I recently visited the secondary school associated with my old primary school. It was the first time I had been since it was rebuilt, the old school having been totally inaccessible. It's been a good 10 years since the new school was first built and I was very pleased to see that, although the school was already starting to look a bit rough around the edges, it was now 100% accessible. This got me thinking about a broader topic - if places like this, which were once totally inaccessible, now have the functionality to be completely accessible, are we on our way towards a completely accessible future?

In This City

Obviously, the best thing to look at first when discussing a totally accessible future is what towns and cities have done for accessibility. When looking at it from a UK perspective I think the idea of a totally accessible city is possible (but not guaranteed). In 2017 things like sloped disabled access curbs are the rule and not the exception. In my experience, most new high-tech buildings will have a certain level of accessibility present.  There are certainly enough disability/discrimination charities in the world that would call the designers out if this was not the case. There remains the question of how accessible existing buildings can be but given we’re surely headed towards a future with even more high tech wizardry, it’s a safe bet accessibility will only improve beyond laws and regulations.

Historical Towns and Cities

Nice though it is to think we will have a totally accessible future within the UK (and the world as a whole) there is one key reason why I don't think that this will be the case. There will always be historical sites/tourist attractions that appeal to an audience because they are basically left untouched. That’s a huge part of the appeal and various towns and cities throughout the UK rely on this type of tourism. The extent to which historical sites cater for disabilities depend on how willing they are to sacrifice a certain level of authenticity.

Case in point - The Edinburgh Dungeons. Now, I've never been to the Edinburgh Dungeons because I'm not really into the sort of horror imagery that I'm willing to bet would be present but I've certainly got nothing against any of the organisers. However, I have always been told they are completely inaccessible to wheelchairs. This doesn’t bother me but I think it brings up a broader point. If these historical based sites and cities want to maintain a certain level of authenticity, the world will never be fully accessible. This is not to say however that there can't be more improvements to accessibility on a global scale and that certain cities can't be entirely accessible in the future.

Innovators

Obviously there is another factor when having a discussion like this.  There might be future innovations and inventions when it comes to accessibility that make future cities even more accessible but they simply have not been invented in 2017. Who really knows what the future holds?

This article used as a starting point the following question: Is it possible to have an entirely disability accessible future? I think the answer is that it really depends what elements of this potential future society you are looking at. Certainly, it’s entirely possible for large modern cities to become almost entirely accessibility friendly given enough time to adjust. However, there will always be tourist towns and cities throughout the world that rely on a certain level of historical context and authenticity which means it makes these areas more difficult in terms of catering to accessibility. There is also the distinct possibility of future inventions to make accessibility even easier in certain ways.