Skip to content extelligence.org in the freethinking tradition of scientific inquiry, technology development and civic responsibility.

• About

  What we do & who we are

• The Mind Gym

  New thinking, new thoughts

• Possible Futures

  Scenarios & planning scenarios

• Perspectives

  Views on the present, ideas about the future

• Sizing the City

  Informing and broadening debate

Possible Futures

b'ham 2026: four possible futures

In 2008, Birmingham City Council published Birmingham 2026: Our Vision for the Future.

For the purposes of the exercise below, it has been assumed that these two factors in the Council's Vision are problematic:

• the level of skills and education in the population
• public transport

Plotting these two variables against each other gives four possible scenarios (see below). For each scenario, we can ask ourselves what life would be like living in the city, and what the likely social, economic and cultural impacts would be, both regionally and nationally.

The Birmingham 2026 document has the admirable target of cutting carbon emissions by 60%. The reason why carbon emissions have been excluded from this matrix is that achieving the target seems, from 2009, to be highly dependent upon

1. a significant investment in public transport infrastructure, both within the city and the region, and linking local mass transit with national and international systems, and
   
2. creating or attracting investment in 'green' technologies which is itself dependent on having both an entrepreneurial and highly educated and skilled population.

Note: Click here for a comparison of the Birmingham 2026 Vision and the Centre for Cities Outlook 2009.

Note: The image Second city sunset of Birmingham's Council House was taken by Steve Sawford. It is reproduced here with his kind permission.