Future City Game is a team-based design process to create new thinking and actions to improve the quality of life in cities around the world. It encourages participants to think critically about long-term challenges to their communities resulting from globalization, migration, climate change, and inequalities. The game brings local residents and people from the public and private sectors—the “players”—together for two days to share their vision for their cities’ future. Players vote on ideas and present them to local stakeholders, professionals and residents. First piloted in 2006, it has been played in over one hundred cities including in the informal settlement of Las Cruces in Bogotá, Colombia, and in countries ranging from Spain to Poland, Denmark to Ukraine, Kenya to Indonesia, Russia to Colombia. Many ideas have been implemented, such as coffee time with the Mayor in Kaunas, Lithuania; an inter-cultural corridor in Oslo, Norway; the Nowolipki Bookfair in Warsaw, Poland; and a Football Team for Young in Las Cruces, Colombia. This innovative collaborative approach to urban planning develops new ideas and informs future urban thinking by looking beyond the traditional disciplines and policy making that are typically engaged in urban planning and development.

Designers: British Council, Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and URBIS- Manchester’s Centre for Urban Life. Developed UK; piloted Glasgow and Manchester, UK; Groruddalen, Oslo, Norway; and Las Cruces, Bogotá, Colombia, 2006–present

http://creativecities.britishcouncil.org/urban_co-design_tools/future_city_game

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyrrHBo_t40

http://www.youtube.com/user/creativecitieseurope