For some 6,000 years, the cities and towns where people have gathered together have been cradles of innovation and advancement in knowledge, economic prosperity and health. They have also borne witness to significant human suffering and pain.
What will cities and towns around the world look like in 2050? How green, blue, socially fair, resilient and thriving will they be? How much freedom will they have to evolve, and who will be involved in shaping how they change? What will demographic changes (be it an ageing population or a young one) mean? Which ones will support their citizens to live healthy, enjoyable and sustainable lifestyles, and which ones will be concrete jungles that are poorly served by ill-thought-out master planning, infrastructure and services?
How urban settlements evolve up to 2050 will play a significant role in how successfully humankind protects and nurtures the Earth's ecosystems and biodiversity, and avoids disasters. Will we stumble forwards and see the pressing matters of our time continue to cause problems, or will we act together with a common mindset to lead better lives and improve our relationship with the planet?
In the Overview of this website we describe some of the key factors shaping urban environments.
An important action that municipality teams in cities and towns need to focus on for drawing up and implementing a roadmap to work to achieve a good vision for their areas can be summed up in one word - engage.
It is important to engage with as many people as possible to agree a good way forward for an urban area and then implement agreed actions, learning and adapting when required. Currently, the engagement levels in urban societies are often (though not everywhere) too low. Why is this? Wide-ranging engagement takes time and effort - it costs money and it needs to be planned. Groups of people are often labelled as "stakeholders": in the Urban 2.0 system they are people (individuals and groups). People need to be engaged and consulted in an effective way in a continuous planning and action review process (some may be familiar with the Plan Do Check Act approach) from the onset of a masterplanning cycle, not once a plan has been drawn up. Changing urban environments is hard: trade-offs and compromises are required and resources are scarce. Making the time for engagement with and participation by people is the best way forward.
Below are a few simple and high-level examples of describing a roadmap (other examples exist).
As a city or town evolves it will retain much of what it currently has, adapt some of its existing areas, and implement new features and improvements. The scale of what it sets out to achieve over a certain timeframe depends on the vision and ambition that its leaders demonstrate - which should be informed by listening to many people. Will city and town leaders settle for the status quo and small, regular changes that have taken place for decades such as the usual regular changes to retail premises in an urban centre, or will they aim for something more ambitious - for meaningful and transformational change that takes into account people's views and ideas and brings them properly along the journey? Just because things have been done in a certain way for a long time does not mean these ways are how a city or town should continue to function.
A few points from the urban system
In line with 15-minute / quick access design principles, the core needs of citizens should be close enough to where they live, based on active mobility (walking, cycling, mobility support), not using a car all of the time. How does this change if a population ages? For all cities and towns, where we live should provide and nurture good neighbourly communal bonds, not wall us off from each other (for which we can learn a great deal from the past).
Transport & mobility infrastructure should allow us to minimise individual car use - whilst of course allowing for people who genuinely need a vehicle, and vital logistics supplies. Good active mobility (walking and cycling in particular) and public transport should be available to everyone, including good choices for those with mobility restrictions. Why is this type of infrastructure so poor in many parts of the world today?
Buildings must be low-carbon for their whole lifecycle of construction, renovation and operation and demolition/repurposing, maintain efficient comfort for a range of climate conditions and provide resilience against disaster hazards, through the adoption and adherence to good building codes. In many parts of the world, we also need to think hard about whether we keep building more than we really need.
Society needs to limit its “consumption offerings”. Urban centres do not need to be dominated by retail, retail and yet more retail. They can benefit from different uses of space, they should include green and blue areas for people of all ages to enjoy and they should be home to innovative businesses such as clean energy tech and agri-tech. And on agriculture, we should embrace locally grown produce. For food products that we import in, can we establish genuine "local to local" bonds between local sellers and providers, such as coffee shops that forge links with direct local producers in coffee growing countries?
The private sector is an important group to engage with to develop a good urban roadmap. Businesses are at the heart of how urban centres thrive. Equality in employment opportunities must be stitched into economic prosperity. Sensible innovation and change needs to happen. The disadvantaged need to be given good opportunities.
Good public and private partnership solutions for infrastructure, health, education and social security are critical.
If we plan it properly, we can link all actions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - it can add value locally and globally if we make the time to do so.
We also need to learn from what other places are doing - a problem shared is a problem halved.
Engagement in developing a vision
A vision that a city or a town team develops with the people who live and work in their area needs to be compelling, realistic and achievable, and connected to meaningful actions and targets that can be monitored and reviewed for success, following a Plan-Do-Check-Act mantra.
A vision can be developed by working through a diagnostic assessment, to think through a wide range of angles and aspects of governance and the ecological, physical and socio-economic aspects of the urban system. There isn't a common global standard for urban diagnostic assessments; various options exist (see the General Tools & Support section for examples).
Are cities and towns mapping out a roadmap that is informed by advice from global think-tanks and bodies, in a way that can flex and adapt as they progress with different initiatives and as their circumstances change? At a global level, many positive statements exist about how to improve urban environments. For example, United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) has published a well-crafted document, “The City of 2030 – Our Manifesto”, which describes laudable goals for a city or town to aspire to reach. MCR2030 provides a Resilience Roadmap – Stage Assessment to help authorities position where they are “on the road to resilience”. What percentage of the world's cities and towns use the advice of organisations like these to develop their own strategies and plans?
