Thinking Urban Transformation through Elsewhere: A Conversation between Real-World Labs in São Paulo and Hamburg on Governance and Practical Action

Martin Kohler,Ana Paula Koury,Anita Engels,Cathrin Zengerling

doi:10.3390/su132212811

Martin Kohler, Ana Paula Koury + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212811

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Abstract

Urban real-world laboratories (RWLs) are increasingly used internationally and studied as an instrument of urban transformation. New cases in diverse political, economic, social and ecological situations offer a rich set of learning experiences, but the distinctive urban contexts make it impossible to draw comparisons in the traditional sense. In this article—an experiment in itself—we aim to gain a deeper understanding of how RWLs contribute to urban transformation in very different contexts. We apply Jennifer Robinson’s theoretical framework “thinking through elsewhere” on two ongoing urban RWLs: the Itaim Paulista Lab, located in the urban periphery of São Paulo, Brazil and the Lokstedt Urban Transformation Lab in Hamburg, Germany. We operationalize Robinson’s framework in two steps. First, we present the genetics—context, roots, concepts and activities—of both labs. Second, we engage the RWLs in a generative conversation on their role in transforming governance and practical action, with a special focus on the questions of if and how the labs contribute to long-term transformative change. We also find that both labs show potential to contribute to long-term transformative change through governance and practical action.

Highlights

Current trends in transformation processes for sustainable urban systems popularize the concept of transformative science and give rise to one of its main instruments, the real-world laboratory (RWL)
As a mode of governance is very formalized in Hamburg, so it seemed that the climate protection pioneers—often young entrepreneurs with very transformative but difficult to evaluate business ideas—would not fit in that format where large companies dominated. To summarize this generic conversation along the theme of modes of climate governance: in both RWLs, we find some spillover from the experimental into the regulatory and partnership modes of governance, which indicates that both labs contribute to long-term change
In our first conversation on RWLs and modes of urban climate governance, we found that in both cases there was a spillover from the experimental mode of urban governance to the regulatory and the partnership mode, two arguably more continuous and long-lasting modes of urban climate governance

Summary

Introduction

Current trends in transformation processes for sustainable urban systems popularize the concept of transformative science and give rise to one of its main instruments, the real-world laboratory (RWL). There is no fixed definition yet, and there are many close links to similar concepts and approaches. For an overview of different definitions and concepts, see Table 1. There are several other models and concepts available for integrated, applied research and the transformation of urban structures with both shared and unique characteristics, such as transformation labs, living labs and transition labs [2]. These various formats are Sustainability 2021, 13, 12811.

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