Positive Futures

Abstract

We describe the rationale and framework for developing scenarios of positive urban futures. The scenario framework is conducted in participatory workshop settings and composed of three distinct scenario approaches that are used to (1) explore potential outcomes of existing planning goals (strategic scenarios), (2) articulate visions that address pressing resilience challenges (adaptive scenarios), and (3) envision radical departures from the status quo in the pursuit of sustainability and equity (transformative scenarios). A series of creative and analytical processes are used to engage the community in imagining, articulating, and scrutinizing visions and pathways of positive futures. The approach offers an alternative and complement to traditional forecasting techniques by applying inspirational stories to resilience research and practice.

Recipe for a scenario: Moving from vision to actionable pathways towards sustainable futures

“…The Sustainable Future Scenarios (SFS) framework stands out for its explicit focus on scenarios for urban systems. Based on empirical work by researchers and practitioners in different cities across the Americas, the SFS framework offers a theoretical basis for the co-production of scenarios and pathways tied to interventions that foster positive transformation toward sustainability (Iwaniec et al 2020; Iwaniec et al 2021; Mannetti et al 2021). Given that it has been developed with a focus on urban environments, SFS argues for the careful consideration of the different aspects that are critical for cities.…”

“…Therefore, the SFS framework builds upon the notion of cities as social-ecological-technological systems with an ecological-biophysical domain, a social-economic domain, and a technological-infrastructural domain (McPhearson et al 2022). The framework is long-term oriented, and it has been applied to time horizons that consider the year 2060 or 2080 (or 40–60 years in the future) for the realization of the scenario (Iwaniec et al 2020; Mannetti et al 2021).…”

“…As an outcome of our critical review, we identify a methodological gap — the lack of published tools to support the facilitation of scenarios workshops (Sharpe et al 2016; Hichert et al 2021). We highlight a few recently published notable exceptions where workshop processes, methods, guiding questions and activities have been detailed and outlined, such as Pereira et al (2021), Pereira (2021), Mannetti et al (2021), Lazurko and Keys (2022), Van Den Ende et al (2021), Hichert, Biggs and Preiser (2019). The practicalities of how to implement scenario planning processes and workshops are essential to support their use by stakeholders yet remain underreported in the literature, hampering the potential for scenario planning to facilitate progress in research-based actions within a given system or place.…”

Frameworks to envision equitable urban futures in a changing climate: A multi-level, multidisciplinary case study of New York City

“…Further, our review brings together scientific traditions from different eras: while traditional demographic methods to project the future (for global, national and even state and local application) date back more than half a century (Smith et al, 2006); the SSP framework is a little over a decade old (Moss et al, 2010;O'Neill et al, 2014), with spatially-explicit demographic projections following thereafter; and the work of participatory visioning is even more recent (Iwaniec et al, 2021). Our review has selected examples from these different traditions respecting their scientific roots but also offering promise for modification with interdisciplinary collaboration in the future.…”

“…Such negative discourse around urban futures can leave little reason to invest in long-term social and environmental goods, nor does it recognize the vast possibility within existing creativity and innovation at all levels that already drive much of development in cities. Positive visions, in contrast, are critical to guide urban planning, motivate actions, inspire innovative strategies, and move toward transformative change (Iwaniec et al, 2021;. In response, methods to work with stakeholders to develop alternative resilient, desirable scenarios have been developed (Iwaniec et al, 2020a;Cook et al, 2021) that allow for diverse stakeholder perspectives to be articulated as qualitative futures which can also then be translated into quantitative futures.…”