How are municipal teams learning from their engagement with citizens, businesses and others such as academics and think-tanks? Are they mapping meaningful and quantifiable targets to global sustainability goals such as the SDGs (do they see the value of this approach)? Is there someone or a team in a municipal authority with a dedicated role for planning the future (which includes liaising with all parts of the authority about it), or is such a role / team not currently justified / affordable? If no such role / team exists, how is the future being planned, and who is leading it?
Engagement in developing urban plans
City and town strategies and plans typically contain detailed plans and actions specific to their context. Strategies and plans should be developed by involving everyone, through meaningful and inclusive engagement with people - citizens, businesses, financiers, entrepreneurs, academics, NGOs. They should not be developed first by a planning team and then made available for feedback (today, many of these feedback loops are overly complicated). Urban strategies and plans can be connected to the SDGs, with SDG 17 helping to spread learning and continuous improvement. They can also be connected to the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction.
Today, many urban strategies published online include an option for public consultation and feedback, but it is typically done in a dull and uninspiring way. Citizens and businesses usually need to look for city / town plans online or ask their local council about them. Strategies and plans are rarely communicated to the entire population by authorities - most people do not receive a flyer or electronic notification asking for engagement and feedback. Even if you do, it is highly unlikely that there are any incentives to review the plans of your city or town - such as vouchers or e-tokens. If people do make the time to provide constructive input, can they be rewarded in some way for helping to shape the future of their urban environment? This principle is linked to a fundamental change in the concept of value which is part of the Urban 2.0 system. Given these points, can city / town authorities engage in a better way with as many citizens and businesses as possible? Perhaps methods such as The Doughnut Model can help, with advisers on engagement supporting efforts.
Sharing our approaches and lessons
Can urban authorities cooperate with others to share approaches and lessons learned? Do the strategies and masterplans that are developed by municipal authorities around the world have clear linkages to the masterplans of neighbouring cities and towns in the same state/zone, country, region and maybe similar-sized urban peers elsewhere in the world? Do the people who work in municipal authorities have the time to find similar-sized peers to share knowledge? Maybe this is something that a Global Urban Centre could help to support. Understanding the similarities and differences between cities and towns in different parts of the world that are of a similar in size and topography could lead to interesting learning points being shared and used. A "finders service" by a Global Urban Centre could link cities and towns with each other to hold structured "peer assist" learning events, in-person and online. Furthermore, can the strategies and plans of cities and town be captured in a secure global database, with the identified quantifiable actions and initiatives (along with Business Cases) tracked and monitored globally, including linkage to the SDGs?
The relationship between city / town and central (national / federal / state) government is key to how they move forward with roadmaps, strategies and plans for the future. In many countries, national / federal governments retain central control, with city and town teams only having marginal budget control. Why is this? National / federal governments are far away from local urban front lines - they cannot know the details and nuances of what's required in a local area. Should authorities in cities and towns be given the freedom and the means to own, manage and transform their fortunes, with the right governance and oversight in place to ensure funds are wisely used?
Consider how things work in Sweden, a country that grants its cities and towns the authority to make decisions that are appropriate for the local environment, with something like 37% of tax in Sweden being raised locally. Take, for example, the Swedish city of Gothenburg. The municipal authority of this city has the authority and the resources to manage their own pathway to the future. Like many Swedish cities, they are responsible for raising a share of the taxes. As of 2022, the city levied an income tax of 21%, with the region of which it is part of adding a further 11%.
Gothenburg has control of its urban planning and transport - which is a key part of ant urban strategy. The city and region also oversees its education, welfare and healthcare. The national government contributes to large infrastructure projects, as it does for other cities and towns, whilst giving the city a large degree of control to shape what their citizens and businesses need.
Contrast Sweden's approach to that of the UK (to use just one example of a country that has nationally centralised control), where in early 2020s just 6% of taxes are raised locally. The amount of freedom and autonomy British cities and towns have to solve and fund their local needs is small (many have been experiencing challenges in 2023, although the UK national government is trying to provide support). British cities and towns and their metropolitan areas have to rely on the national Treasury to fund almost everything - including transport (a key parts of the urban system), which they supposedly have control over. The privatisation of services such as buses makes it more complicated). Health and education are also mostly funded centrally.
The lack of autonomy granted to cities and towns in the UK is an example of a model that exists elsewhere in the world. Should more control be given to cities and towns to raise funds for the most important urban system areas, with support and oversight from their state / national / federal government? Trying to control everything from the centre hinders innovation and flexibility (as it does in any organisation). An article published by the LSE adds weight to the argument to the benefits of giving municipal authorities more autonomy over their destiny.
Whilst granting autonomy to municipal authorities can provide benefits, there must be good external governance and oversight in place - which is a role that national / federal governments can perhaps play. Municipal authorities must take heed of lessons learned and examples of municipal authorities getting themselves into trouble with what they thought were good financial and investment strategies, but were not.
The Urban 2.0 framework includes city / town roadmap examples in various document formats. Contact us if you would like samples and/or to discuss ideas.
If you have any feedback and suggestions about urban roadmaps, please let us know.
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