Institute for the Future

The map breaks down California's future into four scenarios

It’s easy to be discouraged about the future of California, what with chronic political dysfunction, a depressed economy, deep social divisions and a political campaign season bringing out the worst in everyone. While the State Legislature sets a new record for failure — a $19 billion deficit and still no budget some 90 days after the legal deadline — the candidates for governor bicker over what Bill Clinton said about Jerry Brown 18 years ago and scream “liar” at each other as if they were in grade school. Sigh.

Yet as I gaze at a colorful new map that lays out four alternative futures for the state, I feel quite energized. The document is the first piece of an effort by two major University of California research centers and the Institute for the Future, based in Palo Alto, to reframe the public policy conversation. And for me, it succeeds in its effort to use imagination about the future as a way to grapple with the present.

It’s not that the scenarios themselves are particularly rosy. One envisions an “enclave economy” in which the wealthy parts of the state — the Bay Area among them — wall themselves off and hoard resources, letting hoi polloi in the hinterlands fend for themselves. (This scenario would most likely play out in the wake of a natural disaster.)

Nor do the situations all seem realistic. Another suggests that “a sober-minded assessment of risks and resources in the face of water and energy shortages leads to a new focus on communities and commons.” In this vision, Proposition 13 would be repealed, and investment would be directed to creative arts and community health rather than to personal consumption.

Even the “smart state” scenario, in which California leverages its technological prowess and invests in education to restart economic growth, has a big downside: greater income inequality. Only the least tangible scenario — transformation led by social-network-based communities of interest that assume many governmental and business functions — has something for everyone.

But as Marina Gorbis, executive director of the Institute for the Future, explained, the specific scenarios are not really the point. Rather, the goal is to “outline the kinds of questions and dilemmas we need to be analyzing, and provoke people to ask deep questions.”

The map is structured in part as a game board, posing questions around large issues: health, education, food, work, water and energy, governance and equity, and migration. It then lists bullet points around each topic and invites people to offer their own solutions. The four big scenarios suggest broad outcomes based on the many specific decisions.

But how does this pondering get translated into action?

“The best way to influence the politicians is to educate and stimulate the thinking of the electorate,” said Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, an interdisciplinary institute that’s part of both the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Irvine, and was a key collaborator on the project. (The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, headquartered at Cal, was also involved.)

 California, Smarr said, has “locked itself into a very 20th-century way of looking at things,” and this kind of exercise can help reframe the discussion.

Gorbis emphasizes that futurism is not about ivory-tower navel-gazing, but instead aims to engage people in shaping their lives and communities. Call me a wonk, but I found it extremely useful to have big issues organized in a way that made them seem tractable, while also showing their relationship to other societal forces.

The engagement piece is clearly the big challenge. Smarr and Gorbis both emphasized the potential of gaming platforms as an engagement tool. The map itself is just the starting point; it is meant to build a broad-based conversation, both online and in person.

The ways to prompt discussion are endless, if difficult. School-based initiatives that invite students to imagine among themselves? Flash-mobs that gather people for a quick think? Community forums, with sponsored food and cocktails to draw the crowd and lubricate the idea machine?

You can post your suggestions in the comments section below; together, maybe we can find some ways to kick-start a conversation about the future. If nothing else, it will be a welcome distraction from the present.

This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.