume sewers can take away
their foulness.

- So that when some particular
element became obsolete,

that can be taken out and new
ones put in.

- It is urgent to try new
technological improvements

because everything one does has
an interaction,

a chain-reaction on the other
parts of the system.

For instance, if we put in the
ultimate

communication system.

So that people may communicate to
work

instead of commuting to work,

it would reduce the needs of the
transportation system.

If we control the filth of
factories at the source,

then there's no need for zoning.

So factories, schools and homes

could all be in one complex.

And this again reduces the need
for transportation.

Reduced transportation reduces
the pollution

and so forth and so on.

Then you come to the cost of the
Experimental City.

Everybody asks what it will cost.

- General Schriever pointed out
that obviously

there was gonna be massive
private development here

but that it was not gonna be
possible

without planning money and
pre-design money

from the federal establishment.

You have to have a high level of
support.

- I was on a task force that
Lyndon Johnson appointed:

Technology, Society and Economic
Growth.

It was what we would do with the
peace dividend after

the Vietnam war was over.

The assumption being that that
money

would no longer be spent on the
military

that it would be there for other
uses.

- Why don't we suggest that the
equivalent sum of money

put into the Experimental City
will be a far greater

and more constructive thing to do.

- While one would think that the
moment

we would walk in with this
project,

everyone would just jump at it,

but that wasn't the case.

- Once Vietnam is over with –

and this thing's got to come to
an end sometime –

there's gonna be money available,

this is gonna be a major problem

and then we ought to be ready to
go.

- Yeah I quite agree, we have
enormous federal subsidies...

- Between now and the year 2000,
our population

will increase to 400 million.

- This is at the time that many
people were projecting

huge population growth for the
country as a whole.

And so that was a big concern,

where are we going to put all
these people?

- We're going to need to spend

a trillion 500 billion dollars
for new houses

for twice as many families to
live in.

- You see, we're going to spend
the billions and billions

on conventional development.

in the present urban centers

and the conventional isn't
working too well.

- Total 3500 billion dollars.

A sum 10 times the size of our
national debt.

- The money you're gonna spend on
the Experimental City

is money you're gonna spend
anyway –

schools, highways, water,
everything.

Housing 250,000 people. And not
as well, and not as wisely

and not as strategically.

And in that context, a whole new
city

had a lot of logic behind it.

- There is nobody that had ever
built a city like this.

People had created cities, but
this was something special.

And so it was a question of how
you present this

in the best light.

- The whole space program became
a model

for many different things
nationally.

And so the hope and expectation
was,

the Experimental City would be of
the same proportion

and produce similar results in
terms of national policy

and resource allocation.

And in terms of public relations

would produce a man-on-the-moon
kind of atmosphere.

- Otto being a newspaper man, I
think he was

probably more interested in the
public relations aspects.

The things that would excite and
attract.

- Well that's an
oversimplification, shall we say,

but it does get to the heart of
the problem.

- Somebody probably said,

let's have a dome over the city.

And they said: yeah, let's have a
dome,

a Bucky Fuller geodesic dome.

- Just as the elevator broke
through limits

on the practical height of
buildings,

so can newer technologies break
limits

of thinking about cities.

And for a mind as inventive as
Buckminster Fuller's,

there's no limit to the ways it
might be utilized.

- You're familiar with my
geodesic domes

and they do do so much with so
relatively little.

So that when they get to half mile

and larger geodesic spheres, the
energy losses

would be such that you would have
really

a tropical atmosphere the year
round.

You could open all the windows in
all the buildings

and let the heat go into it

and it'd be so stable, it
wouldn't get

very hot or very cold.

- We were the people that could
dream big things.

This was the nature of being a
Minnesotan

and the nature of being American.

If we could think it, we could do
it.

- All these things illustrate the
magnitude

of what we can be involved in
here.

Because that really is going to be

the ultimate genius of the city

when the pieces are put together.

- The Experimental City

is the putting together of all of
his ideas.

From pollution to population.

