What if the public had a direct impact on urban development?
Tobias Poulsen imagines the future town development of Stjørdal where the public participates directly in the early-phase development. Through a questionnaire, the inhabitants of Stjørdal express their thoughts on the future of transportation. The answers create a profile, which in turn offers them a visual of the future urban growth, if the policy for future urban development would derive from their perspective.
I find it interesting that there seems to be a difference between the publics’ imaginaries of future transportation, which bears more resemblance to the imaginaries of the techno futures or science fictional futures, than to the imaginaries of the policy makers and developing partners of these future infrastructures which cant allow themselves to think too futuristic, often times because of economic boundaries. The development that is set into action is therefore dependent on existing infrastructure, and is often times an enhancement or restructuring of the existing technology.
Tobias Poulsen
The scenarios draw on historical approaches to transport development to extrapolate into the future. Previous approaches include changing the energy source of cars and trains to electricity and expanding railroads rather than building them anew. These have in common that they build on or expand existing infrastructure and technologies, rather than create something completely new.