The blockbuster Back to the Future films pictured a future 2015 in terms of flying cars, hoverboards, self-driving cars and endless Jaws sequels.
Emmett ‘Doc’ Brown states of the future 2015 that ‘where we’re going we don’t need roads’ – a joke that works because it is precisely that – science fiction. Back in the real 1985, the car is king.
The Cold War is at its height. The European Community has yet to travel further down the ‘Ever Closer Union’ of the Maastricht treaty – the Franc, Deutschmark, the Lira and the others remain the exchange currencies for a burgeoning European foreign travel market.
In Wales, the Miners’ strike has polarised the political scene, and heralds the end of a century of
industrial decline. The calls for a ‘Parliament for Wales’ remains a forlorn one for its proponents,
having seen the calls for limited devolution seemingly decisively rejected in 1979 by 4 to 1.
So, looking to the next 30 years what would you have done? What are the assumptions on politics, culture and global trends that are taken as given, and yet turned out to be mistaken? What would be the ways to manage uncertainty? Would you have done a better job than Back to the Future?
Planning the infrastructure from now to 2050, where would you start?