What would 30’s scifi/pulp, noir be without a World’s Fair?
I don’t think they still have these. I remember them as late as the 1980’s, but haven’t heard of them since.
Do they still exist in some form.
If not, why did they end?
They do still exist, and, in fact, there’s one going on now: the 2005 World Expo, in Aichi, Japan.
http://www-1.expo2005.or.jp/en/
Here’s a link to the US Pavillion:
Our main exhibit this year is “the Franklin Spirit”, where Ben Franklin takes visitors through the technological and social advances that have taken place since the 1700s.
BTW, the next to World Fairs/World Expos will be held in Zaragoza, Spain, in 2008, and Shanghai, China, in 2010. They’re licensed by the Bureau International des Expositions, an international body headquartered in Paris.
The 82 World’s Fair in Knoxville was not exactly a hit.
The '86 World’s Fair/Expo in Vancouver, B.C. was awesome! It was on the last leg of our honeymoon in Canada. Left Coast rulez!
I suppose the question now becomes, why don’t we hear about world’s fairs anymore, even though they evidently exist?
Maybe that applies to people in North America, since there hasn’t been one here in so long. Fairs at Seattle, New York, and Montreal were reasonably accessible to many people living here. It wasn’t all that unusual to know somebody who’d been, if you didn’t get to go yourself. On the other hand, having to cross an ocean is rather a deal breaker. In the first place, there are fewer people with the financial means to do so; moreover, I think if you do have the chance to make an overseas trip, you might want to experience an exotic land in its ‘natural’ state, that is, without the pandemonium and crowds of a huge international event superimposed on it. So you decide to go somewhere else. End result? Hardly anyone from here goes, so you don’t hear about it.
I went to Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany. 
I think that Worlds’ Fairs or Expos are less prominent for a number of reasons. [ul][]Because of modern communications technologies, they aren’t as necessary in being showplaces of the new as they once were. []In North America, we* aren’t in that utopîan “future’s so great, I gotta wear shades” mode anymore; many US residents especially seem to be looking backwards to a better past.[/ul][sub]*Most of us, that is. I may not be ampong the crowd here.[/sub]
Are there any US or Canadian cities that currently want a world’s fair?
According to www.expomuseum.com
there are some US and canadian cities interested in a worlds fair but nothing decided.
Wigsphere!
A World’s Fair can only be a temporary thing…a different year, a different city.
A more permanent location becomes a theme park; a resort.
EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World, anyone?