Urban Lunch Talk #14: Taking action on the public space dilemma

Liveability, placemaking and AI… should cities go “back to basics”? Practitioners and others working with public space experience dilemmas in decision making processes- which are they and how can you approach them? In this this travel-free event you meet guests from around Europe and across sectors. The event includes the pre-launch of an upcoming policy paper booklet by the JPI Urban Europe AGORA. Hear some of the writers in this event!

Listen to the recording here:

Slides:

> See the photos and slides from ProstoRož, Ljubljana.

> See the slides about the upcoming policy paper booklet from the JPI Urban Europe AGORA

Point of departure:

“Inclusive public spaces for urban liveability” is one out of four dilemmas targeted in the SRIA 2.0:

“(…) public spaces are constantly influenced by power balances and the needs of different groups and communities. A specific concern is how to cater for safety and security concerns without a widening of exclusive spaces. (…) Policies for enhancing city status and attractiveness does not always support urban liveability.”

Dilemmas around public space involves issues of inclusion and security, mobility and morphology, openess and integrity, urban green and density, physical environments and digitalised/augmeneted spaces, digitalised public protection and control, autonomous vehicles, qualities of design, green accessibility, urban demographics, and patters of privatisation. How can these dilemmas be approached in theory and practice? Is it about new types of innovation or about “going back to basics” in these types of decision making processes?

–  How can city makers choose between equally desirable (or undesirable) options?

–  Which policies can both enhance city attractiveness– and support urban liveability?

Meet the guests:

• Daniela Patti is an architect and urban planner with experience from both research and municipal organisations. She is the co-founder of Eutropian, an organisation providing support with advocacy, research and policy to support inclusive urban processes. They run various projects related to public space dilemmas, such as “Open Heritage”, “New Life to Markets”, “Generative Commons” and Urbact Com.Unity.Lab: Network of European city administrations. Eutropian recently started a series of webinar with Cooperative City, “in Quarantine” on how cities in Europe are reacting to the COVID-19 crisis, also in partnership with the European program URBACT.
• Ruth Yeoman is a Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and an Associate Professor, Business and Law, Northumbria University. Ruth initiated The Meaningful City project – a model and a resource for policy innovation and novel organisational practices involving urban dwellers in creating positive meaning in their lives and work. You find a case study on “meaningful cities” here. Ruth has also worked with the JPI Urban Europe booklet of policy papers on public spaces that will be pre-launched at this event.
• Aksel Ersoy is an Assistant Professor in Urban Development Management at Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Management in the Built Environment. He is interested in understanding the complex relationship between social and economic transformations taking place in developing economies, metropolitan cities and the built environment. His research experience has benefitted from a combination of theories and approaches in the discipline of planning, geography and beyond. Currently, he works on the governance of ‘the smart city’, urban resilience, urban infrastructure and the circular economy.
• Matthijs Hisschemöller, Senior Researcher & Lecturer at DRIFT for transition and project coordinator for SMART-U-GREEN – Governing conflicting perspectives on transformations in the urban rural continuum. Some transformations are desirable, such as greener urban landscapes. Some are inevitable, such as changing consumer habits affecting downtown shopping areas. Urban landscape transformations come with conflicts involving many actors. Bottom-up initiatives introduce new forms of urban landscape management.

Host: Johannes Riegler, Stakeholder Involvement Officer in JPI Urban Europe
Chat host: Caroline Wrangsten, Assistant Project Manager, JPI Urban Europe

Program (CEST):
12.30 Intro + Pre-launch of the AGORA policy paper booklet
12.40 “Warm-up” for the Urban Lunch Talk:
– Presentation by Sandra Guinand, Department of Geography and Regional Research at the University of Vienna.
– Presentation by Zala Velkavrh from the organisation prostoRož in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
12.55 Questions or comments
13.00 The Urban Lunch Talk starts with invited guests (see above). We mix polls, discussions and QA with the participants.
14.00 The Urban Lunch Talk ends.
14.15 Chat closes.

> Join us on Slack for self-organised networking before and after the event

> Read about the AGORA Dialogue in Riga 2019 (the starting point for the coming policy paper booklet)