Abstract
This article presents an approach to improve urban resilience by examining crisis dynamics through a role-playing game. The set of exploratory exercises extend the Archaria 2035 scenario and geographic information system model, which was developed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to advance concepts that support military operations. Participants (graduate students) worked in teams to identify and map critical relationships related to health, safety and welfare through a modified version of the Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, Information (PMESII) framework. Next, each participant was given a one-page stakeholder profile that specified motives, kinds and degrees of influence, and connections to other stakeholders. This information was used to create maps that showed how each character understood the city. Crisis event details were revealed a day-and-a-half before the game. NATO staff contributed to the event by presenting courses of action to restore security and order. Participants gave opinions on how their characters might act during the event and react to the proposed military operations. Conversations created temporary collaborations among some stakeholders but also conflicts among others that could create additional problems. A post-game assignment asked participants to write memos on specific policies and plans that would reduce vulnerability to the crisis. As a matter of pedagogy, results the demonstrate the value of role-playing to consider multiple perspectives and second- and third-order effects of a crisis. Specifically, connecting gameplay conversations and results back to initial ideas about health, safety and welfare contributed to reconsiderations of assumptions about contingent relationships.
Highlights
Cities have been called ‘cultural crucibles’[1] and humanity’s ‘greatest invention’.2 They have provided forums for trading goods and ideas,[3] enclaves for collective defence,[4] loci for spiritual practices,[5] and hubs for territorial administration.[6]
The set of exploratory exercises extend the Archaria 2035 scenario and geographic information system model, which was developed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to advance concepts that support military operations
The number and size of cities has led some to consider their roles in multicultural integration and identity formation[11] and in changing geopolitical structures and power dynamics.[12]
Summary
Cities have been called ‘cultural crucibles’[1] and humanity’s ‘greatest invention’.2 They have provided forums for trading goods and ideas,[3] enclaves for collective defence,[4] loci for spiritual practices,[5] and hubs for territorial administration.[6]. Cities have been called ‘cultural crucibles’[1] and humanity’s ‘greatest invention’.2. They have provided forums for trading goods and ideas,[3] enclaves for collective defence,[4] loci for spiritual practices,[5] and hubs for territorial administration.[6] The continued occupation of some cities over millennia – such as Athens (Greece), Damascus (Syria), Faiyum (Egypt), Luoyang (China), Rayy (Iran) and Varanasi (India) – gives strong evidence that people living in dense settlements have the ability to adapt to changing social and environmental conditions. Continued global population growth and the intensifying concentration of settlement patterns over the second half of the twentieth century and start of the twenty-first century have brought about a new era for cities and a renewed focus on processes of urbanization. Following the general premise that quantitative change in a system leads to qualitative change in the performance and behaviour of that system, the expectation of these large urban settlements raises questions about the ways cities may evolve to meet new challenges and achieve new aspirations
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