The market of tomorrow

It took 250 years from the founding of the first English settlement for the population in the United States to reach 30,000,000 (1607 to 1857). It took only ten years (1950 to 1960) for the population in the United States to add the last 30,000,- 000. At least another 30,000,000 will be added by the end of the 1960s in the United States alone and several more millions in Canada. The total market in terms of people in North America may well exceed 250,000,000 by the early 1970's.
People with purchasing power create markets. The average family income at this particular stage in our history approximates $6,000 in the United States and Canada. Shortly, this is expected to rise to $7,300, and eventually more than $8,500. There will be close to 60,000,000 families in the United States alone. The total purchasing power of the people will, therefore, rise to almost incredible totals.
But changes in the number of dollars and in the number of people are not the only changes anticipated in tomorrow's markets. Indeed, the next ten years are expected to bring about more marketing changes than were witnessed in the entire first fifty years of the twentieth century.
In performing its function of supplying the needs of a changing market, marketing, of necessity, changed with the changing social, economic, and sociological needs of the nation. The change from city living to suburban living brought about great changes in housing, in mode of living, in transportation, in ideas of what constituted status, and, above all, in products built for consumer convenience and consumer comfort.
Many marketing observers feel that changes in the decade ahead will equal or surpass those of the previ¬ous decade. This will be especially felt in homes and home building, in products needed to meet the new sociological and psychological needs of the people, in transportation, entertainment, education and in personal care (including health, beauty, and grooming care). Marketing students see the need for a large number of new products to save time and to make living more convenient and pleasant.
Among the changes foreseen for the immediate future is a large-scale urban redevelopment. Some of the factors leading to the exodus from the city to the suburbs were the congestion, the near breakdown of transportation, the deterioration of housing, and the changing needs of schooling and education.
With giant urban redevelopment will come new markets for all types of things-household goods, school equipment, hospital and medical equipment, new forms of rapid transportation, new types of stores, new traffic facilities and new centers of distribution to avoid delays, congestion and waste. New channels of distribution will have to be developed, new marketing policies evolved, new tactics and programs established.