Charlie Jane Anders

And then I go back and I try to imagine what it would actually be like to be inside that city,

So my process kind of begins and ends with imagination, and it's like my imagination is two pieces of bread in a research sandwich.

So as a storyteller, first and foremost,

I try to live in the world through the eyes of my characters and try to see how they navigate their own personal challenges in the context of the space that I've created.

You know, what do they smell?

What do they touch?

What's it like to fall in love inside a smart city?

What do you see when you look at your window?

And does it depend on how the Windows software interacts with your mood?

And finally, I asked myself how a future brilliant city would ensure that nobody is homeless and nobody slips through the cracks.

And here's where future history comes in handy, because cities don't just spring up overnight like weeds.

They arise and transform.

They bear the scars and ornaments

wars, migrations, economic booms, cultural awakenings.

A future city should have monuments, yeah, but it should also have layers of past architecture, repurposed buildings and all of the signs of how we got to this place.

And then there are second-order effects, like, how do things go wrong or right in a way that nobody ever anticipated?

Like, if the walls of your apartment are made out of a kind of fungus that can regrow itself to repair any damage,

What if people start eating the walls?

Speaking of eating, what kind of sewer system does the city of the future have?

It's a trick question.