The socio-economic system

How cities and towns function - how we interact with each other and how we develop and run our urban economies in a socio-economic system - is the lifeblood of what they are (a city or a town is much more than the collection of its physical assets). 

How people live, work and enjoy leisure activities in urban environments is constantly evolving. There is an appreciation of the value that nature provides, and an appreciation of the need to reduce inequalities in cities and towns the world over. Work patterns in many urban centres are continuing to change after the COVID-19 pandemic, as many people (those who can do so) in certain parts of the world choose to work more often from home.

Change creates new types of employment opportunities in urban centres. As we focus on responsible consumption and greater reuse of what has already been made, perhaps there will be less focus on retail and more focus on different uses for central urban areas, such as social centres and clean tech businesses. Perhaps the Reuse and Repair drive will lead to more sustainable use of what has already been produced.

Cities and towns are melting pots where people come together (including people who travel into these areas from other places) to generate ideas and create opportunities of all kinds, shapes and forms. Creative destruction rules. New businesses create a large proportion of new jobs, and urban environments are home to a high proportion of them. Added to this, urban environments are home to a wide range of innovations as they tackle climate change and other sustainability matters.  

Changes to urban working patterns are impacting the way societies function, for example:

1. There was an appreciation during the COVID-19 pandemic for “essential workers” who perform various types of work that help societies to function – including healthcare, sanitation and waste services, postal services and general municipal administration. Are these essential workers still valued as much, post-pandemic? Their work typically cannot be undertaken remotely, it requires physical presence.
2. Urban working patterns are linked to housing affordability, which influences where people live and what their commute to work is like. Many people who work in essential services roles cannot afford to live close to the work areas that they serve. Should this change?
3. For people who work in office-type jobs, the nature of the office is changing. Gone is the old 9-to-5, five-days-a-week working pattern for many (some parts of the world have reverted back to this, but others have not). Commuting patterns for people who travel into urban areas to work are changing as people rethink how much time they want to spend travelling to their workplace, following the extended periods of working from home many had during the COVID-19 pandemic.
4. For urban cores, a lack of people commuting into them has a major impact on the livelihoods of people who work in service sectors in that core (from cafés to delivery services).
5. The income of municipal authorities from public transport is changing, as people’s use of public transit systems changes. This could have a major impact on their ability to fund new urban improvement projects.

When we look back ten years after the pandemic was declared over, we will probably see a pattern of change to work habits that we can attribute to a number of factors (with hindsight offering us a convenient opportunity to do so). We shall see whether the structure of work, and the employment contracts of workers, will change permanently or whether it turns out to be a passing phase. Permanent change will be possible if it makes organisations more effective at what they do, and the objectives they set themselves. Workers are still pondering how, where and on what employment terms they want to carry out their work, and whether they are happy in their roles or whether it is time to change.

SDG 8 is focused on ensuring decent work and economic growth. The availability of decent work is particularly acute in developing economies. In developing countries, an estimated 70 per cent of workers try to get by with informal employment, where salaries are lower than in formal employment, social protection is largely absent and working conditions are poorer. One in five of employed workers worldwide, including 66 per cent of workers in low-income countries, lived in extreme or moderate poverty in 2019 (ILO, 2020). For most who live in these places, informal work is not a choice but reflects limited availability of formal, more desirable jobs. 

Cities and towns are melting pots for all sorts of social activities – such as sports (professional and amateur), arts, theatre, museums and history, the staging of major events and many others.

Cities and towns have always had strong bonds to leisure activities of some sort. Smaller cities and towns, such as those constructed for specific work or home-related objectives, may lack some of this social infrastructure.

How can cities and towns use socio-economics systems thinking and principles to create and maintain close bonds in communities and districts through activities that are not related to work? Sports centres and town halls can be valuable places for people of all kinds to socialise. How will their role in society, and in contributing towards the local economy of the neighbourhood that they are in, be defined over the next decade?

As the world “opened up again” following the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism in cities and towns seems to be rebounding. There was much talk of making it more sustainable - is this happening? Can changes be made to ensure that travel and tourism is more sustainable for cities and towns around the world?

What level of understanding do we have about what is involved in designing, producing, shipping, selling and delivering the goods, products and services that they buy? Across different industries, from technology to toys, we often see and read announcements and advertisements about initiatives to “go carbon neutral”, but how real are they when we consider the entirety of the complex value chains and supply chains that criss-cross the world 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Marketing and pledges do not “change the dial”. Industries must rethink their entire value and supply chains if they are to introduce sustainable change to reduce emissions, and much of this change is expensive and, often, unglamorous in a way that requires a constant focus on “marginal gains”. Many industries, and businesses within them, are pursuing ambitious initiatives to make change happen, but others are not yet doing so. Perhaps if all of us, as citizens of urban environments (and rural areas too) knew more about what’s involved in the value chains of what we buy, we could be more active through what we choose to buy, and support businesses that are pushing ahead with genuine measures to improve sustainability. As consumers, we can “vote with our wallets”.

