"Nelson, BC -- 2099AD"

This project details the future histories of thousands of cities across the globe as though they've somehow overcome all the grave social and environmental challenges our modern age and grown to become "Super Green". This month, we highlight the future of Nelson, B.C., in western Canada.

By 2099, Nelson, British Columbia, no longer whispers its eco-dreams—it lives them...

The century had started rough. Wildfires scarred the Selkirk slopes, the Kokanee salmon dwindled, and developers once eyed the mountain ridges with glass-and-concrete ambition. But Nelson's people—artists, farmers, students, elders—chose another path. They began with restoration.

Old growth forests around the West Arm were carefully replanted, not with quick-fix monocultures, but with diverse native species, guided by Indigenous knowledge keepers. Wetlands once drained for roads were restored, welcoming back frogs, herons, and otters. Damaged alpine meadows were healed by hand, one root at a time.

The city turned schools into living laboratories. Children learned biology by rewilding creek beds, physics by designing solar ovens, and ethics through the lens of interspecies kinship. The university became a hub for eco-architecture and forest diplomacy, training stewards, not CEOs.

By the end of the century, Nelson shimmered green. Homes grew food on their roofs. The air buzzed with bees. Silent boats sailed Kootenay Lake on algae-based fuels. And above it all, from the restored forest canopy, came the call of the once-vanished thrush—returned.

The city didn’t grow bigger. It grew wilder, wiser, and deeply alive.