Box 1.2 Combining Forecasts and Backcasts to Achieve Resiliency

BOX 1.2

Combining Forecasts and Backcasts to Achieve Resiliency and Sustainability

FORECASTS: Projecting the impacts of forces and planning for mitigation and adaptation

Forecasts (or narratives) explore the likely impacts on infrastructure of changes in population, climate, economics, and technology. The impacts may be presented visually using chains of cause and effect that help tell stories about the future of complex systems. Forecasting with diagrams can sensitize all design teams and decision makers about the types of futures that may be encountered by the city and its systems. The forecasts may also be used as a mindmap or decision tree to help groups to brainstorm about the most appropriate interventions to mitigate threats or adapt to change. A primer for cities on climate change that has been published by the World Bank provides many examples of the ways climate change might affect the various parts of a city and how the city community might respond (see Prasad and others 2009). Similar kinds of exercises are needed to address other external forces such as technological and population changes.

Source: Author elaboration (Sebastian Moffatt).

their strategic plans, master plans, concept plans, transportation plans, and economic development plans. Integrated design teams may use the framework to direct each stage of their designs and to remind designers about the full scope of community goals and priorities. At every stage, a shared framework helps us communicate and work together in a coordinated fashion. Because everyone shares the framework, it is clear how each activity fi ts into the whole, and there is less need to micromanage the myriad city departments and stakeholders who might be involved in project planning and implementation.

As cities undertake a more well integrated approach to system design and develop an extended platform for collaboration, the shared framework may help to solve the problems in organizing and communicating complexities. It puts fi rst things fi rst and cross-links every concept and action into an easily understood argument. This creates an easy-to-follow men-

BACKCASTS: Managing the transition to end-state goals

Backcasts involve making changes in those areas where a city has real infl uence and control. Backcast refers to the process of working backward from a goal set for a point in the future to the current situation and creating a critical pathway for managing change. Interim targets may help to set the pace of change to fi t the ambitions and priorities of the city. Moving too rapidly may be as destructive as moving too slowly. The biggest problem in backcasting occurs if trends are taking the city in the wrong direction altogether. The use of automobiles for commuting is increasing in most cities, for example, but is not sustainable. Such a trend must be counteracted through interventions that accelerate and leverage the preferred alternatives.

INTEGRATION: Creating a proactive strategy that addresses sustainability and resiliency

By responding to forces that cannot be controlled and by managing what can be controlled, one may create the potential for managing the transition to a more resilient and sustainable city. A city must defi ne a solution space that avoids moving too rapidly or too slowly and that provides the room required to recover from the inevitable shocks and surprises that will be encountered over the next few decades. If the trend is in the wrong direction, a focused policy intervention or a catalyst project may help redirect it. By mitigating threats and adapting to changes, one reduces the number of surprises or dislocations. In this way, one may sustain a managed transition to end-state goals.

Source: Author elaboration (Sebastian Moffatt).

Source: Author elaboration (Sebastian Moffatt).

tal map for establishing and justifying specifi c recommendations. Everyone involved in the planning is able to follow the transparent, logical connections between, on the one hand, intended goals and overall vision, and, on the other, detailed actions and results. This allows all agencies and stakeholders to understand how their work fi ts within and contributes to the long-term vision and goals. Ideally, the framework serves to align the various initiatives a city may undertake.

“ Automobiles are often conveniently tagged as the villains responsible for the ills of cities and the disappointments and futilities of city planning. But the destructive effects of automobiles are much less a cause than a symptom of our incompetence at city building.”

Source: Jacobs (1961: 16).