And then you've got tinkering
that comes in.

Athel would just reach out
somewhere out in space

and grab something and make it
work.

- I recall, I always used to
wonder about the status quo,

why were things being done this
way

and not another way.

And that's the beginning of
inventiveness,

just a challenge.

And sometimes you come out with a
way of doing it better.

- There was so much joy in his
life, with his work,

and his ideas, and his brain was
a joy to him I think.

- It had gears and little girders
and modular kind of things

you could put together into all
kinds of shapes and forms.

Kind of engineering construction
kit.

- What we call an Erector set?

- Exactly Erector was a copy of
Meccano.

- There would be this softness,
or this twinkle

that would come around when he'd
talk about his Meccano set.

That I think was the first real
toy that he ever had.

He was deeply attached to it.

Time-worn and well-used.

And of course it took care of all
of his engineering

and creativity and ideas and
inventive part of his mind.

You figure out how to reuse it.

- All of the buildings in the
Experimental City

will use the newest lightweight
materials

and modular techniques of assembly

so that they can be easily erected

and more importantly, quickly
disassembled

as we learn what is needed and as
times change our needs.

Disassembling them like an
Erector set

so that the reusable components
of the building

can be swallowed into the city's
sub-structure

to be used again.

- Could you give me a specific
idea

what this new community would
look like.

- This is part of the experiment.

I can't tell you what it would
look like

because that's the freedom of
architecture

and the variety that we would
want to exist

in the Experimental City.

Though carefully planned for a
certain capacity,

we are not so brash as to claim
that we are aiming

toward an instant utopia.

We'll plan it from the beginning
so it's subject to change

because in experiment, if you do
not make mistakes

you probably don't make anything.

You know when I spoke about
experimental cities,

people said to me, what are you
trying to be,

some kind of a Hitler or
something,

telling people how to live.

I really was trying to give
people,

by calling it "experimental," a
choice.

You see, nobody knows the answers

to city livings of the future

because it's never been shown to
them.

And if you don't know the answers,

I'm brought up to say, I do an
experiment.

And the real value of this
Experimental City

from a sociological point of view

will be after it's built,
continuing the long-term studies

that hopefully can make cities
which exist a little better.

And for that reason I think that
we are gonna go off

in the wrong direction if we
think in terms of this

as a city where we try to change
things once it's built.

- Then can you remember that it's
an Experimental City?

We are not designing an instant
utopia,

we are designing a conglomeration
of people,

enough people so we can
experiment with various

interrelated systems.

- On a continuing basis. \On a
continuing basis.

- I think a good description of
himself

was I'm a great committee man,

as long as I'm the head of the
committee.

He would come up with an idea,
he'd come up with a solution

where everything is
mathematically so

and it was done in his brain,
okay I've done it.

- Well I wouldn't want to narrow
it down so much but the...

- But if you call it a
"University City,"

there have been university cities

and there are university towns
essentially

in the United States.

- He would take people who
disagreed with him

on to a certain point and then it
was like,

if you can't get this,

we don't need to converse with
each other further.

- Gentleman, let's take a five
minute break

and get some coffee.

- Let me add one word here...

- Let's take a five minute break
and get some coffee!

- You know I can't spend my time
dealing with this.

- And at least as titles are
concerned,

highlighting the fact that this
is experimental

and that the people are guinea
pigs

may have a political backfiring.

- Nobody wants to be part of an
experiment.

- The word "experimental", it did
tend to scare people.

- Pause for a minute, I have a
comment.

- Yes, yes.

- This is all way overkill,

I mean, Jesus Christ,

you're gonna have no room for
anything else.

- It will be edited.

- Repetition, repetition,
repetition.

This I'm getting bored with.

- Well, now do you want to wait
until tomorrow?

- No I don't want to have
duplication anytime!

Complete waste of time.

- He was perpetually throwing
pearls in front of swine,

he just couldn't do that.

And if something wasn't his
interest at the moment,

he'd just go on to something else.

- You can say that this story
shows

that he could never hold a job.

