On February 20th, our class conducted a visioning workshop, breaking into small groups to conduct a visioning exercise to imagine and "vision" positive environmental changes affecting the lives of New Yorkers in the year 2040 and beyond.

PROCESS: The workshop, modeled on the design charrette used for facilitating community input in urban planning and architectural workshops, was divided into four parts:

Part One: Brainstorming – This is a “faucet” exercise, where we come up with, in quick-fire fashion, as many ideas as possible related to the prompt.

Part Two: Backcasting and Visioning – This is a “funnel” exercise, where we distill the ideas we have come up with, and choose the ones we are most interested in exploring this week.

Note: Backcasting starts with defining a desirable future and then works backwards to identify policies and programs that will connect the future to the present. The fundamental question of backcasting asks: “if we want to attain a certain goal, what actions must be taken to get there?” Forecasting is the process of predicting the future based on current trend analysis. Backcasting approaches the challenge of discussing the future from the opposite direction.

Part Three: Planning and Refining – Our third step is to take the results of the backcasting and visioning exercise, and refine the plan that we developed. Are there important steps or components of the plan we’ve left out? How do we want to parse out the pieces of our plan within the time frame of the SCI Workshop? (see tentative team schedule below)

Part Four: Reflection – In this last part of the visioning exercise, the team will take the results of the exercises in brainstorming, backcasting, and visioning, and reflectively look back over the process. What have we learned about each other and our shared vision through this exercise? In what ways was the exercise helpful? How has it shaped our plans?

Class members were provided with the following background in preparation for the exercise:

BACKGROUND

It is the year 2040 in New York City. As the result of powerful social forces that have taken shape throughout the world, along with the concerted effort of governments to come up with immediate measures to reverse the ill effects of environmental practices that led to devastating climate change in the 1960s through the 2020s, important strides are being made to mitigate many of the damaging effects of global warming. The impact which can potentially be the most damaging for New York City in the immediate future is sea level rise that will result from a continuing cascade of global warming.

Empowered under these circumstances to make wise decisions that will ensure a healthier relationship of New York City's built environment to its waterfront, your group is tasked with determining the steps to reform that are most urgent, and those that would better factor in to longer term planning to rehabilitate the waterfront and reshape the coastline. These efforts include major changes in local and regional industrial, commercial and retail practices designed to switch from a world paradigm of exploitative consumption of natural resources to one of greater interdependence within a global system that is designed to support all forms of life.

You are members of the Committee of Concerned Citizens for the New York Waterfront that is working in partnership with various local, regional and state agencies to develop plans for the city's and the waterfront's future. Your group is excited to take advantage of new environmental policies, new mechanisms and innovative design practices that are reshaping the development and retention of waterfront. Your mission is to develop an innovative plan for a section of the waterfront, drawing from the research materials you have at hand.

Following the elections of 2036, which overwhelmingly elected representatives of the Environmental Party, giving them a solid majority in Congress, this country is experiencing a new era of humanitarian values and actions that is rebuilding America community by community. At the heart of this sea change in American culture is a deep belief and renewed commitment to our shared responsibility for saving the planet along with a recognition that the fate of future generations lies in our hands. Policies and laws have been put into place that protect natural resources and that put limits on development, replacing unbridled growth and development with smart growth plans. (Smart growth is defined as planned economic and community development that attempts to curb urban sprawl and worsening environmental conditions.)

This exercise is an opportunity to map out the changes that you would like to see take place for the communities and citizens of New York City, replacing the old rhetoric and discourse that characterizes climate change as nearly unstoppable, with new strategies that examine the relationships of Americans to our carbon footprints, our food sources, our energy consumption, our transportation methods, and our communities. Now that the will of the people has enabled deep change to take place, the question is how will it take place? What needs to be done, and how can it be accomplished?

WORKSHOP QUESTIONS

Q1: How has environmental policy in the United States and the State of New York shaped changes in environmental policy in New York City in 2040?

Q2. How have these changes affected you personally? In what ways has your quality of life changed? What do you do differently, and what is like to live in NYC in 2040 after the re-development of the New York City waterfront?

Q3. What is left to be done? Which improvements are essential to make in lifestyles and consumption practices in order to ensure a truly symbiotic relationship of the citizens of New York within our ecosystem? How can existing obstacles to practices that hinder environmental reform be overcome?

TEAM VISIONING ESSAYS AND DIAGRAMS