Rolling into the future...by RM Greenaway

The world is changing faster than you can write - technologically, politically, environmentally etc. How do roll with the changes in your fiction? 
I often wish I had set my series in an alternate reality. There could be old-style telephone booths alongside solar highways, and you could smoke wherever you want. Imagine the freedom? Imagine not having to spend hours studying bylaws and maps, zooming in and out of Google Earth, trying to decide where you can realistically place your shooter...