Glen Heimstra

“The Shape of Things to Come”

by Wayne Greene

In June 1889, a three-day fire destroyed Seattle. When city leaders met to consider how and whether to rebuild, a strategy developed that went beyond constructing new buildings.

The city had for years suffered from its low location on a tidal mud flat. Flooding was persistent. The community couldn’t build an effective sewer system because water pressure forced sewage into the low buildings. Should the city be rebuilt at all, some wondered.

It was. But rather than rebuild the same problems, the Denny Regrade was devised: The city would be reconstructed on two levels. First, and temporarily, buildings were raised on the city’s original ground level. But each building was also duplicated on a second-floor level. Then, through a massive public effort, tons of soil were washed downhill to downtown Seattle, raising the street to the new frontages. The city was rebuilt on higher ground that was created by the people’s vision, allowing Seattle to prosper in ways never before imagined.

A similar opportunity faces Tulsa in 2002, as community leaders look ahead 25 to 30 years, futurist Glen Heimstra told the Mayor’s Vision Summit.

“Tulsa is at a kind of crossroads, a kind of transition point,” Heimstra said. “It is clearly at an opportunity point, an opportunity to ask where do we want to go from here.”

‘What is your image of the future of Tulsa?’

Heimstra said Tulsa in 2020 will be at least as different from Tulsa 2000 as Tulsa 2000 is from Tulsa 1980.

Planning for that change means considering a wide variety of questions, ranging from the types of commercial activity that will be present in the community — and the kinds of infrastructure to support it — to the nature of neighborhoods, parking lots and bicycle paths. Achieving the kind of future the community wants depends on thinking about what sort of public policy decisions must be made today to get there, he emphasized.

“You should ask questions about your vision for the future of Tulsa, not so that you can see what is going to happen in the future, not so you can predict or anticipate or describe what is going to happen in the future, but for a very simple reason,” he said. “You ought to think about the future vision of Tulsa so that you can take that vision that materializes – that shared understanding of the preferred future — fold it back on the present and see more clearly what we ought to be doing right now, right here.

“Thinking about the future is absolutely about the present.”

When communities look to the future, common themes develop. All communities want to be described as learning, healthy, economically vital, lively, ecologically balanced, mobile, and welcoming, he said. Despite that common ground, the characteristics and nature of the community’s preferred future are essentially unique also to it, he said.

“It’s up to nobody else but you to come up with your answers to the characteristics of the community in the future,” he said.

The 30,000-Foot View

Heimstra offered an overview of trends that will face all communities in the next three decades, a sort of 30,000-foot overview of the future:

• The future will be shaped by a continuing techno-socio-economic revolution. As the automobile, electrification and the telephone shaped the 20th century, the current century will be shaped by:
  • Digitalization, the increased presence of telecommunications and computers to change the way humans deal with data in a vast number of ways
  • Geonomics, the biotechnical revolution, advances in medical technology that will shape how long and well we live, and how communities organize themselves
  • Nanotechnology, the redesign of structures from the human to the molecular scale
• The future will be shaped by obvious demographic trends that have already started.
  • Fertility patterns show the world population is peaking and has already peaked in many places, including in the United States. The world population will likely begin declining in 2025. This implies that Tulsa’s population is likely to slow and stop growing in the next 25 years, and the community should plan its infrastructural changes accordingly.
  • Latin American immigration to the United States will continue. Tulsa can count on being more Hispanic in the future and should begin now to prepare for the challenges and opportunities that implies.
  • The population is aging. Of all the people over age 65 who have ever lived, two-thirds are still alive. In Tulsa County, 13 percent of the population is over age 65. By 2020, 25 percent of Tulsa County’s population will be over age 65. The community must plan for the implications that has for schools, roads, and hospitals.
• The future will be shaped by new forms of energy.
  • Tulsa was at the center of the development of the petroleum industry in the 20th Century. There is no reason it could no less be at the center of the development of the hydrogen and fuel cell industry in the 21st Century.

“The future is not what it used to be and clearly to the city of Tulsa, the future is not what it used to be,” Heimstra said.

Assumptions about the future

Heimstra presented a series of assumptions about the future along with their implications:

• The future is assumed to be “creatable,” which implies “you have a choice.”
• The future is “knowable,” which implies “you have to look.”
• The future is “unpredictable,” which implies “you have to be clear about what values to take with you.”
• Finally, the future controls the present, which implies “you need vision.”

Heimstra defined vision as “a compelling description of your preferred future.

“A vision is not a point in time. It is fluid. It is a continuous conversation about what we are, who we want to be, and how to get there.”

Communities with a creative vision have common characteristics, he said. They feature

• Attractive traditional neighborhoods that are connected to convenient “village centers” of commerce
• Multi-dimensional continuous forms of entertainment
• Relative safety and security
• Multiple transportation modes
• A downtown that is not on a 9-5 clock
• A “timeless,” unique community characteristic
• “Smart” growth
• Design on a human scale with a sense of compactness regardless of total population.

Getting to those points requires design statements, zoning, ordinances and tough choices without universal agreement. The community must agree on a common strategy, but can expect to disagree on details, he said. The element that defines the success of those characteristics, he said, is leadership.

Commitment

Heimstra described the construction of the Cathedral of Seville as an example of visionary leadership. In 1407, a small group of leaders – smaller than the number gathered for the Vision Summit — dedicated the community to a goal: “Let us build a cathedral so great that those who come after us will think us crazy for having built it.”

More than 200 years later the cathedral, the largest and perhaps most beautiful in Europe, was completed.

“Would you be willing to embark on a vision that you knew would take perhaps a generation to complete?” Heimstra asked. “Would you be willing to embark on a vision in Tulsa that you know some people would say, ‘Well, that’s crazy. You can’t do that.’?”

“It takes commitment as well as vision,” he said.

Heimstra went on to describe five levels of commitment within the community and assigned numerical values to each.

• At –1 commitment, people will smile and seem to agree with a vision today, but plan to undermine the effort in the future. 
• At 0 commitment, people don’t care about accomplishing the goal. 
• At +1 commitment, people agree to the goal and agree for someone else to do it. 
• At +2 commitment, people see the vision as good and agree to help. 
• At +3 commitment, people see the vision as critical and are willing to dedicate time and energy to achieving it. 

Successful visions require a substantial number of +2 and +3 participants, he said.

“What is your vision of Tulsa’s future?” he asked in conclusion. “The future is not something that just happens to you. The future is something you do.”

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Contents

Introduction

The Mayor’s Objectives

Small Group Discussions & Questions

Glen Heimstra «
The Shape of Things to Come

William Hudnut III
A Vision for Urban America

Q&A: Hudnut and Heimstra

Clayton Vaughn
You Said We Couldn’t Do It, But...

Rodger Randle
The Demographics of Today’s Tulsa

The Branding of Tulsa

Robert LaFortune
Investing in the future generations of our city

Mollie Williford
Volunteerism and the Arts

James Goodwin
Leaving No One Behind

Kathy LaFortune
Continuing the Vision

Credits