One thing is certain about the future. It has never happened before. Often, (recent) history is extended to the future. This unwittingly results in a mismatch, because path-dependency from the past then determines how we respond to new contexts. For current problems that we have allowed to be created in the past, we often choose an approach that is derived from the methods that caused the problem in the first place. For new problems and uncertainties, which will, by definition, make up this new future, we need to develop new approaches that are not yet commonplace. This especially goes for the ways in which we design, develop, and build our society, the built environment, and the landscape. After all, this is where all our problems and developments come together, have the greatest impact on human and natural life, and we can shape the improvement of the resilience of urban-landscape systems. And we possess the capacity to adapt and create an environment that is attractive and healthy. That future, by the way, is not there for us. Our children, too, already live in a world that is for a large part determined by the past and the established policy. That super tanker of agreements, habits, and decisions can only be changed bit by bit. In our current thinking, we will thus need to consider generations that come long after us, and that we will never even meet. This cathedral-thinking ((Krznaric R, The good ancestor. WH Allen, London, 2020)) is not commonplace yet, but will need to take up a much more prominent place in our thinking. We will need to look to the future together! Being a good ancestor is about more than just solving the climate and biodiversity problem. Gus Speth from the World Resource Institute formulates it in this way:
