Umoja Abdul-Ahad
Local activist
Citizens are starting to see that they really need to be active...Those citizens who are older will teach their children how to be active in a more professional way.
More spirituality will come into people's lives. And not just talking about, "I'm a Christian," "I'm a Jew," "I'm a Muslim," but people are going to have to start acting it.
Kim Elrod
Co-owner, Guns and Needles Tattoo Parlor
Which tattoos will be hip in the next century?
I don't know if there will ever be a trend in design. Tattoos have been around from the beginning, so if anything, more people are going to get them. If there could be a trend in tattooing, I'd want it to be that more people respect the art and not choose their tattoo based on the dollar amount attached to it. People shop around and then go with something cheap. And when you're talking about something that's going to be on you until you're dead, that's stupid.
Seva
Recording engineer and yoga instructor
I'm both an optimist and a pessimist, depending on the subject. In terms of world resources, I'm a pessimist. I think we're going to have some sort of catastrophe—crop failure, water shortage—that will continue until we learn a lesson. Technologically and culturally, I'm an optimist. The Internet is not anarchy like many people think. It's democracy. There are many positive things that will happen because no one will be able to stop the flow of information. Information will give people choices and power that would otherwise be impossible. I think computers will be integrated even more quickly to make our lives more efficient—kind of like Dick Tracy plus artificial intelligence. We'll all have little talking wrist watches just like Dick Tracy. Now if we could only get those antigravity buckets going on...
Something I hope for is that there will be a growing shared spirituality and respect for individuals, based on real family values, not right-wing ones. Salvador Dali once said "The answer to the world's problems is a combination of spirituality and science." It's not an either/or prospect. It's the only way we'll get real solutions. The key is to use technology in such a way that it has values; to give science a little religion and religion a little science.
Kristopher Kendrick
Landlord and rehabilitator of old buildings
There will be many different [housing] concepts, all of which will be completely alien to me.
I started on my stuff in '73, and was told I was insane, everything should be mowed down. And I've seen in the last 27 years that people are thinking the way I do.
If we [as a city] keep preserving buildings in the tiny inner core of the city, it should be a jewel 100 years from now. I can see everything in the city being redone in the next 10 years, especially if you think about how little we have. I've always laughed and said if 10 percent of the attorneys bought one building downtown and renovated it, that would take care of all of the buildings because you know how many attorneys we have.
Lora Scott
Matchmaker for Knoxville's Matchmaker International (serving 5,000 members)
Will technological advances in the next century make scoring a date easier?
Well, when you're dealing with people's hopes and dreams and love, it's a lot better to meet with a human being. So technological advances will make our work more efficient, but all the matches will continue to be done by hand... Fortunately for us, this industry continues to grow. Our clients are working professionals. They really don't have the chance to chase after people at the bars. And our people can be picky. They tell us their likes and dislikes and we run a police background check on everyone.
John Collins
Optimist about white bread's future at Merita Bakery.
Why will white bread remain popular well into the next century?
It's the king of white breads. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. We do think ours is the most popular because it outlasts the competition. We recommend people eat it in three or four days, but it will last for 10 days or a couple of weeks.
Follow up: Why is that?
Trade secret.
Phil Williams
Morning disc jockey, WIMZ 103.5 FM
I believe there will be a professional wrestler—other than Jesse "The Body" Ventura—in the White House. I'm thinkin' maybe Mr. Ass, somebody with a good name and a good act.
At the end of the century, medical science will reincarnate Cas Walker, and he will retake the throne as Mayor of Knoxville.
I believe all the members of N'sync, 98 Degrees, and the Backstreet Boys will prove to be clones of the same guy.
Steve Dupree
Actor, engineer, man about town
I think our K2K [Internet discussion group on Knoxville development issues] is a harbinger of things to come. The connectivity of society is going to increase until everybody is always "on." It'll be a lot harder for politicians to sneak in and do stuff without anyone noticing. Now people sit down and get on the Internet through a computer; I think we'll see in the next 10 years people roaming around with powerful computers on their persons. In Knoxville, it will be a little more difficult for people to blow smoke up our shorts and come up with idiot plans like the jail, or downtown prison, or whatever they call it. I anticipate greater attention to ecological issues. Anyone alive now, if they live 30 more years, will be expected to live to double their age at that point. (I'm 44; if I make 74, I'll be expected to see 148.) Medical technological improvements are coming fast and furious. Perhaps in the next 100 years we'll see true racial and gender equality. That's more a hope than a prediction.
