JPI Urban Europe conference: Sound strategic urban planning –
linked with regional planning, including research and innovation smart specialization strategies (RIS3), and balanced territorial regional planning, place and people based
approach to spatial planning
Forward view mirror – strategic shared intelligence for urban planning
Joe Ravetz
Centre for Urban ResilienceUniversity of Manchester
www.urban3.net
Introduction – what’s the problem?
• Synergistic thinking for strategic planning intelligence
3 Project examples:
• FP7 project PLUREL – peri-urban landuse: >>> synergistic multi-level governance
• JPI study: Urban Foresights: >>> synergistic foresight
• JPI project: LOOPER (“Learning Loops in the Built Environment”): >>> synergistic planning process.
Key Issues & forward views…
The objectives
The clients
Contents
INTRODUCTION - URBAN SYSTEMS - FROM ‘SMART’ TO ‘WISE’ ...
• Most urban problems are complex & inter-connected…
• But most policy is simple and not well connected…
• Enterprise / business is a powerful force for one kind of value.
• But other values - ecological, social, cultural - may be equally important
• We need ways of working with integrated social-ecological-urban-economic systems…
• … not only for technically ‘smart’ cities –but more ‘wise’ cities… cities which learn, co-create, co-produce & co-evolve.
• … challenge for strategic planning: how to move ‘from smart to wise’, in policies and processes ?
• Here are 3 projects to demonstrate…
• FP7 project – largest ever study on peri-urbanization
• 33 partners: 4.5 years: 6m euros• Technical analysis & scenario
modelling• Actor / policy / institutional analysis• User friendly ‘assessment tool’ • Recommendations for peri-urban
regional governance & EU policy• www.plurel.net
PROJECT #1: ‘PLUREL’ – peri-urban landuse relationships
Key questions (for this session):• How to do multi-level governance in
peri-urban areas which are between territorial units?
• Is urban sprawl a system effect which needs system level tools?
Linking global-local capital & investment, to enhance
ecosystem services & rural-urban links
Remote top-down governance, disconnected from complex
functions, networks, territories
Result – ‘sprawl city-region’
Governance with social-mind structures, responsive to multiple
complex inter-connected functions, networks, territories..
Result – ‘synergistic-city-region’
Widening social & economic divisions & exclusion
Car dependency, traffic congestion, climate & energy
vulnerability
Outward sprawl of mono-functional
landuses: displace-ment of diversity & resilience: low value
housing next to heavy industry
Fractal spatial pattern enhances
inclusion & cohesion: Integration of green/
blue / grey / gold infrastructure
Regeneration of local diversity & resilience, for
social inclusion & full prosperity
‘Archipelago’ of globalized business parks / retail parks campuses / hubs:
privatized commons
PERI-URBAN MULTI-LEVEL GOVERNANCE
a) ADAPTIVE SPRAWL-I&II b) SYNERGISTIC CITY-REGION-III
Local admin units are networked with
external governance of finance, infrastructure, resources etc: also with internal civic society &
community
These cities are a pain in the ***
cities are corner-stones of prosperity
Our next mall has 20000
parking places located
strategically for 3 cities
Our next mall is a multi-
level facility & community with 3 cities
Local admin units cannot manage external & global forces. Internal tensions between rich & poor in
under-bounded territories
(regional scales are similar to local)
This study at the start of JPI, did a review, database & workshop on 100+ examples of city foresight & long range strategies.
Questions…
• Why is the 'urban' futures / foresight less easy than other systems?
• E.g. energy / emissions has a core of technical factors (physics / engineering):
• Maybe the urban agenda is not only about technical systems (landuse, buildings, etc), - but “relationships” -(work-home, community/ household, cultural-ecological, local-global, etc).
Urban concepts (emerging /
existing)
Urban grand challenges (emerging /
existing)
Urban strategic research
agendas: (‘city images’)
Urban research approaches(emerging /
existing)
PROJECT #2: SCREENING URBAN FORESIGHTS & Studies supporting Forward Looking Activities:
Workshop agenda outline:
SYNERGISTIC URBAN FORESIGHT: FROM SMART TO WISE
LINEAR-ADAPTIVE ‘1-2.0’ MODEL
No it’s a tree trunk!!
