It's not just about brand positioning, strategy, or experience — it's all these elements combined and beyond, consistently driven by the pivotal question:

How will your place, city, region, or country tackle future challenges?

Relying solely on place branding is no longer sufficient to steer cities through what lies ahead. Yes, you read that correctly — futures, plural. We’re not talking about a single future, but a multitude of potential paths.

Today's research, grounded in yesterday's data, falls short in preparing us for tomorrow. Places must embrace unpredictability.

Indeed, the future is not just a singular concept; it's a collection of diverse futures.

• Strategic Vision and Continuous Adaptation
  Future-proof places don’t just respond to the present — they anticipate multiple scenarios and dynamically evolve their strategies to stay ahead.
• Strengthening Identity and Sense of Belonging
  By valuing history, culture, and local potential, future-proof places create authenticity, reinforce community involvement, and empower people as key drivers of development.
• Increased Antifragility and Urban Resilience
  Future-proof places don’t just resist crises — they learn, adapt, and emerge stronger, transforming challenges into growth opportunities.
• Attraction of Investments, Talent, and Visitors
  Innovative and resilient environments act as magnets for economic and social development, and create new opportunities and vibrant ecosystems.
• Preparation for New Contexts and Changes
  In an ever-changing world, future-proof places remain flexible and open to technological, climatic, and social shifts, ensuring long-term relevance.

• Timing-Relevance Balance
  By aligning immediate action with long-term planning, future-proof places ensure sustainable development while avoiding stagnation and investment obsolescence
• Encouragement of Cross-Sector Collaboration
  The future calls for collective action. Future-proof places bring community and public, private sectors together, fostering innovation and positive impact.
• Culture of Innovation and Experimentation
  Uncertainty becomes opportunity when future-proof places foster environments that encourage new ideas — attracting entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors.
• Improvement in Quality of Life and Urban Well-Being
  Future-proofing places means prioritizing inclusion, accessibility, and livable spaces, directly impacting people’s daily lives.
• Anticipation of Challenges and Creation of Desirable Futures
  Through proactive scenario planning and risk mitigation, future-proof places empower regions and cities to make informed, sustainable decisions — shaping preferred futures rather than merely reacting to crises.

Understanding current urban behavior and its signals of change is essential for both public and private sectors.

In a landscape where competitiveness and innovation are key, understanding how humans navigate cities offers a significant competitive advantage.

• Real estate developers can use these insights to develop products and services aligned with future needs.
• Cities, regions, and countries can tailor their strategies to attract investments, talent, and visitors more effectively.

Urbanscope helps understand the present and prepare for the future. We capture signals and trends and transform them into powerful insights for your business or place.

Caio Esteves – Co-Founder/ Chief of Strategy and Futures

Founder of Places for Us and former Global Director of Placemaking at Bloom Consulting. Expert in Place Branding, Placemaking, and Urban Futures, a pioneer in the place-branding approach in Brazil.

By overlapping place branding and placemaking, he has strengthened dozens of places in Brazil and globally through vocation identification, identity reinforcement, and community participation.

Realizing that traditional approaches were no longer sufficient to guide places in the face of future uncertainties, he founded N/LF, which builds on traditional place branding and placemaking with an additional layer: Place Strategic Foresight©. This perspective recognizes future uncertainties as part of a place’s development and explores different future scenarios, informing present-day decision-making and guiding places toward a desirable future.

Author of: Place Branding (2016), Cidade Antifrágil (2021), and Lugares Futuros (2024), Co-author of the Brazilian edition of Imaginative Communities (2020).

Fellow Member of the Institute of Place Management, member of the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, the World Future Studies Federation, and ALAF (Latin Futurism Association). Guest reviewer for Place Branding & Public Diplomacy, columnist at O Futuro das Coisas.

Former Coordinator of the Branding Experience Postgraduate Program at IED-SP and the Place Branding MBA at Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco. Professor of Place Branding in postgraduate programs across Brazil, including FIA-SP, Alfa-GO, and IED-RJ/SP, and guest speaker at international conferences and universities around the world.

Mariane Broc – Co-Founder/ CEO

Leads community engagement, directing research processes, workshops, and collaborative dynamics. Co-Founder of Places for Us and former Senior Partner at Bloom Consulting. Mariane has a Journalism degree from Faculdades Integradas Alcântara Machado (Fiam), 1995.

Leads community interaction and field research in place branding and placemaking projects, for both public and private sectors (e.g., new districts and developments).

Extensive experience in corporate branding strategy, working with global brands like Grupo Roca, Incepa, and Celite (Brazil HQs). Led the Reviva Campos Elíseos social placemaking project by Instituto Porto Seguro in São Paulo’s central region.

20 years in Brazilian media, holding positions as reporter, presenter, and chief editor of daily newscasts. Worked for major networks like TV Bandeirantes, SBT, TV Record, and Portal Terra.

Camila Kato – Head of Projects

Camila specializes in urban analysis, placemaking, and strategic planning. By mapping cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic dynamics of each city and region studied, her work focuses on identifying unique attributes that permeate N/LF activation strategies.

In new neighborhood projects, Camila collaborates with communities, clients, and urban planners to develop placemaking plans that reflect the aspirations and needs of all stakeholders. The inclusive approach ensures that every project fosters a sense of belonging and purpose.

With a degree in Architecture and Urbanism, Camila has further expertise in urban planning and urban spaces design. The holistic approach focuses on creating vibrant, sustainable, and people-centered environments that enhance quality of life.

Emannuel Costa – Head of Research & Urban Trends

Emannuel specializes in place branding research and urban trend analysis. His unique approach combines qualitative and quantitative methods to generate research insights that prepare decision-makers for future challenges and uncertainties.

His doctoral thesis focused on urban practices in emerging workplaces, with an emphasis on coworking spaces. As a Visiting Researcher at Memorial University of Newfoundland, he conducted research on medium-sized creative cities in Atlantic Canada. Emannuel's academic journey also includes a master's degree in urban planning.

Since 2019, Emannuel has been actively engaged in international forums on urban governance and innovation. He was awarded the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program (ELAP) scholarship by the Canadian government and served as a speaker and mentor at the 2022 Summer School on Workplace Management at Politecnico di Milano. Besides, he is an executive committee member of the Research Group on Collaborative Spaces, an associate editor of the Journal of Openness, Commons & Organizing, and contributed to the EU-funded Cost Action 18214 project 'The Geography of New Working Spaces and their impacts on the periphery'.

Previously, Emannuel worked as an independent consultant for municipal governments providing advice on urban policies and delivering lectures to public managers and related stakeholders.