The Future of Napier -- As Forecast via the Literary Method of Urban Design

About The Literary Method of Urban Design

This urban futures project employs numerous techniques to forecast multitudinous urban settings. For example, it utilizes extrapolations from historical patterns and 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.

The Literary Method of Urban Design is a creative framework that uses literature as a lens through which to imagine the future of cities. Rather than relying solely on demographic projections or technical planning models, it draws upon narrative, metaphor, and theme to generate speculative urban scenarios. The method unfolds in three core steps. First, a literary work is selected. Second, a city is chosen. Third, the themes, symbols, and narrative tensions of the literary work are applied to create a graphic scenario for the future of that city.

A fourth, supplementary step concerns representation: how the resulting vision is communicated to an audience. This may take the form of architectural plans, urban maps, scenario drawings, or—as in this paper—an integrated visual and textual narrative.

See this movie for an "edutainment" style "intro" to the Literary Method of Urban Design (see below):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuzZoIozHZw

In previous applications, this Literary Method of Urban Design has been used to explore urban futures across Europe. the Americas, and Asia. For this blogpost, one case study city from New Zealand (that is Christchurch) is paired with one specific New Zealand literary work (that is Tutira).

The Future of Napier as Inspired by Herbert Guthrie-Smith’s Tutira

Tutira, published in 1921, is a detailed documentary account of environmental change on a single farm landscape between the 1880s and the 1920s. The farm, Tutira, lies approximately twenty-five kilometers north of the coastal city of Napier. It stretches from the Hawke’s Bay shoreline inland to Lake Tutira in the highlands.

Although focused on one property, the book functions as a broader ecological study of European settlement in New Zealand. It carefully records how farming practices altered soils, vegetation, water systems, and animal populations. In doing so, it becomes an early and remarkably perceptive examination of the long-term relationship between agriculture and the natural environment.

One of the key observations concerns the displacement of native plant species. As pastoral farming expanded across lowland areas, indigenous vegetation was progressively pushed out. Native plants survived not in the productive grasslands below but in marginal zones—on upland slopes, around boggy ground, or in areas too difficult to cultivate. These spaces became ecological refuges.

Guthrie-Smith describes these refuges as botanical citadels, isolated strongholds where native species persisted beyond the reach of grazing animals and invasive plants. Though he does not draw direct historical parallels, his imagery evokes other moments in which displaced communities retreated to upland sanctuaries. The description recalls the way Scottish Highlanders withdrew into mountainous regions under pressure from English expansion, and the way Māori communities retreated into New Zealand’s interior highlands during nineteenth-century conflict and colonization. In each case, refuge is found not in abundance but in remoteness and defensibility.

The formation of botanical refugia can be understood through two primary forces. First, introduced plant species often possess higher reproductive rates and competitive advantages in disturbed farmland. Once established, they outcompete native species in accessible lowland areas. Second, refuge zones tend to be physically difficult to access—rocky outcrops, steep slopes, or swampy ground—where domesticated livestock and feral animals cannot graze freely. Isolation becomes protection.

A century after Tutira was published, the scale of human environmental impact has expanded from the local to the planetary. Climate change, sea-level rise, and intensified weather events now threaten not only ecosystems but entire cities. The pattern Guthrie-Smith documented at a farm scale may repeat itself at an urban scale.

The Future of the City of Napier (by the Urban Futures team)

Just as anthropogenic disturbance pushed native plants into elevated and marginal refuges above the lowlands of Tutira, so too might rising seas push the people of Napier away from their low-lying coastal city. In this speculative future, the vulnerable shoreline—once prized for access and trade—becomes untenable. The city gradually retreats inland and upward, rebuilding on higher ground beyond the reach of encroaching waters.

Future Napier, inspired by Tutira, would not simply be a relocated settlement. It would embody a new understanding of refuge. Elevated neighbourhoods would be designed with ecological sensitivity, integrating wetlands, green corridors, and native plant restoration into their structure. The abandoned lowlands might transform into tidal zones, managed wetlands, or biodiversity reserves—spaces where natural systems reassert themselves.

In this vision, the city learns from the farm. It recognizes that survival may depend upon strategic withdrawal and adaptation rather than rigid resistance. Like the botanical citadels of Tutira, future Napier would find strength in elevation, resilience in careful site selection, and wisdom in acknowledging the limits imposed by environmental change.