The point is that when it got
boring I just quit it.

- That was kind of a blow, I'd
have to say.

The idea was sufficiently exotic
to many people

that it needed those credentials
behind it

as represented by Spilhaus.

- Spilhaus was obviously the
intellectual genesis

of the Experimental City, it
wasn't Otto.

But Otto was a realist in the
sense

that he knew what he was trying
to do was important

and they needed to keep it moving
forward

and if suddenly that got lost,

it would never come back to life
again.

- Good evening, my fellow
Americans.

I speak to you this evening

about very important developments

in our search for peace in
Vietnam.

We have been engaged in
discussions with...

- Initially the expectation was
that Johnson

would be re-elected.

And then when he didn't run and

Humphrey was to be the candidate

the great hope was that, being a
Minnesotan,

this was something that he would
be happy to champion.

- What a day you give me in
Houston

in this great Astrodome.

- If the president says I'm in
favor of it,

all of a suddden, you'll find

there are a lot of people lined
up in favor of it.

- We wouldn't be sitting around
the table here probably

if it weren't for the Vice
President's forceful help to us.

But it's always going through my
mind you know,

when I talked with the Vice
President,

I always kept urging Hubert to go
across the street

and brief Johnson on this in the
full light

and he never did it really.

- Richard Nixon goes over the top
with 287 electoral votes

and that seems to be the 1968
election.

- I admire a fighter, he never
gave up.

I know exactly how he felt.

I know how it feels to lose a
close one.

Winning's a lot more fun.

- As the project moved along, I
began to suspect

that it was going to be troubled.

The Nixon Administration was not
about to fund

a project that was clearly
identified

as a Humphrey project in Hubert's
home state of Minnesota.

- It's quite clear that the
several proposals

that we have submitted to the
major federal agencies

HUD, HEW, so forth, are pretty
much dead in the water.

- They're dead in the water, I
grant you.

- As, as such.

- And we're sending out the
repair boats.

- It became apparent that

it was going to have to
demonstrate

some success at the state level

before it was going to be
possible to get any significant

federal attention, let alone
money.

And so we were totally focused on
Minnesota at that point.

It meant go back to restart.

- You're rolling a bolder up the
hill here

and every little inch makes a
difference.

And you talk to legislators

and some people will say it's
absolutely crazy.

And then again we had people that
say:

"Well, let's think about it."

You know that there are two things

that you don't want to know the
process of.

One is making sausage and the
other is legislation.

And this would be no exception to
that.

We had more hearings in the Senate

and finally got it up to the
floor of the Senate

and it was passed about 4:30 or
five o'clock

on the last day.

- Charles says, "It's precarious"
and I said, "Here's plan B –

If this doesn't go in Minnesota
we go to Wisconsin."

- Here we've got the Minnesota
state government

interested enough to create a
quasi-governmental agency.

And its principal task will be to
work and develop

site criteria and designate a site

for presentation to the '73
session of the Legislature.

- Having a tangible site in
Minnesota,

it would no longer just be an
idea.

- Although it really would still
be just an idea, but –

having a tangible site and public
approval as it were,

we would then have a real
platform from which to move on.

- So they must select the site

before the legislature convenes
in '73.

So that our pressures then will
be to get the Governor

to act and appoint this 11-man
authority.

- Very rarely do you have a
chance of a fantasy

becoming a reality in your life.

And this was that point.

And all these things that you'd
studied,

because I was an urban historian,

suddenly I was the person

like they were a hundred years
before.

I'm standing there and we're on
this hill

and there's beautiful lakes all
around

and you could just see this
gorgeous setting for a city.

And my first thought that came
through my mind was,

should it be Lefko Lake or Lake
Lefko?

We had done what we thought was
an effective screening process

and there was the site that
everybody loved

which was Douglas.

Beautiful, lake filled,

this was going to be the town in
paradise.

Now the town in paradise already
had people

who didn't want their lifestyle
changed.

And so in reality there was no
way in God's green earth

that we were gonna be in Douglas.

