Future scenarios provide challenging, plausible and relevant stories about how the future could unfold. Urban Futures (UF) research has identified a substantial set (>450) of seemingly disparate scenarios published over the period 1997-2011 and within this research, a sub-set of >160 scenarios has been identified (and categorized) based on their narratives according to the structure first proposed by the Global Scenario Group (GSG) in 1997; three world types (Business as Usual, Barbarization, and Great Transitions) and six scenarios, two for each world type (Policy Reform-PR, Market Forces-MF, Breakdown-B, Fortress World-FW, Eco-Communalism-EC and New Sustainability Paradigm-NSP). It is suggested that four of these scenario archetypes (MF, PR, NSP and FW) are sufficiently distinct to facilitate active stakeholder engagement in futures thinking. Moreover they are accompanied by a well-established, internally consistent set of narratives that provide a deeper understanding of the key fundamental drivers (e.g., STEEP-Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental and Political) that could bring about realistic world changes through a push or a pull effect. This is testament to the original concept of the GSG scenarios and their development and refinement over a 16 year period.

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The development process at the site or building scale is a multiobjective process requiring the cooperation of many professions and other stakeholders. The addition of multiple sustainability objectives, often seemingly unrelated (economic versus environmental versus social) in a rapidly changing global urban context, further constrains and complicates the process. The MODESTT mapping approach was developed to elucidate the interdependencies, tensions, and trade-offs between different sustainability objectives for a given development, and to make explicit the points at which a single design decision may ‘lock-in’ or ‘lock-out’ various possible outcomes. In this article, we review and analyse existing models of the development process, illustrate the decisions and activities inherent in delivering a single element of a development (illustrated in this paper with the example of a roof); then apply the MODESTT analysis to three sustainability objectives. The analysis makes explicit the critical importance of sequencing of actions and decisions, and interdependencies between specific objectives that lead to tensions and trade-offs between the multiple sustainability objectives. We conclude by making recommendations for the generic application of the MODESTT approach to improve sustainability throughout the site development process. Regardless of the tools that are available in the UK or elsewhere for the development process and for sustainability proxies, it is the timing and sequencing of decisions (when data are collected or the tools are applied) that are important in delivering effective solutions.

This paper uses two diverging interpretations of resilience to review and assess current UK policies for urban resilience. Both developed in scientific studies, the first interpretation is based on a mechanistic model of systems that can recover their original state after shocks, and the second is based on an evolutionary model enabling adaptation to disturbances. The literature review demonstrates that at present urban resilience is predominantly associated with the former. By contrast, only few policies and studies are inspired by the latter, although this is better suited to analyse dynamics of urban adaptation and manage cities accordingly. The contribution of this paper to an understanding of urban resilience is therefore twofold. First, an identification of the long-term consequences on the built environment associated with each model is provided, with the mechanical model ultimately hindering adaptation. Second, some approaches to generate effective responses to environmental and societal change are identified. Ultimately, this paper emphasises that the idea of a resilient city is fit for this age characterised by uncertainty, albeit it requires the recognition within planning practice that urban adaptation cannot be attained with current methodologies, and that much can be learned from theories on the resilience of ecosystems.