Newcastle City Futures 2065

A prosperous future for cities depends on intellectual leadership from universities and full participation from local people. The Newcastle City Futures 2065 Report sets out a fresh methodology for engaging urban communities on long term trends. The Newcastle City Futures 2065 report is now available to download here

Newcastle City Futures is led by Professors Mark Tewdwr-Jones and John Goddard and aims to develop a Foresight methodology to be applied at the city region scale. The report explores the future of cities over the next 50 years by looking in detail at the prospects for Newcastle as a test bed for this new methodology.

The research team started out with a comprehensive academic review. They built on that with stakeholder interviews and a survey of experts using Delphi methodology – a systematic forecasting method that finds common ground amongst experts. This process built a sound academic platform and established the key themes to be discussed with people across the city. The team created a pop-up exhibition and 24 public forum events, engaged more than 2,500 people and generated more than 100 comment cards and ideas for the future development of Newcastle. This fed into three alternative scenarios for the long term future of the city.

The methodology is transferable, and could easily be adopted by the English cities due to receive new powers this year and wishing to mobilise their universities to work with partners in reflecting on and shaping the future of the city.