Database of governance scenarios

In many places across Europe, people experiment with local governance arrangements that are favourable to justice and sustainability. The following, very brief scenarios represent such attempts. They are hear to inspire you and to lead you to further information. In particular we are just finalizing the rich descriptions of real world experiments (mostly within EU-funded projects) from which they have been derived. If you know of other informative experiences, please add a brief scenario here or contact us Philipp Spaeth

Brief governance scenarios:

1. Learning from successful community-based actions against gentrification
2. Expanding effective practices for food rescuing and sharing among cities
3. A new take on affordable housing through community owned and developed dwellings
4. Inviting citizens to a transformation of street space - flexibly dealing with resistance
5. Balancing long term sustainability and short-term social needs in peri-urban green space
6. Envisioning and co-creating sustainable urban neighborhoods by reaching across institutional boundaries
7. Bringing sustainable infrastructure to all - carefully engaging in public-private partnerships
8. From electricity to empowerment, community energy growing out of the inner-city
9. Overcoming compartmentalization in urban regeneration projects for inclusive sustainability and resilience
10. Making local energy systems inclusively sustainable - by ourselves, with a little help by friends
11. Trusting civil society and residents to co-shape regeneration projects in deprived neighborhoods

The broad topic of local governance arrangements for sustainability and justice can be disaggregated into more specific ambitions. Often discussed are, e.g.:

A) How can sustainability and justice challenges be dealt with in a more integrative and comprehensive way - rather than by (sectoraly) compartmentalized policies and organizations?

(“policy integration”)

B) How can people from governments, civil society and enterprises be enabled to better co-operate for sustainability and justice in their cities?

(“bridging institutional logics”)

C) How can inhabitants be better enabled to participate in deliberations about the most urgent objectives and measures of urban development?

(“citizens' involvement”)

D) Do we need alternative metrics to guide urban policy development, which could focus e.g. on the affordability of housing rather than on GDP growth, employment and investments?

(“alternative metrics”)

We are going to discuss how these ambitions are tentatively realized in promising experiments at a Community Conversation on June 23rd, 2020; all are welcome to sign up and join the discussion.

Which further ambitions do you consider crucial on the way towards governance for sustainability AND justice in cities? Please share your suggestions, Philipp Spaeth, and contribue to the development of further case studies and governance scenarios on this wiki UrbanA Community of Practice.