Insights/Opinion — Building Futures Literacy Among Engineering Communities for Urban Liveability

This paper proposes that an intentional process of ‘futures fluency’ building among those engineering communities who design, deliver and maintain our urban infrastructures can support more equitable and environmentally responsive places in three ways. First, by broadening a professional understanding of the role infrastructural systems play in conducting the rhythm of daily life and in shaping a collective social and technical understanding of what the future might hold. Second, by encouraging the use of blended quantitative and quantitative data to develop a more granular assessment of the ways different communities experience infrastructural conditions today. Finally, by honing the conceptual frameworks that enable engineers and affiliated practices to conceive of radically different infrastructure approaches that might inform and even shape alternative versions of ‘the future’. Using case study analysis, this discussion illustrates the potential of combining foresight and design frameworks with engineering tools to better analyse rapidly evolving urban environments, expand the field of participation and, ultimately, explore the conditions needed to realise more just and sustainable cities.