Urban futures: planning for city foresight and city visions

Timothy J. Dixon and Mark Tewdwr-Jones used the Covid-19 crisis most effectively by composing this book on Urban Futures. They both used their experiences and engagement with two city ‘futuring’ programmes in the UK, one being Reading 2050, the other Newcastle City Futures 2065, to reflect thoroughly on the role of visioning for urban planning. As we know from the writings of Mark Tewdwr-Jones and Tim Dixon, all chapters are not only well structured and provide elaborate lines of argumentation, but they are also an equally good read and are accompanied by a range of supporting figures, tables and explanatory boxes, adding many ‘visual’ elements. Last, frequent quotes from art, literature and poems provide extra stimulus to explore the concept of visioning. In the foreword, Sir Alan Wilson from the Alan Turing Institute highlights a further quality of the book. According to him, Tim Dixon and Mark Tewdwr-Jones create a much-needed trinity in planning: ‘Foresight’ is rooted in the articulation of problems and objectives – policy. ‘Visioning’ is design thinking for the city of the future. And third, the argumentation of the book is rooted in the new sciences of or for cities, providing ample analysis.

To state it already here, I cannot agree more with that. The book provides a framework to discuss visioning and strategizing for cities and urban regions, not only from an academic but also even more so from a planning practice point of view, developing an analysis, design and policy perspective as suggested by Wilson. Altogether eleven chapters structure the content, opened by a general introduction that addresses urban futures and city visions. Chapters two to five provide the analytical perspective with the themes: urban challenges, views on the future from the past and present, governing the future city, smart and sustainable narratives. Chapters six and seven provide a conceptual framework and the methodological grounding through foresight. This is followed by the case studies on Reading and Newcastle as well, in chapter nine, on experimental city projects. Chapter ten sets out on a reality check, though a slightly misleading section title, as the reader follows the meandering walk of the authors through historic accounts of cities and their grandeur, through reflections by other authors from the urban field, through chapter summaries, arriving at suggestions regarding urban visioning in an uncertain urban age – ultimately inviting to search for ‘broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams’ (closing the chapter with a quote from the San Francisco Journalist Herb Caen, 1967). And finally, in chapter eleven, a conclusion and outlook beyond 2050 is provided.

So, what are the core messages of Urban Futures developed by city foresight and city visions? The main call is for ‘participatory-based city visions’ based on ‘urban futures thinking’ reflecting the ‘Eigenart’ or the unique characteristics of a place. Let us start with the interesting use of a German term. ‘Eigenart’ was originally used as a key conceptual term in a massive report to the German Government by the Advisory Council on Global Change from 2016 (WBGU – German Advisory Council on Global Change 2016). In contrast to that report, Tim Dixon and Mark Tewdwr-Jones use ‘Eigenart’ in a descriptive (past and present) way, leaving out the more interesting normative interpretation (future). Back then, the WBGU positioned the ‘Eigenart’ in the context of the Leipzig Charter (2007), which calls for similar orientations, but which WBGU also critizised for being European-centric and leaving out a more differentiated planetary perspective. The same might apply as mild critique to this book. The United Nations, World Bank and others provide many references and vision examples from places like Johannesburg or Saudi Arabia have been included for the analysis. However, the book largely works with a UK and European perspective, using mostly Anglo-American academic literatures. An extension into other possible ‘Eigenarten’ would have been a welcome addition. Now I go to the last point, the participatory-based city visions. Tim Dixon and Mark Tewdwr-Jones are aware that the future is open, in principle and not perceivable, no matter which elaborate techniques or high-end data processing we command. They are equally aware of the risk of closed futures, as can be learned from many utopian projects. It is therefore only consequent, to favour participatory-based vision processes, not least if ‘Eigenart’ shall provide guidance from a normative perspective. I think quite many planners are in favour of such thinking. However, that will not be possible without conflict, as establishing a characteristic future for any place will be filled with diverse views on what the future entails for billions of citizens. Tim Dixon and Mark Tewdwr-Jones are not blind to that, either. However, in my view that element requires further advancements to fully explore the creative capacity of futuring processes and to step outside our own comfort zones to create the futures that need to be.