Collaborative Urban Planning can take many shapes and forms. The overall aim is to reduce problems that stem from taking a narrow view of an urban planning problem as a basis. This narrow view has historically created and expanded urban resilience issues, so tackling it by using wide-scope participation is essential.
In the Augmented Urbans, collaborative planning was the inclusion of new tools and expertise to urban planning processes. The tools ranged from extended reality applications to other digital methods. This chapter looks at technologies as an integrated part of urban planning; for more information, please read the chapter “XR in Action”. The areas of expertise ranged from engaging more with locals, businesses, biologists, zoologists, researchers, academics, technology developers and more. The need to include new ways of working made Local Action teams develop their own communication skills and understanding of these new tools.
Throughout the chapter, the term “Local Actions” is used. This indicates the on-the-ground people who participate in the project, project managers, planners, researches and many more. The Local Action teams had the difficult task of learning about new technologies and figuring out how to implement them in their local specific planning task. Each city has its own way of carrying out urban projects, there are various degrees to which people are prepared to cooperate within the municipality and locals, and stakeholders have a range of values. So the Local Action team had to navigate through this while, as their name indicates, working towards getting something – an action – done locally. The Local Action teams changed over time, but the key people stayed the same to the end of the project. The process has had its challenges, but the Local Action teams did all in their power to make the change come to life, either in the present or more in the long term.
A large part of the the chapter is dedicated to what each Local Action team in Cēsis, Gävle, Helsinki, Tallinn and Viimsi has done in terms of particular participation or co-creating activities, how they used technology to achieve better results, and each text has a additional key learning, describing a particular aspect of that Local Action. The articles about Local Actions are followed by “Collaborating with Universities” text where all work done in various courses and in supervising students from different programs has been collected. The chapter ends with “Integrated Urban Plans” texts that give a more detailed overview, both in texts and visuals, of the planning outcomes of each Local Action.
Hopefully these articles will give you insight and inspiration on how planners can engage with urban resilience!