What was, what now, what if?

On Wednesday night I stood in front of a room full of policymakers, politicians, planners, environmentalists and landowners at RICS Westminster, and made a confession.

I’m convinced that if something doesn’t snap us out of our status quo, we will be the first species in history to go extinct because we didn’t file the right paperwork.

The occasion was the launch of We Can Build A City, the feasibility report for Forest City. It’s a proposal to build Britain’s first new city in fifty years, east of Cambridge, for around a million people. Permanently affordable homes. Twelve thousand acres of new native forest. Infrastructure designed in from day one.

Innovation Nursery was proud to be the event’s sponsor. Here’s why.

What was, what now?

As a society, we seem to say “what was” a lot. There’s an almost romantic obsession with the past and doing things the way they've always been done. Great swathes of our cultural and political discourse are stuck in a what was mindset.

It’s what stands in the way of my beloved Cornwall addressing its 27,000 people on the housing waiting list, or its 30% child poverty rate.

When that relentless reflection runs out of road, we reach for the next question: “what now?” An exasperated, breathless question. Laced with despair. Fraught, by its very nature, with a short time horizon and temporary fixes that kick the can until someone kicks the bucket.

Which leaves us with the most important question of all.

What if?

It evokes hope. Ambition. Rambunctiousness. It’s not a comfortable question. It invites challenge and healthy conflict, and that’s OK. But it’s profoundly important. It’s how innovation occurs and how societies evolve.

Why we sponsored Forest City

In a world of what was and what now, Forest City is a project of what if.

What if a country that hasn’t built a new city in fifty years could build one? What if a million people could live in genuinely affordable homes, secured permanently through a Community Land Trust? What if a new place can coexist with nature rather than raise a debt against it? What if Britain rediscovered its ambition through a single project rather than engage in hopeless incrementalism?

The team behind the report (Shiv, Joe and a key group of volunteer area experts) aren’t claiming to have all the answers. The report itself is candid about what isn’t yet known. But they have done something rarer and harder.

They have done the work to show that the question is worth asking.

That’s the spark we want to be around. At Innovation Nursery, our 140-acre hideaway in Cornwall where we help businesses figure out a better way to eat, make and build, "What If" is the only question we’re really interested in.

So this is our invitation to you.

Read the report. Argue with it. Improve it. Send it to someone who should see it.

But whatever you do, don’t ignore it.

John Brown - Managing Director at Innovation Nursery