A civic design project
What if we designed America for 2050?
Make an extraordinary life achievable for an ordinary American.
Andy Schultz
Founder, AMERICA 2050
Why I built this
For years, I've watched American leadership struggle to move the country forward. I created AMERICA 2050 to explore what America could become if we rebuilt what has eroded and redesigned the system around the individual actually benefiting from the growth they help create.
I believe America can do better. Not through another political fight, but through a real, testable vision for what could work. As a UX designer, I've taken a product approach: define the problem, design the system, test the assumptions, measure the outcomes, and improve it.
About Andy
I'm a UX designer and design leader with more than 20 years of experience designing products and systems. Born and raised in La Crosse, Wisconsin, I spent more than two decades in Chicago and now live in Ohio. I'm married to a Filipina, and we have twin girls, a Rottweiler, and a cat. Outside of work, I enjoy reading, the outdoors, and hot yoga.
The test
If this works, Americans should be able to feel the difference in their everyday lives. That's why AMERICA 2050 ultimately measures itself against one question:
Are people's lives actually getting better?
Available
If there's an opportunity for your organization to help build or execute this plan, I'd love to talk. Reach me at ande.schultz@gmail.com.
What if America worked differently?
Many of the problems Americans experience today are treated as permanent.
- Housing that's too expensive to reach.
- Healthcare that costs too much to trust.
- Work disrupted by technology, with no real plan for what's next.
- Wealth concentrated among fewer people every year.
- Government that moves too slowly to keep up.
- Citizens with too little influence between elections.
- Infrastructure that isn't keeping pace with what America is capable of building.
What if they weren't inevitable?
The 2050 american life
A snapshot of an ordinary day, if the architecture works as intended.
- 7:30 AMHome
- An affordable, energy-efficient home in a walkable neighborhood.
- Low energy costs.
- 8:00 AMWork
- Meaningful work.
- AI handles the routine tasks; human judgment stays central.
- 12:30 PMHealth
- Preventive care catches problems early, before they become expensive ones.
- 3:00 PMEducation
- Their kid learns with an AI tutor, working alongside teachers and classmates, not instead of them.
- 5:30 PMCommunity
- A walk or bike ride home.
- Less time commuting, more time with the people who matter.
- 7:00 PMOwnership
- They check their growing ownership stake — not just a paycheck, a piece of what they're building.
- 9:00 PMTime
- Room left over for family, community, and rest.
This is not a prediction. It's a design target.
The vision, made specific
What actually changes for you
Six shifts. Each one names today's reality, the target, and what it looks like when it's working — with the principle it comes from.
Today
Where you're born and what your parents earn is still the strongest predictor of where you'll end up.
Tomorrow
Circumstances at birth don't determine your ceiling.
For example
A retirement account opens at birth for every American-born child, and at citizenship for every immigrant — through a naturalization process measured in months, not years, and celebrated as the national milestone it is.
Democratic OpportunityToday
The biggest technology gains flow to shareholders first, workers and citizens second, if at all.
Tomorrow
Technology expands what's possible, not just what's profitable.
For example
A warehouse worker whose job gets automated gets funded retraining and an ownership stake in what replaces it, not just a severance check.
Technology Should Expand Human OpportunityToday
A permit, a claim, or a benefit can take months, sometimes years, to move through the system.
Tomorrow
Government actually works, and works quickly.
For example
Renewing a small business license takes an afternoon online instead of a six-week wait for a rubber stamp.
Make Democracy FastToday
A handful of dominant companies increasingly set the terms in the industries that matter most.
Tomorrow
Markets compete relentlessly to create wealth.
For example
A new insulin maker can enter the market and compete on price, because the rules stop one incumbent from locking out challengers.
Competitive CapitalismToday
Most people trade their time for a paycheck with no lasting stake in the value their work creates.
Tomorrow
Citizens own part of the future they're building.
For example
Every employee at a growing company holds real equity in it, not just the founders and early investors.
Broad-Based OwnershipToday
Concentrated wealth increasingly buys concentrated political influence, and the two reinforce each other.
Tomorrow
No concentration of wealth or political power can capture the system.
For example
The largest company in the country still answers to the same courts, elections, and antitrust laws as everyone else.
No Private Sovereignty7 national values
Values
The commitments the whole architecture is built on — from freedom to stewardship.
Freedom · Justice · Opportunity
Explore20 principles
Principles
How the values translate into a working theory of government, markets, and power.
Democratic Opportunity · Broad-Based Ownership · Distributed Power
ExploreOne interactive map
Architecture
From north star to measurement — the full hierarchy, and how it holds together.
North Star → Values → Principles → Outcomes
ExploreWe have a direction. We don't have all the answers.
Every principle here is a hypothesis, marked in the language of design, not certainty.
- Design target
- Open question
- Counterargument
- Tradeoff
- Measurement
- Experiment
- Revision