"To design cities that meet our long-term goals for a better life, we cannot simply enact the most likely futures we're able to imagine. We need to do more than dream about the future--we need to explore its intricate detail and impact. By playing with the rich, wide, and varied tapestries of possible futures, we stand a better chance of identifying the most feasible and optimal forms that can possibly exist. In this fascinating text, Johanna Hoffman provides us with a guide on how to do so. Using examples from the past and speculations from the near future, she's created an important book for our times."
--Michael Batty, professor of planning at University College London and author of Inventing Future Cities and The New Science of Cities

"In this remarkable book, Johanna Hoffman tells the story of city futures. This is not just the world of visioning the future city, but the gritty world of citizen meetings and foresight workshops. Her case studies make this work, indeed, futures work as a whole real. We learn from this book about Wakanda, the UAE, San Francisco, and other foresight interventions. Having worked in the area of city futures for decades now--council by council, shire by shire, mayor after mayor--Hoffman's details provide both inspiration but also an illumination of the politics of futures design. In a journey of past, present, and future, speculative futures illuminates the way."
--Sohail Inayatullah, UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies for Sejahtera Centre for Sustainability and Humanity of International Islamic University Malaysia and Tamkang University

"In these pages, Johanna Hoffman introduces us to the cutting-edge artists, storytellers, futurists, and community activists whose approaches and tools 'help us think long-term by making the future feel immediate.' Drawing on stories from her own work and around the world, she powerfully argues for collapsing the distance between tomorrow and today, as a vital and urgent strategy for navigating uncertain times more playfully, effectively, and wisely. The principles and practices shared here in worldbuilding, foresight, and design promise to 'empower more of us to articulate, believe in, and enact our own futures.' There is a timely and important gift here, not only for the worlds of urban planning and architecture where she began her career, but for agents of change everywhere. Anyone who aspires to more vibrant and resilient futures at all scales should read this book, and I hope they will."
--Stuart Candy, PhD, associate professor of design at Carnegie Mellon University

"Hoffman's book is an invaluable primer for anyone trying to make sense of an uncertain and unstable future. Combining personal narrative with a wide breadth of research from fields from psychology to climate science and everything in between, she offers a path forward to grapple with difficult questions lit by empathy, justice, and radical hope."
--Sara Jensen Carr, author of Topography of Wellness and assistant professor of architecture at Northeastern University