Beyond the urban? Planet-izens of the metro-village

In this blog series, we catch a glimpse of the BEMINE scenario work led by Joe Ravetz from the University of Manchester, Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy. With Integrated Envisions we aim at new insights which are beyond current trends or the results of any one study or field. These short stories are formed from the ‘baseline envisions’ developed by knowledge-mapping and co-design. This came from the creative ideas of the BEMINE partners, in workshops from 2017-2018, to explore newly emerging futures.

New forms of urban and rural living are emerging, from both local and global forces. The new peri-urban and peri-rural settlement patterns are challenging for conventional spatial planning. The urban agenda is about spatial eco-zones, hubs and policy-centric patterns. Urban-rural ‘metro-villages’ are all around: cities which green up their local neighbourhoods: or rural towns or villages which are now for high-end metropolitans. Old structures are pushed aside by new divisions of growth and decline, high or low value, local or global, insiders or outsiders.

Meanwhile the new generation of ‘planet-izens’, with flexible local-global lifestyles and work-styles show a new kind of relational city. Whether people follow jobs, or jobs follow people, many people follow communities family structures. While modern urban development often builds ‘non-places’ (malls, airports, fast food etc), many search for places with more personal meaning. The result of rapid urbanization and regional growth or in some cases decline is not just a simple technical change, but changes in people’s life patterns and family systems.

This is likely to bring new directions for the future. One is the tech-enabled globalized multi-locality of new work and life combinations, with a new kind of peri-urban. Another direction is towards  nature-enabled, localized, semi-rural communities which keep their links to the past, while serving the logic of the future: a new kind of peri-rural. To respond to these new patterns, it seems local government and spatial planning may need to re-invent itself.

What is the dynamic? Workers and citizens make individual choices on location and lifestyle. There are new models of citizenship and participation that are combinations of social norms and expectations, political mandate and outcomes and cultural mindsets and ideologies. Financiers and entrepreneurs are active in property and development. Infrastructure providers deal with demands for new kinds of systems. Policy makers and spatial planners have to manage a rather different kind of urban-rural pattern.

What are the challenges? New forms of settlement, spatial economies and communities raise new challenges for spatial planning and public services. The new patterns may cut right across the policy objectives of urban fabrics, and the management of density and infrastructure and services.

Joe Ravetz, University of Manchester, Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy

Got interested? Come visit us at the open house poster session in the upcoming Urban Forum V 23.11.2018! These are also some of the most relevant topics in this Envision:

• From Public-Private-People Partnerships to Trading Zones in Gaining Co-coordinative Capability in Urban Planning. (Mäntysalo 2016)
• Urban nature – Finns value nature in residential areas. (Tiitu, Auvinen, Viinikka, Rehunen & Järvinen 2017)
• Youth Age Characteristics as Precursors of Power Couple Formation & Location Choice (Tanoa, Nakosteen, Westerlund & Zimmer 2018)

Beyond the technical? Function versus experience

In this blog series, we catch a glimpse of the BEMINE scenario work led by Joe Ravetz from the University of Manchester, Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy. With Integrated Envisions we aim at new insights which are beyond current trends or the results of any one study or field. These short stories are formed from the ‘baseline envisions’ developed by knowledge-mapping and co-design. This came from the creative ideas of the BEMINE partners, in workshops from 2017-2018, to explore newly emerging futures.

Urban development and spatial planning is generally focused on direct tangible issues, such as numbers of houses, jobs, schools etc. And most of our policy is built on a fairly simple idea of problems and solutions – a technical style of knowledge and management that is suitable for a technical urban system. But many emerging trends cut across, leaving gaps in our knowledge and policy systems. All around there are tensions and contradictions between economic, social, political and technology forces, each pulling in different directions. While urban policy aims to provide functions and services, such as health education or housing, what if the people are more interested in experiences?

If a school or college is also for entertainment, social networking, transport hub or business centre, we may need to shift to a more responsive, nuanced kind of knowledge, looking ‘beyond the technical’. Similar for public services, with growing pressure for continuous performance management, benchmarking and evaluation. In contrast, in health or education there are quite different pressures and opportunities for responsive operations, community co-production, platform skills and resources.

