Imagining the good life in Stoke-on-Trent: Connecting memories, nostalgia and utopia

In the context of environmental, social and economic crises, Levitas urges sociologists to engage with imagined futures and desires for better ways of living. At a local level, facilitating collective visions of desired futures is a vital component of democratic sustainable regeneration. Imagining positive future visions is often challenging, however, for residents of post-industrial cities where good work and future prospects are lacking, infrastructure has declined, and once close-knit communities are increasingly divided. This article explores how emergent narratives of a future good life may be pieced together from nostalgic discussions of the past and critiques of the present. While there is a resurgence of literature considering how forms of nostalgia shape perceptions of the present, reconceptualising it as potentially positive and future-facing, there has been little empirical exploration of how nostalgia might inform utopian imagination of a future good life in post-industrial settings. Drawing on focus groups with white residents of Stoke-on-Trent we show how the past, and conditions of the present, shaped imagined futures in three ways: invoking a nostalgic longing for recreation of an idealised industrial past; rejecting the past to create an entirely different future; and critically engaging with the past to identify valued elements of a better future. We suggest that facilitating discussion of present and past local life can provide the basis for engaging residents in constructing collective, historically grounded utopian visions for their city, a crucial step in moves towards a future which might enable living well within environmental limits.