PresentationPDF Available

UrbanA's experiments in connecting communities to create a sustainable just cities community of practice

June 2023

DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.12900.96649

Conference: Ecocity World Summit 2023
At: Barbican, London
Affiliation: ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

Authors:

Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon

"UrbanA’s experiments in connecting communities to create a sustainable just cities community of practice". > How can cities be more sustainable and just? This question guided the 3-year EU-funded UrbanA project on “Urban Arenas for Sustainable and Just Cities” (2019-2021), which took up the challenge of synthesizing and brokering knowledge generated in previously funded research and innovation projects that deal with approaches tackling urban sustainability and justice. As part of this process, a Community of Practice was created to facilitate a growing body of “City Makers” to engage on this topic together. When the academic term ended the Robert Bosch Foundation offered a small funding grant for the Community of Practice’s continuation and further experimentation into 2023, coordinated by ICLEI, the network for Local governments for sustainability. The author was involved throughout both stages described and played a lead role developing the Community of Practice. Based on Participatory Action Research and Self Ethnography methodologies, the author shares insights in this paper from experiments to expand and diversify the Community of Practice, using Network Weaving to stitch together various projects to connect communities. - https://www.ecocity-summit.com/

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UrbanA’s experiments in

connecting communities

to create a sustainable just cities

community of practice

Duncan Crowley (UrbanA + ECOLISE)

EcoCity World Summit 2023

Barbican Centre, London. June 6th

UrbanA’s experiments in connecting communities to create a sustainable just cities community of practice

Duncan Crowley

Activism

Duncan Crowley

Academia

Duncan Crowley

Activism Academia

Justification

Work aligns with some SDGs

11: Make cities and human settlements

inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

13: Take urgent action to combat climate

change and its impacts

Challenges SDG 8

11: Make cities and human settlements

inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

13: Take urgent action to combat climate

change and its impacts

8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

“Connecting Communities”

Banja Luka, Bosnia (2003)

Dublin, Ireland (2005)

Banja Luka, Bosnia (2003)

Dublin, Ireland (2005)

Banja Luka, Bosnia (2003)

Curitiba, Brazil (2016)

Dublin, Ireland (2005)

Banja Luka, Bosnia (2003)

Curitiba, Brazil (2016)Lisbon, Portugal (2019)

UrbanA

Urban Arenas for

Sustainable and Just Cities

A 3-year, H2020 project funded by

the European Commission (2019-2021)

How do we best

tackle urban

unsustainability &

injustice?

UrbanA

Blended Arenas

Blended Arenas test the limits of bringing people together,physical

and online connected,with maximum participation the objective

UrbanA Keys

Urban Arenas for Sustainable Just Cities – 17 keys

www.SustainableJustCities.eu/keys

H2020 project led by a

consortium of seven partners.

Very much an ECOLISE led project

ECOLISE contributed 2 key tools

Knowledge

Commons

(WIKI)

Knowledge

Commons

(WIKI)

Community

of Practice

Community

of Practice

ECOLISE

European Network for Community-Led Initiatives on

Climate Change and Sustainability

•Transition Network (1200+ initiatives)

•Global Ecovillage Network (15,000+)

•Permaculture movement (3 million+)

•ICLEI, local governments for sustainability

•Collaborative & transdisciplinary

action research laboratories

ECOLISE -Meta Network (2014)

Eco-social Just Transition

Transitions and

transformations offer

perspectives on how

to bring about “radical

and non-linear

societal change”.

Multi-level perspective on

transitions. Source: Geels (2002)

ECOLISE 2019 Status Report:

7 basic preconditions for sustainable

prosperity in Europe.

1) Moving beyond growth

2) Nurturing commons ecologies

3) Eco-social regeneration

4) Solidarity economics

5) Inclusive governance

6) Transformative social innovation

7) Enabling community-led action

(Penha-Lopes & Henfrey, 2019)

Community-led Initiatives

Community of Practice

Communities of Practice

Source: Wheatley & Frieze, the Berkana Institute, 2006

Wheatley’s Emergence theory is composed of three Stages (2006):

1) Networks (Discovering Shared Meaning and Purpose)

2) Communities of Practice (Developing New Practices Together)

3) Systems of Influence (New Practices Become the Norm)

Communities of Practice

Community of Practice

Fractal Thinking & Action:

Think Global, Act Local

Inspired by Nature

We ARE Nature

Fractal Thinking & Action

Macro Level -Europe

Micro Level –Lisbon (AML)

AML = Lisbon Metropolitan Area

“How might a translocal urban

Community of Practice help

manifest the dream of a

Sustainable and Just Lisbon?”

Walks

Talks

UrbanA Walks

Connecting Communities

Guests from Mouraria:

1. Jardim Martim Moniz

2. Renovar A Mouraria

3. Casa da Achada

4. Stop Despejos

5. Largo Residências

November 12th 2019.

Walk organised by Author.

Poster by Author

5. 4.

Talks

The first UrbanA Local Arena in Lisbon,

the new capital of gentrification & evictions.

November 12th 2019 was the start of the UrbanA project in Lisbon,

a city going through such rapid and profound change that it was

recently deemed “The new capital of gentrification and evictions”.

