Some simple statements and observations to spark discussion:

The nations state project is cracking and waning. Nation states as they are have become unsustainable and unmanageable and the imagination needed to hold them together is beginning to falter. They are too complex, un-relational and imperial in their make up.

I believe the shift towards a federation of city states with regional, interconnected, interdependent, intercultural and relational ways of operating is something we are going to move towards in the next 30-50 years.

So, now is the time for cities to start having key conversations across the whole spectrum of society and begin a process of reimagination. It is vital that the marginalised are given a voice and not just ‘represented’ at this table of discussion so that the cities of the future become a place where neighbourhoods of desolation are fully restored. It is time for the artists to to help us to visualise some fresh alternatives and for experiments in economics and kenarchy to be given some fresh space to discover new ways of being.