What will it take for each of us to cultivate and develop mindfulness and a conscious awareness of the impact we have on the world, so that we then act in a responsible way by being mindful of what is involved in the goods, products and services that we buy and consume? Whilst achieving a carbon neutral economy is a huge challenge, understanding how we can collectively be more responsible in our consumption of goods and services is central to achieving this target.

This societal challenge can be looked at through the concept of habitus. Habitus was coined by Pierre Bourdieu, a French social scientist and intellectual of the 20th century. The central concept of habitus is cultural capital, and that how we arrange our physical space, our belongings, what we do during the day and the social groups we have describes a mental map, as a set of inherited assumptions, that we use to organise the world as we see and experience it. Our assumptions are reinforced each day as we practise our habits. Habitus is important to appreciate our level of understanding, and our need to understand, what is involved in creating the artefacts that we value, and that we consume. The physical environment that we live in shapes how we think, and how we think determines how we see the physical world that we live in.  

Looking at an example of understanding industry supply chains

Consider the humble washing machine. They come in a wide variety of formats and sizes (front loader, top loader etc.), for household use, business use in urban laundry services, and commercial and industrial use. Some have integrated dryers. For those that can afford one, a washing machine is a valuable “essential household item” that is often taken for granted. Modern machines are much more environmentally friendly than they used to be, using less water and less electricity. They come with specific settings and energy and water ratings, some (typically the more expensive ones) being much better than others in their efficiency. Some machines are very basic, and can be crucial aides to people in poor countries.

The value chain for all the components of a washing machine and where they come from to be assembled is vast. A machine uses a variety of metals, plastics, rubber, glass, paint, adhesives, insulation, and – increasingly – a range of electronics (which themselves require materials like metals and silica to function). Components are produced, checked and tested, and shipped to assembly plants, with the finished products shipped around the world (in packaging) to warehouses, on to distribution channels (shops or direct to consumers), for “final mile” delivery, installation and then use. When a washing machine reaches the end of its life, are some of its parts repurposed and others recycled? All along this long and complex value chain, greenhouse gases and carbon are emitted (including the workplaces and vehicles that employees of appliance makers and suppliers use to get to their places of work). Some appliance makers are pledging to offset their carbon (CO2) emissions from washing machines sold. The washing machine is just one of the many household “white goods” that are typically owned in cities and towns in developed economies, and increasingly so across developing economies (though not everyone in these countries can currently afford one). 

As citizens, how do we use our washing machines (and dryers)? Are we aware of the best way to use them for the environment – and if we are aware, do we care enough to map the way we use the machine to this advice? Having an efficient machine is the starting point. On average, a laundry load that is washed at 60C and then dried in a washer-dryer can produce the equivalent of 3.3kg of CO2. If the average laundry load is washed at 30C and dried on a clothesline it emits 0.6kg of CO2.

Material World is a book that provides valuable insights for us all into key materials that support the world economy.

Citizens of urban environments are central to the drive for the responsible consumption of goods, products and services. It comes down to whether we are prepared to pay to improve the planet.

In a circular economy all forms of waste, from food to clothes, scrap metal and disused electronics are returned to the economy or transformed into new uses, rather than wasted as landfill or other forms of waste, including marine pollution. In a circular economy, the closer a product stays to its original form, the higher the value it usually has. It’s about changing the “take-make-waste” way we live into a “make-use-reuse” ethos where we eliminate waste where we can, and we reuse and recycle what we already have. The circular economy offers enormous potential to develop new parts of the economy with new jobs and new capabilities. Some of it already exists and has done so for years – we just haven’t thought of it in these terms.

Urban environments are major generators of waste. Food, plastics, metals, clothing and everything else. Yet they are also bastions of innovation, with many different and sometimes coordinated initiatives in place already for citizens to reuse goods and products.  How many cities and towns today have Circular Economy departments or at least specific roles that focus on it in part?

One of the first questions about circular consumption for urban citizens is, can we start by per person consuming less, and therefore dig less stuff up, make less, and waste less? A principle of good waste management is not to create waste in the first place. By consuming less, we do not mean implementing a rationing system, rather, can be get better at managing our consumption more responsibly, and be able to reuse things more. Examples exist a national level that municipal authorities in cities and towns can benefit from, if they have the capacity to find out about them and leverage them. For example, the UK-based sustainability charity, The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), provides a wide range of guidance and information to businesses and citizens, and holds campaigns such as an annual “Food Waste Action Week”. 