After much time reaching out to local groups and projects active in

the city, a group of about 30 participated in a full day of activity in

the cities most multicultural community, Mouraria. The event started

with a walking tour of the labyrinthine neighbourhood under the old

castle, where, like many European cities, touristification,

gentrification and short-term housing are driving up rents so quickly

that locals can no longer afford to pay and are moving out of their

bairros (neighbourhoods). Minimum wage raised 6% to 635 euros in

2019, but it is still the lowest in western Europe. Activists from

Housing and Right to the City groups Stop Despejos (Stop

evictions), Jardim Martim Moniz and Habita led a mostly local group

through the streets to the heart of this transformation, the now

mostly emptied, Rua Dos Lagares, where remaining families

recently had their evictions stalled due to mobilisations in the

streets. Then, in the Mouraria Creative Hub participants explored

how the approaches to urban justice and sustainability identified in

UrbanA translate to the Lisbon context, using Fishbowl, World Café

and other participatory methods. Their findings are being fed into

the wider UrbanA project through its collaborative processes and

tools, including a Community of Practice and Knowledge Commons.

(All links available on the UrbanA Zine: https://tinyurl.com/vp7ml2z)

•Bela Flor Respira

•CAS Sustainable Architects

•CIM (Mouraria Creative Hub)

•FabLab Lisbon

•Fundação Friedrich Ebert Portugal

•Gaia Education

•Habita

•Impact Hub Lisbon

•Largo Residências

•Lisbon City Hall

•Locals

•Mario Yanez regenerative projects

•Mouraria residents

•Movimento Jardim no Martim Moniz

•Rede Decrescimento

•Rede DLBC

•ROCK (Regeneration and Optimisation of Cultural

heritage in creative and Knowledge cities)

•SEEDS

•Stop Despejos

•TUR (Technopolitics In Urban Regeneration)

•Urban Future Global Conference

•UrbanLab

•Viver Telheiras 20+ Groups represented

Live Sketching at

Mouraria Local Arena

Social metrics: Where are we from / Who

are we / What’s our focus / Age / Measure

Lisbon Sustainability and Justice levels.

Group Culture: Horizontality / Give a voice

to all / Confidentiality / Don’t Judge / Explore

differences and contradictions / Empathy /

Ecosocial Regeneration / Intersectionality /

Respect Time / Active Listening.

World Café: Existing Solutions / Barriers and

Opportunities / Current Problems in Lisbon /

Sustainable Vision for Lisbon.

Fish Bowl: How can an urban Community of

Practice help manifest the dream of a

Sustainable and Just Lisbon?

Conclusions:

•Many solutions exist, but complex

problems persist

•Need to better connect

communities & projects

•Local participation needs deepening

& expand included voices

•Identify Citizen intervention points.

#EcoDesignGrafico

Translocal –Lisbon (BAM)

(BAM = Bela Flor, Ajuda, Marvila)

Lisbon Bip/Zip map with BAM

identified. Source: Lison City Council,

2014 (modifications by author, 2020).

UrbanA & BAM (Bela Flor, Ajuda, Marvila)

UrbanA Wiki entry:

Bela Flor Respira

Source: UrbanA wiki

Knowledge Commons –Bela Flor Respira

Agroforestry in Lisbon,

Eat The City

Source: Author(2019)

Regenerative Process

with Bela Flor,

Campolide, Lisbon

Bairro 2 de Maio Community Spatial

Implementation vote. Ajuda, Lisbon

UrbanA & BAM (Bela Flor, Ajuda, Marvila)

•Many solutions exist, but

complex problems persist

•Need to better connect

communities & projects

•Local participation needs

deepening & expand

included voices

•Identify Citizen

intervention points.

How might UrbanA enable

integral capacities in Lisbon?

UrbanA will continue its local community engagement

process in Lisbon by grounding its activity in Marvila, a

rapidly transforming riverside neighbourhood on the

Eastern side of Lisbon. The objective is to identify how

best can the needs of the local communities be

supported by the wider UrbanA “Community of Practice”

and the project´s tools. It also aims to explore how to

accelerate the transformation of Marvila into an Integral

City Neigbourhood by applying perspectives and tools

from Urban Hub 20.

This port industry and working class area was forgotten

about for many decades and housed one of Lisbon’s

largest shanty towns, the Chinese Neighbourhood. This

was replaced in the late 1990’s by fragmented modern

housing blocks of high rise towers, amidst large, empty,

unused spaces. The latest urban transformation sees

rent and land prices rise rapidly, established

communities being forced to leave and even evictions

happening.

Marvila is beaming with transformation potential. Many

research and social innovation groups are already active

here, working with the local government and

communities to increase citizen collaboration in planning

processes and to explore issues of equality and urban

sustainability.

(ROCK)

Chinese Neighbourhood & Quinta do Chale, 2018 (Google Earth, ROCK 2018)

Chinese Neighbourhood & Quinta do Chale, 1990’s (Soares 2011, ROCK 2018)

Marvila library, tower blocks and communit y gardens

Marvila´s fragmented communities & empty spaces

Honouring and building on previous work in Marvila

UrbanA aims to partner with and build on the work done by local

change-making actors and activities to explore what sustainability and

justice means in context, and how UrbanA might help local

communities develop further in an integral way. UrbanA will use the

public library as a central community-building space.

Lisbon is Europe’s “Green Capital” for 2020. A great opportunity exists

to deepen current ecological urban concepts to better incorporate social

justice. Community-led initiatives and local government can design

regenerative solutions for Marvila’s open spaces, based around the

cultural, economic, ecological and social dimensions of sustainability.

COVID – Major life disrpution & move

Community Conversations (CoCo)

UrbanA's experiments in connecting communities to create a sustainable just cities community of practice

Abstract

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