When you can't go somewhere
politically,

what is your choice?

- I did gather from your
description

that this area was really very
attractive.

- It isn't Dorado Beach or
something like this.

- Why put yourself behind the
eight ball?

Is there something about it that
makes it an ideal place for a
city?

- One of the things that
recommended it

was the fact that it is about 85%
in public ownership.

So you're not going to

have to go in and disrupt a lot
of people.

- The site is terribly important

and it shouldn't be based on
availability of land.

- Well all I know is: with the
elements of protest

in our country today, we haven't
been too successful

in getting people to agree,

and if we're gonna really build
this city,

you've got to get the land.

- I can't tell you that everyone
jumped up with joy

and said someday my soul will be
in Swatara.

But given the fact at that point

you didn't have time or the money
to go back

and redo the rest of the state,

then Aitkin becomes as logical as
any place

because it's the poorest place.

They will not only welcome you
with open arms

but you are the heroes.

You are the saviors and salvation.

That was our perception of Aitkin.

- Although the first planning for
MXC

got underway in 1966, Aitkin
County residents

said they hadn't heard about it
until this year.

Director of the Experimental
City, James Alcott...

- Well the people by and large
were very curious

and very nice. It's a classic
Minnesota response.

- And we met with county
commissioners, talked with them.

- They were not so taken with the
idea

of the Experimental City as such

but because things were so
desperate,

some people could see what any
kind of economic development

up there might mean.

- It would mean jobs for young
people

who now move to the Cities.

- The Experimental City Authority
people

have been studying this for years.

We take it for granted

that they know what they're
talking about.

That the money is gonna be spent

and if it's gonna be placed any
place,

we want it in Aitkin County.

- But those surrounding the
proposed city site

seemed to oppose the concept of a
new city.

Their reason: destruction of the
environment.

- My folks came to this area
after World War II.

My father had respiratory problems

where he was born and raised in
the Chicago area

as was my mother.

But in his 20s, his asthma became
so bad

from the pollution there that it
became life threatening.

The doctors there told him that
he could very well die

if he didn't leave that
environment.

And so moving to Northern
Minnesota saved his life

and probably mine as well
because, I was not born yet.

People live in this area to be
able to breathe fresh air.

They don't have to rub shoulders
with other people.

Very natural, very pristine.

People come here to escape the
urban setting.

- Well I was raised here and when
I was 16

I went to work in St. Paul for a
while.

That's the year I met Ben and he
followed me to Minneapolis

and he didn't like it even worse
than I did.

And his parents gave us a piece
of property

and we started building our house
after we got married

and once you start building on a
piece of property

that has nothing before you,

you just become attached to what
you have.

And somebody's gonna come and
take it away

and make it into a city?

- We were well aware of what we
were going to be up against.

We are talking about billions of
dollars on one side

and just ordinary folk on the
other side.

But there was also a feeling that
we had at least

one government agency on our side.

- Some of the people in Swatara
were incredulous

that the state would think about
taking their property,

taking their land

and creating this futuristic
monstrosity.

I became a citizen activist in
the environmental arena

largely because of mining waste
being dumped

into Lake Superior in enormous
quantites.

The company was making all these
profits

but the waste from the mining–
just dump it in the lake.

You do get angry about it and
wanted to do something to stop it.

So that kinda guided my future.

In 1971, the legislature passed a
provision

that the Experimental City
Authority

was to be reviewed by the
Pollution Control Agency

for environmental impact.

- A very vague statement: what
the environmental impact

of any proposal is– well, hell,

that could mean anything.

And the fact of the matter is
there's some concern

on the part of business industry
and everybody that

the Pollution Control Agency
could in fact run the state.

- You're talking about 55
thousand acres.

If you were gonna actually have
250,000 people there,

you were gonna have air
pollution, water pollution,

destruction of the landscape in
that area.

Just the size of it.

Why did they propose such a huge
city?

And that led me to believe, I
always felt

that this was not an Experimental
City,

it was a massive development to
make money,

that's what was behind it.

