Pictures from the 1939 New York World's Fair (2017)

Exhibitions were primarily organised by countries, which tend to be more particular about some specific culture than visionary about the future.

The theme was "Better city, better life" (subtly different than the Chinese version, which was "Cities make life better"). Technologies demonstrated are far from cutting edge, something like internet-connected air conditioners and large touch-screens.

I think either the Danes or the Dutch put some bikes in their exhibition, which you can ride and feel what it's like to ride in their cities, which is rather fun (a precursor to the current VR hype perhaps?).

I would partially agree but it's more nuanced than that.

The high speed trains in China are impressive projects but could also be used as form of control over people who live outside the cities.

Also going cashless is not necessarily a good thing. There is a loss of anonymity in having every transaction be digitally handled. Also, another form of control.

My apologies for my dystopian view. But not all modern advances are necessarily good.

That's more of a factor of population density and distribution than anything else. There's few places in the US where high speed rail makes sense compared to airplanes.

Oh yeah, we all know why.

still not clear to me how one gets from one building to another without a car.