Wodiczko Reading

This appears to have been published in 1997, and it's very surprising to me that at that time immigration was the highest since the 18th century immigration influx. I wonder what specifically changed from that time until now to prevent cities from having more foreign born residents than Americans as he wrote would happen by 2010 (with no evidence or references). I didn't really understand what he was talking about with the stranger object. I mostly understood the concept of it, but what kind of object is this? I wasn't sure if this was a proposal or a theoretical concept idea. The diagram of it that was included made it look pretty preposterous. He didn't really seem to consider the practical use of it. From what I got it was a very creative idea though.