THIS PROJECT DETAILS THE GREEN UTOPIAN FUTURES OF THOUSANDS OF REAL WORLD CITIES ACROSS THE GLOBE -- 100 YEARS FROM NOW. THIS WEEK, WE FEATURE THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN CITY OF SANTIEGO. Santiago is a city of five million at the foot of the Chilean Andes. Just outside the city limits is a copper mine. The mine releases a slow trickle of sulfuric acid and arsenic into the outer neighborhoods of Santiago. The residents have kicked up a fuss for years, saying this toxic s

THIS PREDICTS AND PLANS FOR THE SUPER GREEN FUTURES OF 100 CITIES AROUND THE WORLD. THIS WEEK, WE INVESTIGATE THE POTENTIAL 'SPACE...

The Rocky future of a French tourist city

THIS PROJECT WILL OUTLINE THE FUTURE HISTORIES OF 10,000 REAL-WORLD CITIES AND TOWNS AS THEY FACE-UP TO LOOMING ECOLOGICAL CHALLENGES. THIS WEEK, WE FORECAST THE FUTURE OF XANADU, CHINA. Xanadu was the capital of the old Mongol empire. At its zenith in the thirteenth century, when Kublai Khan was emperor, it was home to at least one hundred thousand people, with maybe a million more traders, civil servants, and diplomats arriving and leaving over the course of the year. Xa

The future of Philadelphia.

The Art of Imagining Urban Futures

This project forecasts the futures of more than 1000 cities across the globe as though they've somehow overcome all the grave environmental challenges our age and grown to become super Green and super-ecofriendly. This month, we highlight the future of Perth, Australia. Some cities in the developed world are manicured to within an inch of life. They have precisely cultivated trees lining quiet sidewalks fed by impeccably timed water sprinklers. Perth, the capital of Western

The future of Bethlehem

Slavoj Žižek’s Ljubljana ripens with age -- as a chaotic reality; weeds and all

The Ecotopia 2121 project employs numerous techniques to study the urban future; for example extrapolations from historical patterns or the anticipated role of new technologies. Another technique it employs is the “Literary Method of Urban Design” which uses literary works to predict likely urban scenarios of the future. At its simplest, this method comprises three steps: select a work of literature, select a city, use the themes of the selected work of literature to design