Thinking about the future of health and cities in the Anthropocene

ABSTRACT

How we think about the future – including the future of cities and of health – is of great importance. As we enter the Anthropocene, we need to understand how environmental, social, political, cultural and technological forces may shape the future. Alternative futures or scenarios are a useful way to think about the future, and explore possible, plausible and preferable future conditions; the Futures Cone is one way to visualise these alternatives. Based on an understanding of the driving forces, alternative future scenarios may include extrapolative or ‘business as usual’ scenarios; challenging scenarios that include various forms of collapse; and visionary or transformational scenarios that build equity and sustainability. They also enable and encourage a consideration of the underlying values inherent in each scenario. Considering the implications for health and health equity within a scenario is important in our work, and in the context of healthy cities. Preferable futures, when they include commitment to creating them, become shared visions, a projection of values into the future. Rooted in the concept of ‘anticipatory democracy’, our approach has been to help people understand and imagine what may happen, but then to look at their preferred future and what it will take to get there.

KEYWORDS:

• Health
• cities
• Anthropocene
• scenarios
• futurism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This article draws in part on our chapter for the book Healthy Cities – The Theory, Policy, and Practice of Value‐Based Urban Health Planning (Hancock et al. 2017)

Additional information

Funding

No external funding was used in support of this article.

Notes on contributors

Trevor Hancock

Trevor Hancock is a public health physician and health promotion consultant and a retired professor of public health and social policy at the University of Victoria in Canada. One of the originators of the modern Healthy Cities and Communities concept, he has also worked as a health futurist for many years. He has worked as a consultant with the Institute for Alternative Futures, the WHO and other organisations over the years on a variety of futures projects. In 1993 he worked with Clem Bezold on the background paper for WHO’s first consultation on health futures.

Clem Bezold

Clem Bezold, Ph.D., is Co-Founder of the Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF). Bezold established IAF with Alvin Toffler and James Dator in 1977 to encourage “anticipatory democracy” and foresight. At IAF he co-developed IAF’s unique ‘aspirational futures’ approach, which explores both likely or plausible futures and visionary or preferred scenarios.  He has worked with communities; the healthy cities movement; and governors, legislatures, and court systems around the U.S.  And he has done foresight consulting with many U.S., Canadian, and UK agencies;  large corporations and foundations; the European Commission; and the World Health Organization.