This webinar discussed city futures in a time of turbulence. It explored how strategic foresight tools like scenarios can help cities plan for uncertainty. Two scenarios for 2050 were presented: "City Societies" where cities replace nation states and "Affinity Groups" where society is organized around identity groups. The implications for implementing sustainable development goals and for a city like Nairobi were then discussed. The webinar emphasized how cities can build resilience and shape desired futures through participatory planning that considers a range of uncertainties and alternative scenarios.

1. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
City Futures in a Time of Turbulence
Unlocking Foresight
26 April 2017
© 2017 1

2. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Unlocking Foresight
• Strategic Foresight uses the disciplines
of anticipatory thinking to develop a
range of strategies and plans for the
long term view
• Unlocking the potential of Strategic
Foresight for the benefit of business,
government and society, both today
and for a better future.
• It delivers through services for people
in organisations who need to make
decisions
• Community
• The Foresight Hub
• Unlocking Foresight Events.
© 2017 2
http://unlockingforesight.org
info@unlockingforesight.org

3. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
• Atkins is one of the world’s most respected design, engineering
and project management consultancies. We build long-term
trusted partnerships to create a world where lives are enriched
through the implementation of our ideas.
• We are delighted to support the Unlocking Foresight webinar
series.
• Our Futures programme anticipates the outcomes of
megatrends such as climate change, urbanisation and
connectivity. It then uses this foresight to plan and design a
better future for all.
• http://www.atkinsglobal.com/en-GB/group/sectors-and-
services/services/future-proofing-cities
• http://www.atkinsglobal.com/en-GB/angles/all-angles
© 2017 3

4. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
4
OUR MISSION: We help policy-makers
and business leaders make strategic
choices, manage risk and create future-
ready organisations
OUR VISION: “Our vision is that individuals in organisations and
communities across the world use strategic foresight to improve
their lives professionally and personally”
Access latest expert advice
Connect and
mobilise
Build your capability
Gain insight about your
future environment
4
© 2017

5. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Welcome to the Webinar on
City Futures in a Time of Turbulence
Gill Ringland, CEO of SAMI Consulting and Director, Unlocking
Foresight, author, adviser to firms, NGOs and governments on
Foresight
Cat Tully, Director, School of International Futures, adviser to UN,
governments and civil society on Sustainability and Strategic
Foresight
5© 2017

6. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
City Futures
in a Time of turbulence
How can cities meet the needs of 9 billion people?
Gill Ringland
© 2017 6

7. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
City Futures
• Lots of focused projects/work/analysis, e.g.
• Arup - Future Cities: UK Capabilities For Urban Innovation
• Atkins Futures Programme
• UK Government Office for Science “Future of Cities” project
• EC Horizon 2020 Future Cities initiative across themes
• City III (to be published), Joe Ravetz, https://urban3.net/
• etc
• Many people are expert on the future of cities –
• in this webinar we are asking questions about the global context
• how might the world be
• what does this mean for cities?
© 2017 7

8. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
City Futures - agenda
• Timescales for change
• Dealing with uncertainties
• scenarios
• Sources of turbulence
• Break / Thoughts to date
• Handover to Cat Tully
• City and community
• Three applications of scenarios
• Implementing Sustainable
Development Goals
• Discussion / Q&A
© 2017 8

9. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Timescales for change
© 2017 9

10. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
TIME
PROMINENCE OF DRIVER
NOW LOOKING AHEAD DISTANT FUTURE
Horizon 1:
Analysis
Horizon 3:
Imagination
Horizon 2:
Exploration
Three Horizons
© 2017 10
2030 2050
Based on work by Andrew Curry & Bill Sharpe

11. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Assumptions - 2050
© 2017 11

12. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Assumptions - 2050
• Global population will grow to 9 BN and get older
• But its 9 BN + or – 2 BN
• Turbulence as the world rebalances to new centres of economic power away
from Europe and North America
• Technology (info, cogno, bio, nano) will continue to introduce changes
• Ecological, energy and environmental limits tested or breached
• 70 % of population lives in cities
• New middle class uses electricity, travels, eats meat
• Sea levels rise
© 2017 12

13. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Dealing with uncertainties
© 2017 13

14. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
“Thinking through [scenario] stories, and talking in depth about
their implications, brings each person’s unspoken assumptions
about the future to the surface. Scenarios are thus the most
powerful vehicles I know for challenging our ‘mental models’
about the world and lifting the ‘blinders’ that limit our
creativity and resourcefulness.” Peter Schwartz, The Art of the
Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World
If I always appear prepared, it is because before
entering on an undertaking, I have meditated for long
and have foreseen what may occur.”
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769-1821
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is
absurd.” Voltaire
In preparing for battle,
I have always found that
plans are useless …
but planning is
indispensable.
Planning in the face of Uncertainty
© 2017 14

15. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Forecasts and scenarios
© 2017 15
Today Trends
Scenarios explore
the range of
uncertainties
Timing ?
Forecasts are over-precise

16. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Scenarios from “In Safe Hands”
• Scenarios developed by SAMI to
develop longer term views of
the future
• Since used by Banks and Asset
Managers, Dairy Marketing,
Supply Chain Managers …
samiconsulting.co.uk/5insafehands.pdf
© 2017 16

17. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Four scenarios for 2050
© 2017 17
New forms of governance
No change
Virtual connectionsGeography matters
Affinity GroupsCity Societies
Second Hand Globalisation

18. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Sources of turbulence
© 2017 18

19. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
What sources of turbulence?
• What could cause a break in the global system?
• We will take a 2 minute break
• After the break, Cat Tully will pick up the story of city futures in a
time of turbulence
© 2017 19

20. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Any Questions?
© 2017 20

21. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Cities and community
• Build resilience: acknowledge and prepare for different alternative futures
• Shape and co-create a desired future
• Create future-ready organisations and communities through participation
© 2017 21

22. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Assumptions - 2050
© 2017 22

23. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
City Societies
• Society has re-formed by 2050 around city states
• Cities as wealth clusters “brands”
• Failure of nation states
• Democracy, capitalism and western values competing with other organising
concepts, UN etc disappear
• Cities may co-operate or may be at war
• Global commons abandoned
• Conflicts in values, fewer implicit norms
• Impact on Sustainable Development Goals
© 2017 23

24. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Affinity Groups
• Society has re-formed by 2050 around affinity groups
• Multiple value systems accommodated
• Democracy not seen as universal good
• Complex arrangements of nation states and communities of affinity groups
• How do international issues get addressed
• e.g. regulation
• e.g. systemic challenges
• e.g Sustainable Development Goals
© 2017 24

25. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
What does this mean for cities?
• If turbulence causes breakdown of nation
states (“Affinity” or “City Societies”) – or not
(“Second hand”)…?
• What levers are there in the new political
environment?
• How do Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) get
implemented without nation states?
© 2017 25
Ban Ki-Moon: Former UN SG
Dimensions City Societies Affinity Groups Second Hand
Politics Better local services Global links within ethnic
group
Assumes a coherent nation
state
Society Suburb, school friends Family or diaspora Collaborate with other
immigrants, householders, etc
Use of tech Build community
cohesion
Trade across distance Based on personal advantage
SDGs C40 type initiatives Via trade links within
ethnic group
UN supporting nation states

26. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
What does this mean for Nairobi?
• City Societies
• The languages used are Swahili and English by all ethnic groups
• Political links are within suburb to get better services and with other cities
with common interests eg defence, sharing technology, trade
• Societal links built in local schools
• Technology used to create community coherence
• SDGs approached via C40 type initiatives with other fast growing
mega-cities
• Affinity Groups
• There are 40 ethnic African groups, plus many people of Arab, Indian, Asian, European descent
• Political links strong outside Kenya to other African countries and to Indian, Arab communities
• Societal coherence with family group, cautious tolerance of neighbours
• Technology used to link to/trade with members of own ethnicity
• SDGs approached via trade links within ethnic groups
• Second Hand
• There are 68 languages spoken in Nairobi, 40 ethnic African groups, many people of Arab, Indian, Asian, European
descent
• Politics does not explicitly recognise ethnicity
• Society based on co-operation with people with similar aims eg new immigrants, established traders
• Technology use based on a willingness to pay
• SDGs supported by UN, working with Kenya government, derailed by interest groups
© 2017 26

27. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Sustainable Development Goals
– a progressive vision for cities
© 2017 27
• SDG 11 - ”Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and
sustainable”
• “No one left behind”.
• Foundational goals 16 and 17, in particular, challenge
us to build “effective, accountable and inclusive
institutions” and act in “global partnership,
cooperation and sustainability”

28. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Creating future-prepared communities
• Building future-readiness and adaptability
• Trends, Complexity, Participation:
• India’s urban population is expected to grow to
814 million by 2050, with 40 percent of the
population turning 40-plus by 2030
• Will create huge pressure on infrastructure and
communities – 10 of the 20 most polluted cities
• We can act now to develop sustainable
solutions: consider opportunities
• Size of cities, narrative of city
• Interdependencies
• Managing the human and the technology
• New initiatives
© 2017 28

29. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
Discussion points
• Do you spend enough time preparing or thinking about the future?
• What do you think could cause a break in the global system leading
to the two scenarios we discussed?
• What are the key risks you see to your work from those two
scenarios?
• What types of responses and capabilities might work to help you
prepare for a different future?
© 2017 29

30. Unlocking Foresight
Webinar Series
1: City Futures in a
Time of Turbulence
For more on scenarios, contact info@unlockingforesight.org for
further information or visit our web site www.unlockingforesight.org
For more on the School of International Futures and to use strategic
foresight in SDGs and cities, contact cat@soif.org
Thank You
© 2017 30