For the MALPE system of collaborative agreements in urban planning, there is a need to share new kinds of knowledge between policymakers, experts, citizens, activists, NGOs and newly emerging networks. Much of this knowledge is beyond the technical, with deeper layers of cultural and ethical and psychological experience, in organizations, communities, networks. By default, cities could lose green areas, small towns could decline, large cities could sprawl, local neighbourhoods could gentrify, public services could be more expensive and less effective. On the positive side there are emerging ideas, from networked organizations, public service co-production, platform ‘wiki-nomics’, and ‘associative governance’.

What is the dynamic? Cultural dynamics are at the root of change, in organizations, institutions or communities. Technical systems for management, benchmarking, evaluation etc, are also instrumental in organizing knowledge learning and exchange. Political and policy systems are involved as agents of change and/or resistance, with new models for participation, deliberation, co-production. Urban agendas focus on policy and management innovation, in multi-level and multi-sector governance.

What are the challenges? Organizations and public services are under pressure to adapt and innovate, doing ‘more for less’ by co-production and partnership. But they are also tied up with smart technical monitoring and management and evaluation, which make it harder to adapt and innovate. Urban policy for spatial planning, as in the MALPE agreements, is expected to manage forces which are beyond its control, involving citizens beyond its boundaries.

Joe Ravetz, University of Manchester, Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy

Got interested? Come visit us at the open house poster session in the upcoming Urban Forum V 23.11.2018! These are also some of the most relevant topics in this Envision:

• Shifting from Output to Outcome Measurement in Public Administration: (Rajala, Laihonen & Vakkuri 2017)
• Survey on MALPE actors’ knowledge practices. (Suppanen & Sankala 2017, in Finnish)
• Bypassing publicity for getting things done: between informal and formal planning practices in Finland. (Bäcklund, Häikiö, Leino & Kanninen 2017)

Beyond mobility? Somewhere versus anywhere

In this blog series, we catch a glimpse of the BEMINE scenario work led by Joe Ravetz from the University of Manchester, Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy. With Integrated Envisions we aim at new insights which are beyond current trends or the results of any one study or field. These short stories are formed from the ‘baseline envisions’ developed by knowledge-mapping and co-design. This came from the creative ideas of the BEMINE partners, in workshops from 2017-2018, to explore newly emerging futures.

There are powerful forces for globalization and networking, but also powerful reactions towards local economies and landscapes. It seems there is a human need for locality, local environments and local communities: and if these needs are not met they can break out in populist or nationalist movements, bringing social division and economic harm.

The localism principle is supported by well-meaning policies and plans, and by expert advice from researchers. But there are tensions and contradictions between a local and a globalized economy: a ‘somewhere’ community versus a mobile ‘anywhere’ society, where the forces pushing outwards are more powerful than those pulling in. There are emerging global platform economies, advanced VR and robotics, high speed responsive travel systems, decentralized infrastructure, and diffused social and family structures. All these point towards a future of ad-hoc low-density urban sprawl, populated by transients and migrant workers.

What is the dynamic? Environmental values and qualities bring the local into focus, but they are equally used to attract global mobile workers and residents. Economic forces push toward globalized markets and networks, but there are opposite pulls towards local economies and social enterprise. Political and policy systems try to respond, via multi-level governance and citizen participation, but the structures are not well suited to the problems. Tensions between locality and mobility define the urban agenda, which is on policy challenges for sustainable settlements. The urban development metabolism is seen as a processor of value-added, moving up the value hierarchy, towards globalized gravity fields for skilled labour and consumer markets.

What are the challenges? Since there are new patterns of growth and decline, urban policy faces more than one ‘Nexus’ of tensions and dilemmas: There are tensions between migration and mobility, linking local jobs to local people, and the role of the multi-local educated, creative and globalized classes. Policy-makers have to deal with conflicting interests between greenspace and urban zone policy and the regional imbalances of skills and investment.

Joe Ravetz, University of Manchester, Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy

Got interested? Come visit us at the open house poster session in the upcoming Urban Forum V 23.11.2018! These are also some of the most relevant topics in this Envision:

• Is urbanization the ruin of countryside? (Tervo, Helminen, Rehunen & Tohmo 2018, in Finnish)
• Do People Follow Jobs or Do Jobs Follow People? : The Case of Finland. (Tervo 2016)
• Urban fabrics in Finnish urban regions – walking, public transport, automobile fabrics (Ristimäki, ym. 2017, in Finnish)
• Citizens in urban development (Bäcklund, Häkli & Schulman (toim.) 2017, in Finnish)

Beyond smart? Cities but not as we know them

In this blog series, we catch a glimpse of the BEMINE scenario work led by Joe Ravetz from the University of Manchester, Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy. With Integrated Envisions we aim at new insights which are beyond current trends or the results of any one study or field. These short stories are formed from the ‘baseline envisions’ developed by knowledge-mapping and co-design. This came from the creative ideas of the BEMINE partners, in workshops from 2017-2018, to explore newly emerging futures.

