Just taped an episode of Houston8 on the future of Houston that will air on Friday night, April 6th at 8:00pm (and will re-broadcast on Sunday, April 8th at 5:30pm). See www.HoustonPBS.org (simply click on “Local Programming” and then select “Houston 8” and you will be taken to the show’s site). We built off the fact that the Urban Land Institute /Gerald D. Hines Urban Design Competition was held in Houston this year.
Host Ernie Manouse peppered me (representing the U of Houston’s Futures Studies Program, Guy Hagstette of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership and Gayle Berens of the Urban Land Institute in Washington with a lively series of questions about what Houston might look like in the future.
It was great fun to be able to toss some futurist ideas into the mix, such as talking about the importance of vision as a guide to long-range planning. I mentioned the scenario work of the Center for Houston’s Future, and wished I had an opportunity to mention the work of Houston Tomorrow and the Houston-Galveston Area Council – but 30 minutes goes fast!
I tossed in the trends of co-creation, crowdsourcing, and “death of the schedule” that my colleagues at Innovaro and the Foresight Alliance might recognize. I also mentioned futurists experience that totally novel ideas rarely get adopted at first sight, but rather go through an iterative process of morphing over time before people are ready to accept it.
Perhaps most important was the idea of how do you build “cities within a city.” We talked a lot about the trend toward smaller-scale design and more livable communities. We settled on the term “nodes” to capture the ideas of mixed use development and integrated services that would characterize them.
All in all, great fun and a solid discussion. Andy Hines
