Brighton Communities and Now City Labs

A week in 2034

A short piece of fiction, written to test whether the plan adds up to a life somebody would choose.

Working document · September 2026

Why fiction

Why a piece of fiction sits on a development document

This page tests the plan against an ordinary week, written out in detail, to see whether the pieces add up to a life somebody would choose.

The test is whether the writing can be specific without inventing anything the plan does not actually deliver. When a scene needs a grocery store the plan does not fund, or a bus on a route that does not run, the scene stops there, and that is the signal that part of the plan needs work. The exercise earns its place by forcing every element of a scene to come from the plan.

The week

A week in the life, some years out

Written last, from the plan, once there is a plan to write from.

Still a prompt. Writing invented residents into a real neighborhood before the plan exists would produce a page that reads like every other district document. This page is written after the proposition, and it is the last thing on the site to be filled. Phase two fills this section.

What it has to survive

The checks this piece has to pass

Set down now, so the writing is held to them when it is written.

Every place a character goes is either standing today or funded in the plan.
Every trip a character makes works on the transit and streets that exist, or on a change with a named sponsor and a date.
At least one household in the piece lives here today and stays.
The rent or mortgage each household pays is taken from the plan.
Every program the piece relies on is one with a commitment on record.