Postcard from Space If you had told Franklin Roosevelt that Americans would soon be walking on the moon, he would surely have thought you were joking. The mainframe computer suddenly makes it a reality.

	Latest Tech Marvels Photos of the early days of computers, like these, appear laughable quaint today. But ten years earlier, they would have seemed fanciful dreaming.
	New Sounds The Beatles are breaking up after releasing their ground-breaking Abbey Road album, and Jimi Hendrix has overdosed, but barriers keep tumbling down in the music industry. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin continue to push sonic boundaries, while the Grateful Dead stage concerts that seem to never end. Meanwhile, digital effects come into their own in the first Star Wars movie, in 1977.
	World of Their Own As drugs continue to permeate college campuses, and even high schools, America's youth generation is on a tear. Parents are losing control.
	End of an Era? New York throws up the last of its great skyscrapers when the World Trade Center shoots skyward above the Financial District. But the towers struggle to find tenants, as New York slides into decline. The city barely avoids default and bankruptcy in 1975, after President Ford declines to provide a federal bailout, prompting a famous headline (lower left). Still, the swank restaurant on the top of the Trade Towers provides a splendid view, and is always packed. In Detroit, the Renaissance Center is another bold attempt to revitalize a great American city, after 20 years of declining population related to increasing automation in the auto industry. In later years, it too struggles with vacancy.
	Spreading Contagion The problems in New York and Detroit are symptomatic of a more general decline of cities all across the Northeast. Most are bleeding residents to surrounding suburbs, where crime is low, and graffiti doesn't bloom overnight on every vertical surface. in the map above, the ORANGE shows the extent of urban sprawl, while the RED indicates decay in urban centers. With manufacturing in decline all over America, cities that were built upon an earlier manufacturing boom find themselves saddled with structures and housing units that are no longer needed.