Civic IMagination tour
We spent a year traveling the country to surface community-sourced visions of what could be.
WE ASKED COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE USWhat kind of future do
you want to live in?
From Sitka, Alaska to St. Augustine, Florida, we hosted imaginative conversations and speculative worldbuilding sessions to surface the people’s visions of the future.
The Future of Us initiative is a tribute to what we heard.
OUR HYBRID APPROACH TO VISION MAPPINGCommunity Conversations
Across the country, we invited emergent conversations across bars, cafes, Wal-Marts, and roadside gas stations. Some of the most interesting visions came from people too rarely asked what they want.
Civic Imagination & Speculative Worldbuilding
In partnership with local co-hosts, we facilitated activations that led groups to co-create future worlds untethered by the assumptions and limitations of the status quo.
Field Listening
We observed and hosted interviews in gatherings of subject matter experts, philanthropists, technologists, and entrepreneurs operating at the cutting edge of what’s possible.
THE TOUR
3O STATES
5o+ CITIES
1ooo+ VISIONS
The Guidebook
A 60-page visual guide book capturing the emerging trends and technologies, to support informed imagination across the tour
Worldbuilding 101
Story books guiding groups through a co-creative speculative story and worldbuilding process, to turn their individual reflections into a collective future world.
Field Listening
LAUNCHING ON JULY 4, 2O26
SPECULATIVE EXHIBITS“Future Worlds”
July 4 - 12, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Large-scale, immersive exhibitions that capture the patterns and potent themes emerging from community visions and subject matter expert interviews collected across the tour, translated into art, storytelling, and open resources for civic exploration.
COMMUNITY STORYTELLING“Hall of Anythings”
July 4 - 12, 2026
San Francisco, CA
A collection of original illustrated works by artists across the US, each paired with a speculative story co-imagined by communities and brought to life through an artist's creative interpretation.
PUBLIC ARCHIVe“American Dreams”
Launching July 4, 2026 Online
A living digital archive of community visions for the future of the United States, launched on the nation's 250th anniversary as a permanent public record of what contributing participants imagined for the future at this milestone moment.
DIGITAL LIBRARYOpen Access Kits
Launching Online Summer 2026
Free toolkits and resources translated from across initiative materials and designed to seed civic imagination sessions in libraries, community spaces, and third places nationwide — with the intention of growing and expanding creative civic culture.
CO-CREATORS OF FUTURE OF US
Why San Francisco?
A NOTE ON OUR ROOTSSan Francisco is a 7×7 mile city with a global reach.
In many ways, the future is being built in the garages, skyscrapers, and warehouses across the Bay. We’re home to some of the most influential emerging technologies, ideas, and social experiments – a sandbox for the imaginations of the powerful few.
As a container of collective possibility, the Bay has both an opportunity and a responsibility. San Francisco’s rich legacy of creative civic culture is the missing piece. It’s already primed to become not only a beacon for the innovative spirit of frontier tech, but a belltower for the generative imaginations of the collective,
While its inputs and outputs are nationwide, Future of Us is building a San Francisco that’s technological innovation is matched by its civic innovation – creating a model for healthy civic culture, creative civic life, and meaningful opportunities for co-creation and exchange across sectors and communities.
If the future is going to start here, it should be shaped by all of us.