In the three short decades between now and the twenty-first century, millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world's richest and most technologically advanced nations, many of them will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change that characterizes out time. For them, the future will have arrived too soon. (Chapter 1, pg./ 9)

It is these durational expectancies, different in each society but learned early and deeply ingrained, that are shaken up when the pace of life is altered. (Chapter 3, pg. 43)

Never in history has distance meant less. Never have man's relationships with place been more numerous, fragile and temporary. Throughout the advanced technological societies, and particularly among those I have characterized as "the people of the future," commuting, traveling, and regularly relocating one's family have become second nature. Figuratively, we "use-up" places and...