Conflicting Scenarios Exercise

I have been proposing that, rather than trying to foresee the future, we consider accepting and conducting further research on a much more fundamental, all-encompassing and long-term-resilient approach to our built environment.  I have been proposing that such an elemental approach should be structural adaptivity.  I believe that our world must and will give maximum adaptivity to the basic elements of our built environment to adjust to and meet our needs for the unpredictable, rapidly changing world over the next 50-100 years. 

In working on this, I conducted an Exercise.  I experimented with a number of different future conditions, or scenarios, that I think are quite possible.  The first two that drew my strongest concern were the conflicting scenarios of: (1) how planners might address our urban areas after global warming has abated – and the problem is continuous hot weather and more storms – as opposed to (2) how planners are now addressing the need to stop or slow down global warming.  I also experimented with additional scenarios that I do not think we are able to, presently, forecast accurately.  Most of them, however, I believe will surface eventually, in one way or another, and cause huge problems.

I have labeled these scenarios as “wildcards” but they really are not wild – they are just exaggerated future settings to which many readers should be able to relate.  Others maybe should also be in this Exercise. 

The following Matrix illustrates my apprehensions.  It illustrates the wide variety of reasonably-possible futures with which most of us have had serious concerns.  In addition, it illustrates how different and conflicting our planning responses/strategies most likely would be for each of them.

For example, if we mostly are to deal with Super-Intense Global Economic Competition, Global Warning beginning/increasing, Artificial Intelligence and Super Tech, and/or Oil Shortages, we probably should be promoting increased fixed-rail rapid transit, higher urban densities, and larger urban hubs/centers.  On the other hand, if we mostly are to deal with Global Warming – manifested, Frequent Terrorism/Pandemics/Natural Disasters, The Simple Life, and/or Food Shortages, we probably should be promoting spread-out-and-re-balance regional urban areas, polycentric urban forms, and increased development in rural areas.  Many more examples of major variations of planning responses/strategies, for variations in futures scenarios, are evident.

The principle of adaptivity is not meant to be a middle ground between all the different responses to the scenarios.  It is meant to be a rational approach to building the capacity/resilience to respond to any and all of the scenarios, and many more, in a thoughtful and responsible manner that can be continued for 50-100 years.

EXHIBIT A – A MATRIX (HYPOTHETICAL)

            POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES FOR SELECTED FUTURE SCENARIOS

▲        = YES

▬        = NO

(blank) = UNDETERMINED

Here are some explanations concerning my approach:

• I am not meaning to imply that planners or our government would try to control our built environment to achieve the listed responses.  I only mean to imply that the public/non-profit sector would be expected to try to influence private sector development in certain directions. 
• I believe, in the same regard, that the private sector will also steer itself in the directions indicated.
• For each of the scenarios listed as column headings across the top, I mean a critical situation that will be the most strongly influential for a lengthy period of time. 
• As “wild cards,” the scenarios are meant to be exaggerations (hopefully),
• I am not making any predictions or setting forth any preferences.  It is just an Exercise. 
• I have not conducted research on each of the scenarios as to the most appropriate responses.  I am sure that others could easily disagree with my entries.  My entries were simply quick personal responses for the purposes of conducting the Exercise. 
• I realize that it is also possible that we will experience a combination of two or more alternative scenarios; in fact, I believe it is quite likely.
• I believe it is quite possible that our world will shift from a set of one-or-more-of-these to a different set more rapidly or more frequently than I am setting up in this example.

Now, I would like to offer a few comments about each of the scenarios:

(1)  Super-Intense Global Economic Competition.  Some people would say that most likely we are currently in this scenario without realizing it, or at least without realizing that much of our built environment is being structured by it.  The best example of a structural response to it is the strong and unrestricted growth of giant megapolitan agglomerations, especially in other nations, but here as well (e.g. Tokyo, Delhi, Mexico City, New York-Newark, Shanghai, etc.).  Large megapolitan agglomerations are believed to be on the front line for nations trying to compete in the new global economy. 

Most of my entries/responses are oriented simply to the interest of promoting megapolitan agglomerations (even though I know there will be many other factors involved).

(2)  Global Warming – beginning.  We also seem currently to be in this scenario although people’s resistance to the threats and already-existing trends toward global warming and other climatic changes is slowing the process.  Our climate is changing from the many years of pouring fossil-fuel-generated greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, gases that stay there for long periods of time.  We are beginning to respond with efforts to cut back on our dependence on fossil fuels.  We are desperately trying to find new sources of energy that do not pollute our atmosphere while at the same time trying to retain our economic growth and competitiveness within our world.

Most of my entries/responses are oriented to the importance of reducing automobile use and increasing pedestrian transportation.

(2)  Global Warming – manifested.  This presumes that at some point, some years from now, we will have slowed the process of global warming way down but will not have and will not be able to reverse the effects having taken place so far.  We will have converted to some new energy form that does not depend on petroleum or gas or other fossil fuel.  Nevertheless, the changes in our climate will have taken place and we will have to live with them.  Sea levels will have risen and still be rising.  Average temperatures will be considerably higher (depending on where one lives).  Urban heat island effects will be severe.  Snow packs will mostly be gone and freshwater flows greatly diminished.  The number and frequency of storms will be much larger.  Public health emergencies will be common (from disease as well as heat and storms).

