Future Londoners – Nesta

Future Londoners is a series of imaginary London residents of the future that were created as a collaboration “between Arup, Social Life, Re.Work, Commonplace, Tim Maughan and Nesta.”  The series of future Londoners was created as a way of exploring and informing the design of a smarter London.

While much popular futures exploration likes to focus on technologies of the future, this work looks at the lives of future Londoners. It’s a great way of understanding the implications of future developments. This work reminds me of a foresight project I worked on a few years ago that explored what the econony of the province of Ontario might look like a couple of decades from now. Four future scenarios were created that explored possible futures. While the worlds described in each scenario were interesting and thought provoking, now that time has passed it’s really the people who populated the scenarios that remain with me. It reinforces for me that while a shiny new toy might light up the future, it’s the impact of that toy on society, and on individuals in particular that carries greater interest. Wish I could point to the Economic Futures for Ontario scenarios but unfortunately they aren’t public.