Jam and Justice: Co-producing Urban Governance for Social Innovation, ESRC & Mistra Urban Futures

Impact ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-40
Author(s):  
Beth Perry ◽  
Bert Russell ◽  
Catherine Durose ◽  
Liz Richardson ◽  
Alex Whinnom
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Urban Futures

scholarly journals The social innovation–(re)politicisation nexus: Unlocking the political in actually existing smart city campaigns? The case of SmartCity Cologne, Germany

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 894-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Leitheiser ◽  
Alexander Follmann
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Social ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Urban Futures ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Urban Commons

As a prominent and performative discourse, The Smart City has the potential to shape urban futures. Yet, its mostly top-down implementation and dominantly technocratic definition of problems raises critiques of The Smart City as the latest version of a series of post-political and neoliberal visions of urban governance. However, as smart cities are implemented into ‘actually existing’ strategies locally, they are always negotiated and translated into place-specific contexts. Beyond critiquing the powerful discourse of The Smart City, the social innovation–(re)politicisation nexus (SIRN) spells out a framework for contesting and co-producing radically transformative smart city visions and politics as they take shape on the ground. Linking the empirical case study of the ‘top-down’ implementation of SmartCity Cologne, Germany, to current ‘bottom-up’ discourses on reclaiming the urban commons, we show how ‘true’ and ‘real’ social innovation must go hand-in-hand with a re-politicisation of hegemonic logics and discursive framings. In doing so, this paper makes theoretical and empirical contributions to public and academic discourse on which governance practices, methods and policies could contribute to radical transformations towards a ‘truly’ smart and sustainable urban future.

scholarly journals Representing ‘Place’: City Climate Commissions and the Institutionalisation of Experimental Governance in Edinburgh

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Creasy ◽  
Matthew Lane ◽  
Alice Owen ◽  
Candice Howarth ◽  
Dan Van der Horst
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Urban Transformation ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Urban Futures ◽  
Key Industries ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

Against the backdrop of increasingly fragmented and poly-centric urban climate governance, this article examines the establishment of city climate ‘commissions’ as an experimental means of addressing the challenge of climate change at the city-scale. In doing so it addresses the question: What constitutes diversity in voices and perspectives when trying to represent the city as a place for climate action? To answer this question, the article presents an analysis of the Edinburgh Climate Commission’s establishment, drawing on participatory ethnographic research carried out by a researcher embedded within the project team. The account of how this new mode of urban governance was both conceptualised and then put into practice offers a new institutional angle to the literature on urban ‘experimentation.’ Through our reflective analysis we argue that aspirations to ensure pre-defined ‘key’ industries (high carbon emitters) are accounted for in commissioner recruitment, and an over-emphasis on capturing discernible ‘impacts’ in the short term (by involving organisations already pro-active in sustainable development) hindered an opportunity to embrace new perspectives on urban futures and harness the innovative potential of cities to engage with the multifaceted nature of the climate challenge. Furthermore, new insight into the relationship between local authorities and other ‘place-based’ agents of change opens up important questions regarding how to balance the attainment of legitimacy within the political status quo, and the prospect of a new radical politics for urban transformation.

scholarly journals New Public Institutional Forms and Social Innovation in Urban Governance: Insights from the “Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics” (MONUM) in Boston

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmelina Bevilacqua ◽  
Yapeng Ou ◽  
Pasquale Pizzimenti ◽  
Guglielmo Minervino
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
New Public ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
Organizational Pattern ◽  
Innovation Practices

This paper investigates how public sector institutions change their form and approach to achieve a socially innovative urban governance. The “Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics” (MONUM) in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) proves a representative case of innovation in the public sector. As a new type of government agency, it is essentially an open innovation lab dedicated to innovative evidence-based policymaking. Following a new dynamic organizational pattern in urban governance, MONUM is conducive to project-oriented social innovation practices and horizontal multi-sectoral collaboration among the three societal sectors: public, private, and civil. Its results suggest that first, the peculiarity of MONUM lies in its hybrid and boundary-blurring nature. Second, new institutional forms that experiment with urban governance can rely on multi-sectoral collaboration. Third, MONUM has experimented with a systemic approach to social innovation following the “design thinking theory.” The MONUM case can contribute to the current debate in Europe on the need to harmonize EU policies for an effective social inclusion by promoting the application of the place-sensitive approach.

scholarly journals Transforming the relational dynamics of urban governance: How social innovation research can create a trajectory for learning and change

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (14) ◽  
pp. 2868-2884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Bartels
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Relational Theory ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Innovation Research ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Learning And Change

This article examines how social innovation (SI) research can co-produce transformative change in cities. A key challenge is to diffuse and sustain SIs in ways that transform the relational webs that constitute local spaces and their governance. The relational approach to SI is conceptually promising in this respect, but its foundations and practices need to be further developed. Therefore, I develop a relational ‘theory–methods package’ of practice theory and action research. By co-producing immediately usable insights, experiences and artefacts in the daily practice of SI, this approach enables researchers to gradually create conditions for a transformative trajectory of learning and change in urban governance. I critically appraise four research practices in the context of SI in Dutch urban governance and reflect on the transformative potential of this relational theory–methods package.

scholarly journals Energising Peer-to-peer Urban Futures – Challenges for Urban Governance

2017 ◽  
Vol 198 ◽  
pp. 267-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sirkka Heinonen ◽  
Marjukka Parkkinen ◽  
Joni Karjalainen ◽  
Juho Ruotsalainen
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
Urban Futures

Social Innovation and Civil Society in Urban Governance: Strategies for an Inclusive City

Urban Studies ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (11) ◽  
pp. 2007-2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Gerometta ◽  
Hartmut Haussermann ◽  
Giulia Longo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Governance Strategies

Social Innovation and Urban Governance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Pradel-Miquel ◽  
Ana Cano-Hila ◽  
Marisol García Cabeza
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation

scholarly journals Conditioning experimentation: The struggle for place-based discretion in shaping urban infrastructures

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (8) ◽  
pp. 1480-1498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Hodson ◽  
James Evans ◽  
Gabriele Schliwa
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Sustainable Transport ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Infrastructure Systems ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
What Works ◽  
Urban Futures ◽  
Urban Contexts

Re-shaping infrastructure systems and social practices within urban contexts has been promoted as a critical way to address a range of contemporary economic, environmental and social challenges. Though there are many attempts to re-imagine more sustainable urban contexts the challenge remains how to achieve such change. In this context, urban experiments have emerged as a way to stage purposive infrastructure interventions and learn what works in practice. The paper integrates literatures on urban governance and urban socio-technical experiments to extend analytical understanding of urban experimentation. Through a case study of ‘sustainable transport’ experimentation in Greater Manchester, we argue that place-based priorities that inform action on sustainable urban futures are conditioned by non-place-based, particularly national, interests. Our paper makes two key contributions. First, we illustrate how the (narrow) national conditioning of place-based priorities translates in to experimentation in episodic ways that are highly contextual. We detail how national priorities, stipulations and funding are mediated and translated at the urban scale where they set conditions for the range of interventions that are feasible in a particular context. The interventions that follow are then materially embedded in place through experimentation with processes of governing and constituting capacity. Second, we argue that the learning generated through these processes of experimentation is only weakly communicated back to conditioning institutions. The result is that there is strong conditioning of experimentation but weak experimentation with conditions. The paper illustrates how the potential of experimentation is conditioned and thus it brings to the fore the need to understand experimentation politically.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document