Laurens Tullock
Former Knoxville Director of Development; current director of Cornerstone Foundation
One hundred years ago, the mountains were an endangered species. One hundred years from now, we'll have gotten even better and protected them from development even more. And our educational system will be world-class.
Charlie Parsons
Social worker at Volunteer Ministry Center on Gay Street and Jackson Avenue
Based on what it looked like at 1900 and what it looks like now, things for poor people will be better. We'll become more efficient at providing services. You often need the federal government in terms of resources, but the delivery needs to happen locally. We'll begin to understand more and more what level of government—federal, state, county, local—needs to play what role.
Partly because of communications being more connected and cohesive, we're more and more aware of who's out there and what their problems are. Nobody can really crawl under a rock anymore, unless they really, really try hard.
To some extent, the haves are getting more and the have-nots are getting less, but you have people like Ted Turner and Bill Gates talking about spending some of their wealth to help people....People are seeking for more emotionally and spiritually satisfying lives.
If you want a cynical Marxist point of view, call me tomorrow and I'll give you that one.
Bill Frist
U.S. Senator
As our nation embraces the start of the new year, it's vital that we boldly tackle the challenges facing our country in the next millennium. We must continue our fight for better schools, quality health care and retirement security for all our citizens. In striving for these goals, we should remember the achievements of the past. It was a combination of American courage and foresight that led us to the freedoms we enjoy today, granting us economic prosperity and renewed hope for the 21st Century. As a member of the United States Senate, I'm proud and honored to help guide our nation, and I look forward to the work which lies ahead. With America's magnificent history of achievement, I'm optimistic that we will seize the boundless opportunities ahead to create an even brighter 21st century.
Ed White
AIDS activist and local actor
AIDS activists and preservationists will clash as bulldozers raze the last neighborhood on the western edge of the historic Fort Sanders area. Covenant Health will defend its decision to build the new Hope Clinic here, the first clinic devoted to AIDS in the region, saying "We are not insensitive to those
concerned with preserving history, but before there were homes here, this was also a Civil War Battlefield. Today we are fighting on a medical battlefield. We think it is fitting to be saving lives on a site where so many were lost so long ago." The Hope Clinic's original mission will later be expanded to cover superstrains like staphylococcus, tuberculosis and syphilis, as well as hanta virus, malaria and the newly emergent Pollard's syndrome from South America.
Charles Faulkner
Archaeologist in the department of anthropology at the University of Tennessee
In centuries to come, what will archaeologists be digging for in Knoxville?
Knoxville does not have a good reputation as far as historic preservation goes. Certain sections of town like Fort Sanders, certainly they could have done a lot more to mitigate this historic neighborhood. And with building the four-lane bridge from the Ag campus. There's a burial mound there. It's a burial mound on campus. Of course, the Department of Transportation says it's not going to affect the mound, but I don't think they give a hoot about it. Anyway, everything is a potential archaeological site. Knoxville, it's not Pompeii. I assume we aren't going to be covered by 100 feet of volcanic ash. A thousand years from now, looking back to today, what would be a great find would be something that tells us something we don't know 1,000 years from now. But the way the media is now, we'll probably know a lot. Still, we'll look at the material culture and how it affects day-to-day life... My interest is in the invisible people—the people who are not in the historical record. Or they're in the record, but it's biased.
Tyler Summitt
Nine-year-old
The next century? Women, they're going to be wilder. Kids will go to school on the Internet. My dad says cars are going to fly. We can go to another planet, and maybe I will go to the moon for my honeymoon. Get it? Take my honey to the moon.
Col. Bacchus
Renowned skateboarder and former radio DJ
Mechanized skateboards—like Jetsons kind of things. You'll be able to ride them in the rain. That and disc golf will get huge. It hasn't gotten much coverage yet, but it's coming; ESPN covers tiddlywinks, but won't take disc golf. But one day you'll turn on the TV and it'll be on every commercial. It's poised to take over the sports world.
As far as music is concerned, there will always be punk rock. Long live rock 'n' roll.
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