- Well again, from the day one
our whole approach

is to preserve and improve the
environment.

I mean if anyone can get approval
from

the Pollution Control Agency, we
ought to be able to do it.

- Otto Silha invited me to lunch
at the Minneapolis club

and he showed me all the support
and I thought, Oh my god."

Well this is a pretty strong
support here, Mr. Silha,

but I'd like to know what is the
generation of power?

- And he said, "probably a
nuclear power plant."

- Well that wasn't too smart,

I was against any more nuclear
power plants by that time.

And so I said, "If you can commit
that

the power generation for this
experimental city

will be solar power, I will
support it."

And he couldn't do that.

I was sticking my neck out
because well,

I probably would have been sorry
if he said,

"Okay, we'll do solar." Then what
would we do?

- Would you have supported it if
he had said?

- Well I said I would.

- Here was the agency whose
function was to fight pollution

and we thought we were being

the national and international
model

of how to stop pollution.

- A conflict is emerging more and
more clearly

between two rival philosophies.

Two wholly different and
antagonistic ways

of attacking the environmental
crisis.

- This seemed so logical to us

that the idea of having
environmentalists against us

was something that almost was
internally offensive.

- This represents the
philosophical party in power.

The certainty that the same
technology

which has gotten us into such
terrible trouble

can get us out again.

The second school of thought is
out of power

centered on the campuses.

- Save Our Earth! Save Our Earth!

It's broad and it's deep.

- This is for the people!

- It's a reaction against the
endless multiplications

of cars, highways, cities.

One of the momentous news stories
of the 70's

will be how this country makes
its choice

between those philosophies.

- We had to show that we didn't
really want a city here.

To draw attention to it.

And we talked about what could we
do

to cause more publicity.

How people got on the news.

- Wipe out of your mind the
questions of technology,

technology never decides a war,

it is the will of the people that
decides a war.

- And at that time there was a
lot of unrest.

People were against things and
wanting their voices heard.

- I don't have to do it, it's my
home

and that's what I'm fighting for,

that's what I'm fighting for,
nothing else.

- And we said okay, let's start a
petition

and get people to sign it and
take it to the capital.

We started Saturday morning

from the general store in Swatara.

It was kind of a bright sunny day

but the wind blows there like...

- This is not an afternoon jaunt.

Mid-winder in Minnesota, that's
not a friendly time

when the environment is concerned.

- Ashes to ashes, iron to rust

- Ecology is the most generally
appealing

of all the causes of the Love
Generation.

- You were born under the shadow
of the bomb,

you are the first generation in
the history of man

to carry DDT in your fat and
Stontium 90 in your bones.

- You think this will be a fad?

- I don't see how it can pass over

because it's here, it's now and
it's real.

- We've reached the point where
our technology produces

more kinds of things than we can
live with.

We have to choose to say "no".

- In the midst of this
demonstration

a small bird fell out of a tree
dead,

it seemed an ominous ecological
sign to the crowd.

- Going around Mille Lacs was
probably the worst morning.

It was 30 below zero

and the wind was horrendous that
morning.

Prickly and cold.

Whoever thought to walk to the
Cities in January.

But it did show people that we
weren't giving up

just because it was Minnesota in
the winter.

You can sit and be quiet or you
can take a stand.

- I don't think the MXC Authority
anticipated

the kind of resistance that
developed.

We had a clear focus, and we were
going to be there

until we knew one way or the
other.

- It's a great pleasure for me to
be back here

on this occasion.

We're seeing at this time, it's
the right time

because we are seeing a
burgeoning of aspiration

and concern of people with regard

to the quality of the environment.

And such aspirations and concerns
are excellent.

But what is not excellent is that
this has resulted

in a body of uninformed vocal
opinion

which one might characterize as
supporting non-engineering

or even anti-engineering.

Non-engineering takes place when
protests and action,

sometimes in the name of
conservation and environment,

stop us providing for people's
needs.

What is bad is attacks without
proposals,

actions that result in non-action
that lead...

