I’m thinking the streets of 2029 will be quite a lot like the streets of 2019. I don’t expect a massive change in surveillance or technology. I wouldn’t be surprised to see fewer cars (especially outside America). I expect the social problems would be different but I can’t guess how they would be different.

I think we’d be surprised what is already here. You can’t drive a stolen car through a medium town in Kansas (Lenexa) without the police chasing you down before you get out of town. Kansas!

You can drive a car with an illegitimate foreign license plate down I95 through some of the most authoritarian parts of the northeast without being bothered.

There's a lot more luck involved than the people selling the dragnets would have you believe. That said, I still am not a fan of all this surveillance.

So, ah, you can't just leave us hanging...

Quebec doesn't put registration year stickers on their plates so there's no way to tell without running the plate whether it's valid. If you just need to get a shitbox that moves under its own power from A to B it's a pretty cheap way to do it.

Do you think the streets of 2019 are similar to the streets of 2009?

There will be more potholes and falling bridges

Ah, well, I grew up 60 miles from the closest town, and 10 miles away from the closest neighbor, and the house didn't have a phone until I left for school at 15, so I guess my standards for acceptable-levels-of-existence are not up to the modern urban standards. I mean, all we did was grow our own food, and sell some of the excess to pay for land taxes and energy/fuel. And, no, I am not a boomer.

In 2029, with cash no longer accepted by major vendors including government, and with ubiqutous tracking of individual's physical movements and financial transactions, so most people won't want the repurcussions of dealing with you even if they could, how are you going to be able to sell any of your food and use it to pay for land taxes?