Dissecting the urban(ized) binoculars. ´looking at´ urban futures

Abstract

In current discourses and practices, the future and the urban are frequently connected: our society’s future is expected to be urban and accordingly, the anticipation of futures for our cities and urbansociety-to-come proliferates (e.g. Glaeser, 2011; Gleeson, 2012). In the practices and processes of such urban futuring, the discipline of urban planning plays a central role. By its very nature and functionality, urban planning engages with the not yet of the city (a.o. Conell, 2009. Hiller and Heakey, 2016). Indeed, today, urban planners together with a diverse range of stakeholders increasingly engage in anticipations for our urban futures: how will our cities and the urban-society-to-come look like? an urban planner looks forward in time, to have some kind of impression of what the urban future might bring, and subsequently, hopes to influence and give direction to that future through the decisions and actions of planning in the present (Connell, 2009). Alongside and combined with more standardized procedures and tools, planners today have a variety of foresight methods and techniques at their disposal for their anticipatory action, ranging from forecasting and backcasting to envisioning and scenario-making (e.g. Ratcliffe and Krawczyk, 2011).