Our needs from our man-made environment will be quite different – they will have totally changed.

(3)  Frequent Terrorism/Pandemics/Natural Disasters.  It seems quite logical that as potential wars become more destructive and nations acquire more weapons of mass destruction, nations will slowly decrease their desires and quick-choice tendencies for large-scale military operations.  On the other hand, I have no hope for the decline of intense aggression.  The result could easily be “frequent terrorism.”  Likewise, pandemics could arise for many different reasons: the terrorism, accidents occurring more frequently in a high tech society, new/increased strains of disease coming from the climate changes and associated natural events, or just because there are many more people.  Natural disasters (hurricanes, tornados, floods, droughts, wildfires, etc.) are also likely to increase.  Again, these could be because of the global warming, or because of new technologies that are utilized before all the potential consequences are understood, or simply because of natural forces that have been building up for centuries. 

Most all of the entries in the Matrix are oriented to decreasing our vulnerability to these types of threats.

(4)  Economic Collapse.  I am assuming that sometime during the next 50-100 years one or more economic problems might become so severe that we will be unable to stop a long-term economic downturn/collapse.  Economic collapse could come from an increasing scarcity of natural resources, from our huge world population increases, from our demands for higher and higher standards of living, from international aggression, or just from the normal historical cycles of growth and decline.  Just as economic booms have ways of becoming self-regenerative, so do collapses have a way of continuing to feed economic decline. 

(5)  The Simple Life.  Many people in our world and nation seem to want to return to a much more simple life - a life of low technology or of “appropriate technology.”  Many movements have been organized, magazines and websites set up, and people flocking to them.  Some believe that such movements could become the norm if rapid change/high technology becomes too overwhelming and people reach a certain threshold (tipping point) of perturbation over it.

This could also happen not as a matter of choice but as a consequence of others of the above scenarios:  economic collapse, pandemics that spread mostly through our higher tech centers and institutions, or because of other incidents or trends.  In the case of returning to a simple life, many aspects of our man-made environment will need to be different.

(6)  AI and Super-Tech.  It seems quite possible that science and technology will produce some or many breakthroughs that will totally change our world.  (Moreover, this scenario assumes that we will accept such changes and not trend to the scenario just above.)  Artificial intelligence (AI) could become so widespread that machines could be harnessed to do most of the work; health care advances could result in huge changes in our life spans; lands and rivers could be re-formed with the use of giant robotic earth movers; political, organizational and management systems could turn to artificial intelligence to overcome problems of unhappiness, mental/emotional dysfunction, and aggression; etc.  Additionally, with artificial intelligence there could be enormous breakthroughs in nano-technology, huge new structures could be erected out of new, light weight, super-strong materials; breakthroughs in other sciences could lead to great advances in outer space travel and colonization (and mining) of the moon and other planets, etc. 

The responses I entered generally conform to what I believe is the way people would want to live.

(7)  Food Shortages.  Without large changes in our technology, new sources of energy, and effective coordination and management of the resources we do have, we could face enormous shortages of essential goods.  We could face food shortages, fresh water shortages, power shortages, or perhaps other shortages.  Food shortages are often talked about and have been for many years.  The world’s population has been growing so rapidly and is getting so large that many fear we will not be able to produce the food necessary for survival. 

My entries reflect my picture of many people trying to produce food on their own properties or close nearby in gardens.

(8)  Oil Shortages.  This scenario is not intended to be specific necessarily to oil and all the complications in understanding the validity of oil shortage: a larger overall fossil fuel shortage, pricing factors that might make it worse or lead to its conservation, the consequences and potentials of international conflict or harmony, and other such matters.  I am simply assuming that in the same manner as we should be considering many different possible shortages this is another one we should be considering.  Moreover, as it relates to general public concern, I believe it is one of the ones most recognized.  It affects most all of our current transportation modes, amounts, and choices.  It affects our home heating.  It affects our economy. 

This scenario is already well underway. 

As with “global warming – beginning,” I see this as a period during which most of our attention will be given to the importance of reducing automobile use and increasing pedestrian transportation.

In Conclusion.  At least to my own satisfaction, I have shown that it would not be reasonable or wise for city and regional planners or anyone else to risk our national welfare on predicting the most likely path our future will follow.  Nor would it be reasonable or wise to set a “compromise” path that tries to balance our choices from among many possible paths without having a clear rationale for how such a path is chosen.  There are too many unknowns, each of which could have very negative consequences. 

To my own satisfaction, I have demonstrated that only a brand new logic makes sense, a logic that acknowledges that we simply do not have the knowledge or experience, and are not likely soon to gain the knowledge and experience, to rely on prediction.  Instead, we need a path that builds on a more fundamental approach – an approach of structural adaptivity. 

William Schnaufer