- It all gotten really wild
trying to deal with it

'cause there are so many aspects
to it

and at this point I'm walking
around with my eyes crossed.

- Yeah.

The scientific progress is
tremendous

and the technological progress is
tremendous.

But society's use of technology
is abysmally dumb.

- Progress has gotten to the point

where it's massively destructive.

Maybe you know what I'm trying to
say.

- Progress ain't always so in
other words.

- ...technology that we need to
use to give us the quality

environment to which we aspire.

We see the problem and as
engineers we try to tackle it.

- This was something based on a
comic strip

by that professor Athelstan
Spilhaus

and I was not too keen about that
kind of a city.

But it wasn't my final decision.

- The final decision would have
to be made

by the state legislature.

If it fails to do so by June 30th
of this year,

the project will fail.

- We knew we had a fight on our
hands

but we also believed that

if we got the citizen actively
involved,

we could beat it.

- ...legislature-financed study
into creating quote,

a model for orderly growth in
harmony with the environment.

Today the Minnesota Pollution
Control Agency

is holding a public hearing on
the MXC

and harmony is not at least so
far the theme.

An overflow crowd of those opposed

to the Minnesota Experimental
City.

- That they will tell government

just what we are trying to say.

That the idea of relocating
population masses

rather than treating and solving
the problems

of cities where they exist

is just as repugnant as is the
concept

that when human and physical
resources

of one place are exhausted, you
go somewhere else

and exploit fresh ones

instead of regenerating more in
the first place.

We have people in rural Minnesota
that are capable

of thinking for themselves

and capable of governing
themselves.

- I remember it being a really
tough day.

- We ask that the people be
allowed to speak.

- One of those where you sit in a
hearing

and all you do is you look at the
door

trying to figure out how can you
get out quickly

without anyone noticing you've
left

because this was not a good
discussion

and it was not going well.

- But to answer my question, yes
or no,

you did not give the people an
opportunity

to enter into the decision-making
process

in the selection of Aitkin.

- Not prior to November.

- Have they had the chance to
vote yet?

- No.

- No they have not.

- I think they knew they were in
trouble,

they were in big trouble by that
time,

I never asked them.

But we don't usually talk about
the MXC too much.

- What is it that prevents you
from understanding

the psychological effect of going
out in the countryside

and laying something on these
people.

I mean this is the kind of
reaction that you get.

- What does this committee expect
to do with us?

- It's unconstitutional in my
view.

- Where do they want to move us?

- Democratic or communist country.

- Why in this beautiful north
country

do they want to build a concrete
jungle.

- The main objections from the
northern residents is simple:

they like where they live the way
it is.

They feel that if a city moved
into their area

it would cause nothing but urban
blight.

- We had to believe in ourselves

that we were doing the right thing

and something that was on a
broader scale

and we believed that people, if
they could see things

the way we did, they'd see that
this had benefits.

- This city will have no cars,

there would be no money.

Everything would be bought and
sold by credit card

and a computer.

This will be a monopoly city and
the worst part is that,

it would leave people without
jobs.

- Machines do more, men do less,

relate less to each other, become
interchangeable parts

of the machine.

- Technology, thoughtless progress

and a concept of everything bigger

has already taken its deadly toll
on the environment.

- It was the question of having
people

that you were in the same
environmental groups with

now questioning your sanity.

- There is an overriding concern
that perhaps

the scientific advances that
these people

have brought to the world are
finally threatening

the very life of the planet.

- I am a scientist, an engineer,
an oceanographer

and a meteorologist.

But I feel almost like a defendant

the way science and technology is
blamed for everything

and I'll say at the outset that I
don't take that view.

I think experiments, we have
ceased

to be daring and experimental in
our large problems

that involve people.

We have a ridiculous thing of
thinking that bigness

is necessarily bad.

And environmentalists, they were
the people who said

stop doing anything because it
pollutes

and they were against nuclear
energy.

