Most cities plan for the future as if it were a slightly improved version of the present. More homes, more roads, more jobs, more tourists – linear projections of existing trends, calculated with the precision of those who believe they know what is going to happen. The problem lies not in the method, but in the premise. Projecting the future as an extension of the present works as long as the present behaves as expected; when it stops behaving that way, the plan becomes a museum piece.
The problem with conventional urban planning
Urban planning operates on certainties that do not exist. It projects population growth based on the last twenty years, without considering that patterns of mobility, work and housing are undergoing structural change. It defines industrial zones without taking into account that the profile of industry is transforming; it projects tourism demand without considering climate scenarios that could completely alter a destination’s appeal.
The result is masterplans that become outdated before they are implemented, masterplans that become museum pieces, development strategies that do not survive a change in context—be it economic, regulatory, behavioural or environmental.
Conventional place branding treats the future as a fixed horizon: it defines a positioning and bets that the world around it will have the decency not to change. A uniqueness built for a specific future becomes vulnerable when another future emerges.
What it means to prepare a city for multiple futures
Preparing a city for uncertain futures is not about predicting what will happen. It is about building the capacity to make good decisions regardless of what happens.
This involves three simultaneous movements. The first is to deeply understand the present, not as a starting point for a linear projection, but as a field of signals about what is changing. Trends in urban behaviour, emerging signs of economic transformation, regulatory uncertainties, climate change – all of this is happening now, and most cities lack the structure to interpret it systematically.
The second is to explore possible futures, not to choose the most likely one, but to understand the spectrum of possibilities and the implications of each. What happens to the city if remote working becomes established and high-income professionals decide to migrate to smaller cities? What if tax reform structurally alters the flow of business tourism? What if a severe drought compromises water availability for two years?
The third is to make decisions in the present that are robust across multiple scenarios, rather than optimised for a single expected future. This does not eliminate strategic risk – every decision is a gamble – but it reduces vulnerability by spreading the risk across scenarios.
Place Strategic Foresight© as a methodology
Place Strategic Foresight© is the methodology developed by N/Lugares Futuros to apply this thinking to cities, regions and territories. It starts from the identity of the place, not from an abstract vision of the future, and uses the exploration of five groups of futures to structure strategic decisions in the present.
Projected future: what happens if nothing changes. Probable futures: what current trends indicate will happen. Plausible futures: what may happen based on what we already know. Possible futures: what may happen based on what we do not yet know. Preferred futures: what the city wants to happen. Absurd futures: what seems impossible, but pushes the boundaries of conventional thinking and reveals hidden vulnerabilities.
This exploration is not mere speculation; it is a structured process that combines signal analysis, scenario building and backcasting: working backwards from the preferred futures to identify which decisions need to be taken now to make them possible.
What N/LF delivers in this process
N/LF’s process with cities seeking to prepare for uncertain futures begins with building the foundation: the place’s strategic identity, its strengths and its uniqueness. Without this foundation, foresight has no starting point, and explores futures that have nothing to do with what the place genuinely is.
From there, the process involves co-creative workshops with managers, local leaders and the community, because the intelligence regarding a place’s future is distributed amongst the people who live there, not concentrated in external experts. Co-creation is fundamental: futures that the community has helped to imagine are far more likely to be pursued with genuine commitment.
The result is a set of visions of the future, structured scenarios and strategic recommendations for the present – not a rigid plan, but a navigational tool that enhances management’s decision-making capacity over time.
Cities that fail to prepare pay the price
Cities that operate solely in reactive mode, responding to crises after they have struck and adjusting strategies after the context has changed, are always one step behind. They miss windows of opportunity because they failed to anticipate them. They suffer more from crises because they had no alternatives prepared. They make emergency decisions that compromise the long term.
The relevant question is not whether your city will face an uncertain future. It will; they all will. The question is whether it will arrive at those futures with a clear identity, having explored scenarios and made strategic decisions, or whether it will be caught off guard.
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