It’s easy to walk around cities looking for buildings and spaces – but there’s also a sense that things are changing underneath. When a bus-stop is an internet café, or when a quiet rural village is a global urban hub, we have to rethink – what are cities or rural areas, what is their role, and for who?  Such questions are the start of the Integrated Envisions program of BEMINE. The Envisions aim to look beyond current knowledge, to map alternative futures, to generate new ideas in response, and then to plan the actions needed for positive outcomes. Each Envision contains four parts:

• ‘Baselines’ – problems, challenges, and the underlying systems, in the present
• ‘Scenarios’ – forces of change, uncertainty, and alternatives in the future
• ‘Synergies’ – opportunities, innovations and inter-connections, for the future
• ‘Strategies’ – pathways and roadmaps for action which links the future to the present

The Baselines here are the first stage of four in the synergistic process: they point towards the Scenarios, Synergies and Strategies. These are the preliminary Baseline Envisions, each suggesting a space ‘beyond’ that of present-day knowledge:

• BEYOND SMART: cities but not as we know them: new urban systems are emerging, with the catalyst of digital technology, which change the structures of economy and society.
• BEYOND MOBILITY: somewhere versus anywhere: there are powerful forces for globalization and networks, but also powerful reactions for local economies and landscapes.
• BEYOND THE TECHNICAL: function versus experience: most urban policy aims to provide services, such as health, education or housing: but what if the people are more interested in ‘experiences’?
• BEYOND THE URBAN: metro-village Planet-izens: new patterns of rural-urban living and working, lead towards new peri-urban / peri-rural settlement patterns, a challenge for spatial planning.

(A general ‘practical guide’ is on http://manchester.ac.uk/synergistics – & early version of the online toolkit is on  http://manchester.ac.uk/synergistics/collaboratorium/bemine-finland/ )

Beyond smart? Cities but not as we know them

New urban models are emerging. They are accelerated by digital technology and spreading into all areas of economy and society and lifestyle. The ‘beyond smart’ post-digital city is changing all the known rules on economics, governance and urban policy. It is also inventing new rules on working and living. If the mission of the ‘smart city’ is basically to improve the existing urban system, the ‘beyond smart’ city looks towards a completely different kind of system.

The implications for spatial development and urban governance are near impossible to predict. But it seems plausible that cities and towns could be much more fluid, as the boundaries between work, leisure, education and shopping are mixed up. New divisions and polarizations could emerge, by income, lifestyle, culture etc. Small towns and rural areas could also be more mixed, as previous home-work-service-lifestyle structures are changed.

What is the dynamic? Technology forces the change via advanced robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and virtual reality (VR). Economic innovation revolves around platforms, portals, cloud working, blockchain and mobile apps. Social lifestyles, education and leisure each are adapting and innovating. Spatial flows, hubs and networks are in the core of new urban agendas.

What are the challenges? Co-location of work and leisure is one face of a broader shift where the ‘beyond smart post-digital city’ is changing all the rules on economics, governance and urban planning. The creative classes are riding the change, clustering in the metropolitan centres, building global networks and mobilizing their educational advantage. Other classes may find other solutions, but there is a high risk of exclusion and obsolescence. Service models, public services and business models will all need to adapt and innovate. The text-book urban typology of ‘home, work, services’ may soon be obsolete, and urban policy will need to adapt and innovate.

Joe Ravetz, University of Manchester, Centre for Urban Resilience & Energy

Got interested? Come visit us at the open house poster session in the upcoming Urban Forum V 23.11.2018! These are also some of the most relevant topics in this Envision:

• Emerging Workplaces in Post-Functionalist Cities (Di Marino & Lapintie 2017)
• Improving access & managing healthcare demand with walk-in clinic (Kork & Vakkuri 2016)
• The Creative Class: do Jobs follow People or do People follow Jobs (Østbye, Moilanen, Tervo & Westerlund 2017)