The Next Big Things: The Next Twenty Years in Local Government
By the Alliance for Innovation, 2015
There are some pretty big trends staring down on local governments across the country. How do we think about the impact those trends will have on local government twenty years from now? How can we prepare for them? This report published by the Alliance for Innovation – a partnership between the International City-County Managers Assocination and Arizona State University – details the trends and how they may impact local governments. 
 
The study begins by defining four forces that drive organizations – the channels through which trend impacts will be felt. Those forces are:

• Resources
• Technology
• Demographics
• Governance

Trends impacting resources include:

• Climate Change
• Food Insecurity
• Water Shortages & Access
• Energy Grid Disruptions
• Mining

Trends impacting technology:

• Digital Citizens
• Sharing Economy
• Education Reform
• Open Innovation
• Behavioral Insights
• Unmanning
• Decentralized Manufacturing and 3-D Printing
• Global Digital Currency
• Carless Communities
• Infrastructure Overhaul
• New Financial Partnerships
• Microgrids
• Off-griding
• Electric Vehicles
• Water Recycling
• Desalinization
• Nanotechnology
• Tech-enabled Health Care
• Biomimicry

 
Trends impacting demographics:

• Tribalism & Identity Politics
• Structural Youth Unemployment
• Civil Rights Spring
• Mass Migration
• Middle Class Map
• Elder Expense
• Urbanization: Mega and Mid-Sized
• Rural v. Urban
• Smart Citizens
• Nomadic Workforce
• Hyper-Localization

Trends in governance:

• Declining Federal Government Effectiveness
• Trust in Government
• City-to-City Collaboration
• VUCA Leadership
• Citizen Engagement
• Direct Democracy
• Corporate and Special Interest Influence
• Fiscal Uncertainty