This paper examines the future of community and values for 2050 in three areas: likely trends, probable trends, and possible outcomes. It evaluates current and emergent patterns, in particular the overarching shifts toward a more individualised society; the use of digital technology as both enabler and inhibiter of participation in wider society; and the rise in socio-spatial inequalities and the empowering responses to those inequalities.

In order to generate new insights and establish a wider understanding of the implications of and for communities and values out to 2050, our paper sets out a novel way of examining key trends and patterns through five stages. First, we introduce a matrix that enables us to identify examples of communities across their different states (i.e. formation, movement, preservation, dissolution) in relation to core characteristics of communities (i.e. access, place, power, security). Secondly, we use a wide range of different examples of communities to populate this matrix to illustrate the complex interrelationships of the different types, their values, and scale of influence. Thirdly, having examined these examples through business as usual scenarios, we then use a speculative mode to explore radical alternatives based on the evidence collected to understand the challenges, barriers, risks and threats that may face the future of communities and values out to 2050. These scenarios are described in order to explain the way events might unfold and in doing so, enable us to understand what guidance and actions may need to be followed to direct us toward a desirable future. Fourthly, we then use an analytical mode to examine evidence that enables assessment of the underlying changes informing risks and threats (i.e. who we are, what we will do, why we will do it). Finally, we compare these two modes to understand how the future of community and values might change over the next 30 years.