Unfolding Trends

The “Green Revolution” will begin to diminish, but will not disappear.  The diminishing will set in as people become more educated about “green technology” and some of the untrumpeted consequences. We, in West Michigan, will be in the forefront of that debate as more forces will seek to create wind power off Great Lakes shorelines, raising environmental and quality of life concerns.

Smart farming will continue to accelerate in West Michigan, already a regional agricultural giant.  Computerized soil analyses, seed mixtures, and fertilization mix with meteorological models to increase the optimal standards for production.  Given the plethora of vacant buildings in West Michigan, there is a great likelihood that an entrepreneur will introduce vertical farming in an appropriate climate controlled building.

Education will finally experience the outer bands of a long needed revolution.  As traditional education falters and refuses to reform itself, the revolution will come from without.  New learning management systems coupled with advancing technology in online and interactive education will challenge the very existence of traditional, instructor-centric education.

It is likely we will see the first home robots to do cleaning, home protection, and even provide health services.  Already in use in Japan to cope with the demands of an aging population, the trend is definitely in our immediate future.

There will be increasing signs and even occurrences of systems breakdown as technology applications become unevenly applied across the board.  Referred to as “desynchronization”, the many aspects of our lives are changing at radically different rates, creating mismatch, and structural incongruence.  The economic distress in Michigan is a leading national indicator of what happens when sacred “Rust Belt” practices are not sustained by an archaic and diminishing asset base.

Despite the unfriendliness of some of the new leadership in Washington, D.C. to many aspects of globalization, transnational economic activities will grow and specialize, further blurring national boundaries.  This trend will continue, resulting in continued erosion of the sovereignty of the nation-state.  The rapid and fluid changes in markets, production, and technology are occurring too fast for the nation-state concept, implemented in 1654 to accommodate.  Something has to give.