Global urban futures
an experiment in the ‘collective book intelligence’
Global Urban Futures is a unique publishing project – it aims to ‘walk the talk’ – not only with academic studies of urban futures, but bringing to life a real-time ‘global urban foresight’ with a community of authors. This reflects better the fluid and dynamic nature of urban futures: it can respond better to new developments, and reflect the diversity of perspectives and channels.
The overall approach builds on the synergistic methods and framework of ‘collective urban intelligence’ ….
- Wider community of co-authors and co-creators, from academics together with policy, enterprise, civil society.
- Deeper layers of meaning and communication – not only academic text but visual and other media (accessed via the online knowledge platform)
- Further scope of change and transformation – beyond existing studies of urban futures, to active exploration of urban futures, in particular the transformational pathways which can turn visions into practice.
The book is generated in a structured program of enquiry and co-creation, exploring alternative future scenarios, and applying these with interactive knowledge mapping, story-lining and ‘visual imagineering’.
The process is quite simple….
- We host an international program of online forums / symposia on ‘urban futures – challenges & opportunities’. This follows the successful format of international online meetings in the Mind Lab.
- These forums are supported by knowledge mapping in several ways. There is a structured online set of workspaces in the Mural / Miro platform: system mapping via the Kumu platform: and for informal discussion, a unique and beautiful VR environment or ‘collaboratorium’, which houses a changing exhibition of ideas in progress.
- To start the writing process the editors provide a set of ‘urban future scenarios’, in text and creative story-lines / visual thinking, as a prompt for creative discussion, and linking device which runs through the whole production. These are developed from existing initiatives with colleagues from WEF, OECD, European Commission and UN Habitat.
- Participants / co-authors are invited to provide draft content in the form of ‘nuggets’ (500 words) or ‘pieces’ (1000-5000 words). These should fit around the proposed structure: they may reflect and respond to the scenarios where relevant: they may also link between different sections of the contents (e.g. between urban geographies and functions). The style may reflect the various audiences as below (academic, policy, civil society, creative thinkers).
- Each nugget / piece is uploaded, with online systems / concept mapping (in Mural.com & Kumu.io), so that participants / co-authors can explore new patterns, insights, synergies & inter-connections, both within the interactive sessions and in between.
- Visual thinking & visual storylines also respond to the contributions and the scenario developments. The combination aims to develop the overall ‘collective urban futures intelligence’ of the community of participants / co-authors, i.e. the capacity for collaborative learning, co-creation and co-production of knowledge and insight.
- Meetings for the main program are on a quarterly basis, with others as needed for key sections and topical issues.
Overall the ‘collective book intelligence’ is an experiment in progress, and it could evolve in different directions. On the digital side, there is endless potential in generative AI, virtual reality, social media mapping. On the human side, there is ethnographic futures, visual imagineering, synaesthetic stories, ‘reality-testing role-plays’, deep re-evaluation…
As of spring 2025 we are testing this innovation with Routledge (already agreed to a more mainstream version).
A 2025 launch event is in planning – details shortly…