It’s a snake!!
“When” is the foresight horizon?
‘STRAIGHT ON FOR THE FUTURE’
“Why” foresight? It’s all about the
money“Who” needs foresight? The command & control elite
It’s a rope!!
No it’s a big floppy thing!!
FORESIGHT THINKING
SYNERGISTIC ‘3.0’ MODEL
‘THE FUTURE –YOU DECIDE’
“Why” foresight – many reasons – cultural, social, ecological, scientific, economic… and a love of elephants….
If we can take off the blindfolds, & see the reality together, we can think ahead together, & act together…“What” is the foresight
question? A list of topics……
FORESIGHT CYCLE
Baselines: counting the units Only the most forceful
drivers of change
Result –trends of growth / decline
Response: power & money
Landscapes of inter-
connections
Result: emergence of creative energy &
ideasMany more drivers of
change are inter-connected
Response: collaborative
action
PROJECT #3: JPI ‘LOOPER’: ‘Learning loops in the built environment’
Student inputs: textbooks, lectures
Process: fact competitions
Outputs: exam passes
PROCESS: ‘Mode-1’
learning: passive information
gathering
PROCESS:‘Mode-2 & Mode-3’ creative, reflexive learning
Pro-active evaluation &
feedback
Outcomes: rounded creative students active in society
Inputs - inspiration, curiosity, human resources
Process: collaborative learning by doing
Objectives Outputs
Process Inputs
Objectives Outputs
Process Inputs
Outcomes Evaluation
Objectives: beat the
competition
Output of projects,
initiatives, collaborations
LEARNING LOOPS - MODE-I LEARNING LOOPS - MODE-III
CITY AS PROCESS: COMMUNITY PLANNING & DESIGN 3.0
Development system is driven by financial profit
extraction
Viable housing & communities are
destroyed to make way for
commercial development
Decision-making is hierarchical, focused on
financial Return On Investment
Resistance & dissent
is excluded
Built form is mono-functional
& unresponsive to human needs
Design is made by machines for machines
Design is made by humans for humans
Built form is multi-functional, diverse & responsive to human
needs
Housing, commercial, ecological uses are
combined for added value
Development based on recirculating financial,
social, cultural, ecological values
Decision-making is inclusive &
creative, focused on Social Return On Investment
Neighbor-hood
forums & Planning For
Real
LINEAR-ADAPTIVE “2.0” PLANNING & DESIGN SYNERGISTIC “3.0” PLANNING & DESIGN
Key issues & forward viewsPOLICY & GOVERNANCE ISSUES
• How to govern the in-between spaces of the peri-urban? (PLUREL)
• How to build long-range horizons into strategic planning & foresight? (JPI-EFP)
• How to manage ‘learning’ from policy to public? (LOOPER).
The synergistic toolkit has been developed from these & others, to provide for…
• Peri-urban multi-level ‘co-learning’ governance.
• Strategic policy foresight mode-III intelligence.
• Participation with a real-time ‘co-learning / co-production’ loop (both technical & human)
RESEARCH ISSUES
• How to research the hyper-complexity of the peri-urban?
• How to research the future with near zero evidence?
• How to understand the complex relations of public & policy-makers?
Again the synergistic toolkit can help…
• peri-urban can be framed as a ‘co-evolutionary systems’ research problem.
• Strategic policy foresight framed as a cognitive (‘2nd order cybernetic’) problem.
• Participation can be framed as a relational / co-evolutionary interaction of discourse & institutions…
“World’s largest feasibility study”
– linking spatial, economy,
environment, society,
governance.
Pathways for collective
intelligence in cities,
economies, ecologies,
technologies & politics,
“Environment & the City”
- critical perspectives on
urban environments
around the world
www.manchester.ac.uk/synergisticswww.urban3.net
Ravetz, J (2017): From ‘smart’ cities to ‘wise’: pathways for intelligent sustainability. In: Bylund, J, (Ed), Urban Transitions Pathways, Brussels, JPI-Urban Europe, available on - http://jpi-urbaneurope.eu/connecting-the-
dots-by-obstacles-friction-and-traction-ahead-for-the-sria-urban-transitions-pathways/