Trend: Urban governance through networks and groups

A trend indicates a direction of change in values and needs which is driven by forces and manifests itself already in various ways within certain groups in society.

Local governments are increasingly partnering with peer cities and networks and using enabling platforms to gather and build local solutions, and share them. Global commitments, advocacy, as well as mobilisation and socialisation through large networks (such as the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), Metro­polis, C40, and the Global Covenant of Mayors, among others), are significantly empowering cities. They are accelerating the evolution of urban governance towards more horizontal cooperation, knowledge exchange and a demand for adequate resources for more decentralised action.

Alongside international cooperation, there are more local networks and new forms of cooperation in cities, such as community trusts or neighbourhood social innovation actions. The concept of ‘mobile urbanism’ refers to the trend of bottom-up ideas being shared between cities across international borders. Cities, (rather than national governments), are increasingly partnering globally to share good practices and solutions to common challenges, and to fight climate change, thus taking central stage by providing the tools and shaping the standards that will drive the development of future urban and governance policies globally. Local and national governments, citizens and communities/neighbourhoods, academia/ research, NGOs and firms/start-ups are increasingly collaborating to re-imagine electrification, digital platforms and data-driven solutions.

EC JRC

This Trend is part of the Megatrend: Continuing Urbanisation

Manifestations

Developments happening in certain groups in society that indicate examples of change related to the trend.

Small (digital) world

Through its leadership on climate, and with involvement in the Paris accord, opportunities for the EU can be seen, even with some of the EUs competitors. There is common ground on issues such as climate, and cities in different parts of the world are teaming up with ‘sister cities’ and sharing best practices, concepts and ideas, especially as travel restrictions have been lifted.

In the future, we'll be learning a lot from cities such as Paris, Barcelona, Singapore and others that develop greater digitalization of essential services for the benefit of consumers. You'll see residents of cities being able to do much more online. Cities have been paying attention and focusing on the digital divide and persuading some of the major telecom companies (that have been slower in solving the digital divide) and are playing a role to close the digital divide. As increasing members of the community are able to use the internet, more streamlined participation in everything from voting to central city services will follow.

Signals of change: Smart Cities Dive

Partnerships will pave the way 

Hyperconnectivity refers to being digitally connected at all times, using the internet and digital systems such as smart devices, social networks and so on. Hyperconnectivity is affecting many aspects of society at an institutional and individual level. The data produced by the hyperconnectivity of European citizens is being processed by a large number of modern social networks and digital connection platforms that belong to a small number of large companies. Society is heavily dependent on the services provided by these few companies, which gives them a lot of market influence. If one of the providers stopped functioning, existing or if their terms and conditions regarding the use of data changes, the effect could be significant on the whole of society. In other words from an economic point of view, big technology companies are ‘too big to fail’ and systemically important. 

Signals of change: Smart Cities Dive

The emergence of people-centered cities

Citizens can play a crucial role in identifying and actively intervening in urban chal­lenges, providing new perspectives and solutions. The co-creation of strategies to tackle urban challenges is crucial for their success and this co-creation can rely on both established systems, or new and experimental spaces for community engagement and participation. Top-down and bottom-up planning approaches centred on people, that aim to be more inclusive and to improve quality of life by providing improved mobility and accessibility, or more targeted services, are emerging.

Local communities are increasingly defining fit-for-purpose, (local) ‘place-based solutions’, that are being applied to other parts of the city by local government, and then exported elsewhere - benefiting these communities economically. We are starting to see redesigned housing and mobility experiments (e.g. 15 min walking city, public edible gardens, communal neighbourhood spaces, repurposing buildings and parking, etc.), providing opportunities for social encounters, sharing and learning between generations and genders, with woman having a stronger role and more equal opportunities. Increased loneliness is requiring cities to be re-designed for more social encounters in open, safe, functional and quality spaces.

Urban governance has gained a central role in global development efforts. At least 65% of the New Urban Agenda’s goals and targets can only be achieved at the local level, particularly in urban areas (i.e. goals to help systematize the alignment between cities and towns and national planning objectives in their role as drivers of national economic and social development). There is a trend towards strengthening urban governance in the EU, leading to the establishment of a wide range of new governance bodies and arrange­ments across EU cities and metropolitan areas. Multilevel governance is key to achieving the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals and cities and local governments play a key role in contributing to a number of issues.

Signals of change: Habitat The New Urban Agenda, EC JRC, Matador network, Facebook, Smart Cities Dive

Interesting questions

What might this trend imply, what should we be aware of, what could we study in more depth? Some ideas:

• Partnerships are mostly based on the sharing of information and good practices, could a sharing of resources (common taskforces, shared budgets where richer cities help the poorer ones, etc) could help speed implementations in cities with limited resources.

• Do we need to achieve further tipping points by degrading biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as a result of climate change and extreme weather events/disasters, to enable partnerships and place-based solutions to flourish with cities and city networks taking more of a central stage globally?