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Can new thinking for urban collaboration networks help?
Many knowledge sharing networks hold “show and tell” webinars, with interesting and valuable presentations made by people in different cities and regions about what they are doing and their lessons learned. These webinars are certainly valuable and they are a great source of knowledge.
Perhaps the approach of private sector networking associations could augment this knowledge sharing about urban environments.
Certain private sector networking associations run problem-solving forums that focus on reviewing specific needs that people have and request. A person or a team poses the networking association a question and they find an appropriate person or team that has experience in the matter to hand. An in-person or virtual meeting is set up to discuss the matter. If it is appropriate, some or all of the outcomes can be written up to be added to a knowledge bank.
In addition to this type of private sector knowledge sharing service, tools and templates from networking members can be shared for others to use. Thus, this type of service is a peer to peer knowledge sharing network, facilitated by a small team.
Predicting the past and remembering the future...
Jane McGonigal, PhD, a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California has described three exercises that can be used to help us as individuals create something new or create change. These techniques are based on the principles of counterfactual thinking. Whilst they are put forward as ways to help people at a personal level, they can be used to think about the evolution of urban environments.
Predicting the Past
Predicting the past is when we look back at something we have done, a decision made or an action taken. We then imagine that instead of making this choice, we made a different one. This technique is focused on the past, but it’s useful to futurists because it helps us see how our present reality could have been different.
The past wasn’t inevitable and therefore the present wasn’t inevitable. We can make decisions today that will shape it to be something different, just like we made decisions in the past that shape our present.
Remembering the Future
Can we remember the future? We can if we try to imagine doing something we have never done before, perhaps some ground-breaking new innovation. To see this previously unimaginable future, use the X-Y-Z method.
- X is what we want to do.
- Y is a community we care about.
- Z is a memory of a place we have seen before that we aspire towards.
Can we then imagine how these three things can arise?
This is a technique called “remembering the future.” We take activities, people and places that we have a form of real experience with, and we link them together in a way we haven’t seen done before.
Can we work out how to achieve this? It can often be a challenge to see a plausible explanation for a possible future. However, using this technique, every time we remember a future, we rate it as more likely to happen because picturing something creates something similar to a memory in our minds.
It’s a powerful habit to practice because it strengthens our ability to believe that things that have not yet happened can happen in the future.
Hard Empathy
Finally, can we imagine ourselves experiencing something that is very hard to relate to, because it feels a world away?
Whatever it is, even if it seems unbelievable, unimaginable, can we imagine ourselves living this way? What could it feel like?
Using these techniques, perhaps we can see new insights and ways of achieving change to our cities and towns.
Examples of urban knowledge networks
MCR2030
Making Cities Resilient 2030 (MCR2030) is an initiative for improving local resilience through advocacy, sharing knowledge and experiences, establishing city-to-city learning networks, injecting technical expertise, connecting multiple layers of government and building partnerships.
The C40
C40 is a global network of mayors of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis.
The C40 Urban Flooding Network
The Urban Flooding Network supports city efforts to identify, plan and implement projects to increase resilience to urban flooding impact.
City Leadership Initiative
The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative – the flagship program of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University - is a collaboration between Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Business School, and Bloomberg Philanthropies to equip mayors and senior city officials to tackle complex challenges in their cities and improve the quality of life of their residents.
Cities in Motion
At a time when cities are facing unexpected challenges, our main objective is to create knowledge and innovative tools that generate smarter local governments. This initiative brings together our international network of experts, specialised companies and worldwide local governments.
One Billion Resilient
Driven by the critical need to find immediate, scalable solutions to address the widespread and intensifying consequences of climate change - threatening our families and communities, natural ecosystems, economic development, and political stability - the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock) set out to reach one billion people with resilience solutions by 2030.
World Green Building Council – Case Study Library
The World Green Building Council’s Case Study Library houses examples of cutting edge sustainable buildings. Each case study demonstrates outstanding performance of an operational building that complies with at least one of WorldGBC’s three strategic impact areas: Climate Action; Health, Equity & Resilience; and Resources & Circularity.
A city example - London Climate Action Week (LCAW)
Founded in 2019, London Climate Action Week (LCAW) is one of the world's largest independent climate change events held each year.
The LCAW platform genuinely reaches beyond the 'usual suspects', bringing leaders together from businesses, politicians, NGOs and civil society on a global platform to create cutting-edge solutions to climate change. Anyone can join.
Science-based Targets Network (cities focus)
This network provides guidance to help cities set climate science-based targets. Nature science-based targets for cities are under development.
Uplink (a WEF initiative)
Uplink is an innovator movement to link innovators to a growing network of experts and investors, who can scale their ventures and accelerate their impact.
Covenant of Mayors - Europe
The EU Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy is an initiative supported by the European Commission bringing together thousands of local governments that want to secure a better future for their citizens. By joining the initiative, they voluntarily commit to implementing EU climate and energy objectives.
Learning Points from Urban 2.0
The book mentioned on this website contains about 150 “learning points". New learning points are being written about all the time, and this website describes a few of them.
They are put forward as examples of initiatives that are being undertaken, and lessons that others can hopefully learn. It is hoped that with these learning points, people can think about how such ideas might be applicable to the urban environments that they live and work in.
To obtain examples, please contact us.
The value of journalism
Journalism is an important contributor to knowledge sharing about urban environments. It provides a rich source of information that can be combined with detailed studies and papers, for review and comparison with other information.
Some journalism outputs are free to access, others are behind paywalls. They include The BBC, Bloomberg, The Conversation, The Economist, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The New York Times and many others, plus urban newsletters and many local papers and other sources of news.
Examples of journalism that cover urban environments (this is not an exhaustive list) are provided below.
The BBC (a free service)
The BBC provides a range of stories and articles about, and relating to urban environments.
The Future Planet section in particular is a good source.
Bloomberg CityLab (a subscription service)
Bloomberg CityLab, which is part of the overall Bloomberg news service, covers a wide range of matters and stories relating to urban areas.
The Conversation - pieces on urban planning
The Conversation publishes pieces on various aspects of urban planning.
The Financial Times - special report on thriving cities
The FT has created a number of linked articles on this subject (may be restricted access).
The New York Times - Cities for Tomorrow report
The NYT published a number of articles in 2022 (may be restricted access).
Wired - pieces on urban design
Wired publishes pieces on various aspects of urban design.