1972 Weinstock Postermap of a Dystopian United States in 2000

This 1972 Postermap of the United States in the year 2000 is a bleakly satirical prediction of the state of the country and the world of the near future. The map, produced 28 years before the subject's date (a mere 24 years ago), depicts a dystopian America corporatized, urbanized, paved, littered, irradiated, automated, and yet insatiable.

A Closer Look

The map presents the continental United States in caricature, with glimpses of the rest of the world at its fringes. Within its bounds, sprawl has utterly erased state boundaries, replacing them with urban agglomerations such as the East Coast's New Washyorkton and San D'Angelisco on the West Coast. The new, massive cities are linked by superhighways stacked three levels deep. These are served by parking lots filling almost every nook and cranny of the country, and piles of wrecked cars tower as high, or higher, than the tallest towers. Highways even span the oceans, although the one leading to Hawaii announces that the island paradise is 'CLOSED FOR REFABRICATION.'

Amber Waves of Well Never Mind

The mapmakers were not optimistic about the environment. Motorists here enjoy scenic vistas helpfully provided on massive roadside billboards, but actual nature has dwindled: there is but one (filthy) Great Lake, for example, and the 'Adirondack Forest Preserve' consists of one dead tree and a stump. The Yellowstone Teton National Park contains one tree. Travelers can stop to appreciate a multiplicity of monuments dedicated to species driven to extinction, notably including the Bald Eagle and, improbably the Canada Goose. The reader can infer that the air is no longer breathable: most of the figures depicted on the map are wearing futuristic bubble helmets, and there are billboard advertisements for bottled air. Another billboard pitches a cleanser - 'cleans things old-fashioned white' which turns out to be H2SO4: Sulfuric Acid. In the heartland of America is 'AgriKorp' featuring monolithic arcologies of multilevel grain and cattle farms; its massive fields are fenced off with warnings: 'KEEP OUT! Delicate Plants and Livestock' but also 'DANGER! Toxic Chemicals.' Ominously dotting the landscape are luminous bulbs indicating nuclear power plants: a massive one in the southwest sports a billboard reading 'safe clean power' while piping radioactive waste into a next-door preserve whose fence reads 'NO ENTRY FOR 24,000 YRS.' In the north part of the map, a space-age Noah can be seen leading pairs of surviving animals aboard a rocket ship ark.

Selling Everything

Companies are shown throughout, monetizing the common wealth of the nation. Massive bulldozers labeled 'U.S. Natl' Resource Co.' grind up the landscape. Another labeled 'Yellowstone Teton Lumber Co.' menaces that national park's sole surviving tree. The Gulf of Mexico itself is incorporated, with its oil wells surrounded by barbed wire. Lake Superior is no longer a lake; it's a car dealership.

No Better Over There

Other countries can be glimpsed across oceans further decorated with memorials to extinct whales and pelicans. But they offer no haven: the European horizon is marred by smoke-belching factories; likewise, the factories surrounding a smoke-wreathed Mount Fuji are busy, no doubt supplying products for the 'S.S. Maiden Japan,' sailing the Pacific to bring us more stuff. At the United States' southern border can be seen a medieval wall and moat, guarded by bubble-helmeted cowboys, soldiers, and cops. Space, too, is no escape: The passengers of a rocket leaving Florida's Okeechobee Airport can be seen watching what looks to be a cowboy movie on television; the orbiting space station 'S.S. Pluribus Unum' hosts a corporate meeting discussing rocketing 'Gross Corporate Product', while spewing a trail of even more garbage in its wake.

Across the north pole, a Russian can be seen brandishing a missile. Nothing ever changes.

Publication History and Census

This cheerful map was published by the United States Map Company in 1972. It was created by Sidney Kalcheim under the guidance of art director Howard Weinstock and drawn by artist Dirk Wunderlich. We are aware of a sole edition. We see one example in the Osher Map Library.