Talk Back: What will L.A. be like in 25 years?

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In 1988, the Los Angeles Times Magazine published an article about what Southern California would be like in 25 years.

A Northrup Grumman engineer named Jerry Lockenour stashed the magazine away, thinking it would be fun to test the predictions when the date actually rolled around.

Now, here we are in 2013. We don’t have housekeeper robots to cook for us and wash our clothes, as described in the article. We must still keep our eyes on the road while driving, rather than gliding down “electro lanes” as we do our nails or read a book.

DOCUMENT: 1988 ‘L.A. 2013’ essay

But some of the article’s other predictions, such as video phones, online classrooms and in-car computers, were on the money. Lockenour, 67, now teaches a graduate class in technology development at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering. The magazine article would make a perfect assignment for his students, some of whom weren’t even born in 1988, he realized.

Walter Glaeser, a 50-year-old Boeing systems engineer who lives in St. Louis, noted that he is taking Lockenour’s class online, a development foreseen in the article.

Driverless cars aren’t commonplace, but the technology is currently in development, other students said.

How accurate do you think the magazine article was? Do you have any predictions for how we’ll live in 2038? Let us know in the comments below, by tweeting @LANow or on our Local News Facebook page.

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-- Cindy Chang