I thought all this was nonsense
and so I probably said:

Oh yes there are always problems
on any new innovation

and all the doomers can think up
50 reasons

for not doing anything.

Everybody, all the eco-maniacs

want us to stop putting nuclear
power plants up.

Stop what you're doing they say,

stop making technological advance.

There's an awful lot of nonsense
emotionalism

that people yelling about the
environment,

I called them enviro-maniacs.

They're self-styled ecologists

who embrace this new cult of what
has been known

as the environmental movement.

That didn't mean that I wasn't a
true conservationist.

We do indeed need to do some
things differently

on a very large scale

in regard to our environmental
problems.

And I'm sure we will do so.

- All of us want to think that
we're contributing

to a change for the better.

You become so attached to what
you believe

is the future, and a better
future.

- But we need these big
experiments

and we need to build cities which
combine.

- And all of a sudden...

that better future has
disappeared.

- Well we just, we've been saying
many things many times,

haven't we, Max.

- We sure have.

- Through the years.

And the trick has been to get
other people to see them

as clearly as we see them.

- It just seems incredible that
something

that has as much promise as the
Experimental City has

finds it so difficult because of
the attention

to the conventional.

- But Otto there's a fundamental
problem.

People do what they want to do

and there are some things about
cities

that are there because of that.

- But they'll never know what
they can do

unless you show 'em what's
possible.

- We're learning more about the
accuracy of past

climate models – how accurate
were they?

- Yeah this one's pretty cool Tom,

published in Forbes yesterday,

it turns out that one of the
earliest climate models

published 50 years ago was dead
on accurate...

- I thought we were gonna pull
this off.

- When you're an American in that
period,

of course you're gonna do it.

- It's also pretty strong
evidence,

that today's climate models that
project 50 years

into the future are also pretty
accurate.

- You know they say you always
learn

from these painful experiences.

Well sometimes it takes years to
learn from it

and sometimes, they become more
painful

when you remember them

than they actually were when they
happened.

- In some ways it reflected the
growing end of an era.

And the era was where big concepts

in science and technology were
supposed to solve

large-scale public issues.

And those days were changing.

- Everyone has his thing you know,

and I do my thing.

And my thing is this: that I am
an optimist.

I believe that if we make a
national goal,

we can carry it through, we did
in the space program.

Why can't we do it and have a
man-on-earth program

just as we had a man-on-the-moon
program.

We should just put in there at
the end of that,

later

I thought

that the site for my Experimental
City

should be the deep ocean.

- Great.

- Huh?

- Uhn ha.

- The unused deep ocean.

- You know from the years I spent
with Athel

and talking to him about his
early years

and the things he did,

there was so much enthusiasm and
joy

and optimism there. You know
serious involvement

in big, big things that were
happening in the world.

And then to watch everything just
kind of go flat.

I think he felt that, I really do.

And then by the time he and I

started talking about the future

or got past his early years, I
did not feel that enthusiasm

or optimism anymore.

But is that for real, or is that
where we all get

when we get in our 70's? You know?

I feel that way.

Is that old-people stuff?

Or was that Athel seeing something

that was actually happening? I
don't know.

I'm not equipped to answer that.

- Okay well, we're not getting
anywhere.

I wanna see some of these things
before I die.

Alright...

Well I just wonder.

- We'll get busy, we'll just get
real busy

but you just don't plan on dying
anytime soon, okay?

- Well I don't know.

- I just won't have it.

- I don't know.

- I refuse to have it.

- It's a chore, living.

- Isn't it though.

- I have a benediction for our
program this evening.

From "A Glance Behind the Curtain"

by James Russell Lowell.

- 1999 AD.

More than a generation away...

- New times demand new measures
and new men.

The world advances and, in time,
outgrows the laws

that in our father's day were
best.

And doubtless after us some purer
scheme

will be shaped out by wiser men
than we –

made wiser by the steady growth
of truth.

The time is ripe, and rotten ripe
for change –

then let it come.

The promise of the future, not
the past.

Fitting words for the
Experimental City.

Gentlemen, thank you.