As the world reviews the scale of what must be done to achieve zero carbon supply chains, integrating circular economy principles into them is a vital action. Some of this will seem like “back to the future” for the older generation of many places, who will remember how things used to be in decades past, when it was normal for people to reuse, repurpose and recycle things, before our societies became hooked on the convenience of a “take, make and waste” culture. As we strive to tackle the infinitely complex challenge of climate change and broader sustainability issues, can we “reset” our societal principles and reward citizens and businesses for changing to a circular economy “reuse, repurpose and recycle” model?  

Sociologists have researched the value of “gifting” unwanted goods and products. As well as the obvious benefits to the environment, through reuse of goods and products rather than recycling them, it is known to help to create stronger communal ties and bonds. When people give goods and products freely, with no expectation of anything in return, it can create a sense of communal solidarity. In person experiences work this way, and also so do modern website exchanges (both examples are provided below). Research that goes back several years indicates that people get more of a societal boost from gifting items rather than exchanging them. Charity shops offer an “in person” shop-style opportunity for people to donate and reuse unwanted clothing in urban environments – and to feel good about contributing towards good causes at the same time.  

The Ellen Macarthur Foundation provides various information and resources about the circular economy.

Ensuring that people of all ages have access to good quality education and training is fundamental to achieving the changes we need to thrive, be greener and be resilient. Investment in education is a fundamental building block for socio-economic prosperity, starting from the earliest ages at kindergarten, through school, technical colleges and universities for undergraduate and postgraduate study, full and part-time. Can education systems around the world be improved by changing the urban environments where so much of the world’s formal education takes place?  

Will learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic be used in the coming years to drive forward improvements to school education? The installation of better technology in classrooms, for example, can provide enhanced learning opportunities, including making learning more personal for children and helping to keep them interested through new approaches. A report from the Education Redesign Lab at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education in 2019 (pre-pandemic) recommended that schools should abandon the “one size fits all” approach and move to creating and configuring personalised “success plans” for individual students. It is in some respects akin to moving from a “factory model” of school education to a “medical model”. As UNESCO highlights, a wide range of remote learning solutions are available which can benefit children in numerous ways.

In terms of the urban physical and socio-economic systems, what changes can be made to physical school infrastructure, perhaps linked to the 15-minute / quick access city design philosophy? Indoor ventilation systems (discussed in the previous section) with smart sensors that monitor light and humidity will improve health and therefore the ability of children to concentrate and learn. The location of schools, and their design - for new-builds and those requiring upgrades or renovations - should be reviewed and linked to how children travel to school, since there are tightly woven links to the perceived need for cars and the “school run” in much of the world. 

In line with SDG indicator 4.7, should children be taught and asked about the principles of sustainability and resilience, including the challenges of our urban environments, and be encouraged to think about what needs to be done to improve them? People who work in business and in municipal authorities could visit schools as part of an educational awareness campaign to discuss how urban environments could change. Maybe common lessons for different age groups could be created for this, with competitions organised for inspirational ideas from schoolchildren? Perhaps children think of ideas for the future which in later years they turn into reality themselves.

Are there opportunities to hold a global discussion in schools, colleges and universities about the principles of sustainability and resilience including the challenges that exist in our urban environments? Can young people, at school, college and university, be inspired to think of creative solutions to sustainability and resilience challenges, aided by people in business and municipal authorities acting as advisors to projects?

Universities and college campuses are vital and vibrant parts of urban environments. They are typically internationally-orientated places that are home for a few years (at least) to students from countries around the world. Universities in many urban environments are important economic drivers. Distance learning in higher education has been around for a few decades, and it had to be leveraged a great deal more during the pandemic than ever before, as universities struggled to fill funding gaps.

The vocational education and training (VET) sector faced particular challenges during the pandemic, particularly because online learning is not as effective for practice-oriented learning, a core element of VET instruction. Many countries adopted hybrid models for vocational education, offering a limited amount of in-person classes for practice-oriented components of a curricula and online education for the remaining parts. Nevertheless, because of the limitations of distance learning for practice-focused vocational training, it proved difficult. It remains to be seen how popular trades and craft jobs will be. Trades are a valuable part of a sustainable urban environment. Linked to the discussion earlier about the employment and work types that we pursue, many young people are choosing a vocational path rather than a higher education (university) path. They need the right support to ensure they can train properly and be recognised for applying their chosen trade.