VUCA Communities

Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity. Economic instability, lack of shared norms, and weakening infrasturctures challenge urban communities to redefine sustainability

Real World Application

VUCA Communities is at the intersection where three trends: the Sick Herd, Urban Wilderness, and Strong Opinions meet the impact area: Family & Community. This bottom left side of the map forecasts the story of VUCA communities—environments experiencing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity—and the opportunities for urban innovation.

VUCA communities are urban locales that face compromised environmental conditions, declining measures of health, uncharted social challenges, and few shared norms to guide action. These communities will be looking for ways to pioneer security, safety and sustainability.

Several trends contribute to the rise of VUCA communities and their vulnerabilities. First, we see a rise in chronic illness and an ensuing need to shift models of care from acute to chronic strategies that require more ongoing management and tracking. Consider the rise in youth obesity: it has tripled since the 1970s for both 6-11 year olds and 12-19 year olds, reaching almost 20% in both groups. About 60% of adults currently are obese or overweight.

The gap between rich and poor households is growing in metropolitan areas. The Brookings Institute shows a decline in the number of medium income households in metropolitan areas, creating potentially polarized communities on various issues related to work, education, and urban development.

Biodistress is contributing to the declining health of VUCA communities and their environments, especially those living in highly dense urban centers and rapidly growing cities. Increases in extreme weather, the possibility of pandemics such as avian flu, and environmental pollution from the man-made environment will become more of a daily reality requiring new strategies for developing and maintaining healthy urban life.

Extreme diversity adds a layer of complexity to VUCA communities. A deepening in the nature of diversity creates a complex palette for expressing identity and more nuanced ways for people to affiliate. What makes people “stick together” will emerge from some very new factors beyond race and ethnicity. Disease-based identity (e.g., cancer survivors), therapeutic needs (consider HIV/AIDs patients or diabetics), and genetic legacy (possible through new genetic mapping techniques) will form points of connection. Diverse family forms and household compositions will constitute another basis for shared identity as we see increases in multi-racial, multigenerational, same sex, adoptive, and other forms of family. While extreme diversity is a reflection of individual self expression, it also creates uncertainty as individuals and families challenge established social norms and institutions, such as marriage, family, career and life path, that provide communities with a shared social narrative.

The emergence of lightweight infrastructures will shape the resilience of VUCA communities. Lightweight infrastructures are characterized by flexible components, distributed coordination, and localized purpose, such as municipal wireless communications, cheap mobile communications devices, individualized water purification, and distributed energy. Lightweight social and economic infrastructures, such as participatory budgeting, home-based and community health management, and micro-finance services also provide a positive outlook for improving the resilience of local communities confronting VUCA challenges. Agile, smart schools that leverage new digital technologies and lightweight infrastructures may be more flexible to adapt to the changing needs and conditions of VUCA families.



Humans become an urban species
During the next decade, more than half of the world’s population will live in cities. The shift to cities will be greatest in developing countries, yet small cities with populations less that 50,000 will be among the fastest growing in both the developed and developing worlds. The emerging megacities will constitute an urban wilderness presenting extreme conditions that will require existing institutions to provide new infrastructures (physical and social) and develop new adaptive strategies.
Urban environments become VUCA focal points
The VUCA environment—volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous—touches all institutions and community members, including schools. In extreme urban areas decimated by poverty, pollution, and economic instability, public schools become the zone of health and security—physical, intellectual, and emotional. Schools will be expected to play a leadership role in addressing the interrelated issues of learning, health, and civic intelligence.


Education becomes a health issue
Major impediments continue to plague the traditional U.S. health care system, from uninsurance to shortages of health workers and administrative waste. While an aging population redefines consumer markets in terms of health benefits, children’s health status and needs redefine and reprioritize educational agendas, including school lunch programs, nutrition curriculum, physical education, school health staff, and onsite health services. Children’s health issues create an opportunity for radical change in public schools.


Youth pioneer new urban survival skills
In VUCA communities, youth will become the mentors for older community members in new methods of urban survival including urban computing, urban agriculture, and new literacies for building cooperative strategies. Combined with a growing youth media culture, youth may develop a public voice at younger ages, even becoming influential in political or religious movements.


Disciplines of readiness focus on building resilience
A VUCA world demands preparedness and clarity for unexpected futures. Personal life skills such as re-scripting a coherent, meaningful narrative of one’s personal life path outside of traditional social family and lifecycle norms become critical for navigating the surprises of VUCA. Communities will respond to VUCA with participative forms of governance, such as the bottom–up, participatory budgeting practice in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which has lifted the city to one of the best places to live in Brazil. Developing a culture and practice of readiness for students, families, and communities becomes a core function of public schools in VUCA communities.