TY - JOUR

T1 - Contextualising urban experimentation

T2 - Analysing the utopiastadt campus case with the theory of strategic action fields

AU - Wanner, Matthias

AU - Bachmann, Boris

AU - Von Wirth, Timo

PY - 2021/3/26

Y1 - 2021/3/26

N2 - Practices of urban experimentation are currently seen as a promising approach to making planning processes more collaborative and adaptive. The practices develop not only in the context of ideal-type concepts of urban experiments and urban labs but also organically in specific governance contexts. We present such an organic case in the city of Wuppertal, Germany, centred around a so-called change-maker initiative, ‘Utopiastadt.' This initiative joined forces with the city administration and collaborated with a private property owner and the local economic development agency in an unusual planning process for the development of a central brownfield site. Ultimately, the consortium jointly published a framework concept that picked up the vision of the ‘Utopiastadt Campus’ as an open-ended catalyst area for pilot projects and experiments on sustainability and city development. The concept was adopted by the city council and Utopiastadt purchased more than 50% of the land. In order to analyse the wider governance context and power struggles, we apply the social-constructivist theory of Strategic Action Fields (SAFs). We focused on the phases of contention and settlement, the shift in interaction forms, the role of an area development board as an internal governance unit and the influences of proximate fields, strategic action, and state facilitation on the development. We aim to demonstrate the potential of the theory of SAFs to understand a long-term urban development process and how an episode of experimentation evolved within this process. We discuss the theory’s shortcomings and reflect critically on whether the process contributed to strengthening collaborative and experimental approaches in the governance of city development.

AB - Practices of urban experimentation are currently seen as a promising approach to making planning processes more collaborative and adaptive. The practices develop not only in the context of ideal-type concepts of urban experiments and urban labs but also organically in specific governance contexts. We present such an organic case in the city of Wuppertal, Germany, centred around a so-called change-maker initiative, ‘Utopiastadt.' This initiative joined forces with the city administration and collaborated with a private property owner and the local economic development agency in an unusual planning process for the development of a central brownfield site. Ultimately, the consortium jointly published a framework concept that picked up the vision of the ‘Utopiastadt Campus’ as an open-ended catalyst area for pilot projects and experiments on sustainability and city development. The concept was adopted by the city council and Utopiastadt purchased more than 50% of the land. In order to analyse the wider governance context and power struggles, we apply the social-constructivist theory of Strategic Action Fields (SAFs). We focused on the phases of contention and settlement, the shift in interaction forms, the role of an area development board as an internal governance unit and the influences of proximate fields, strategic action, and state facilitation on the development. We aim to demonstrate the potential of the theory of SAFs to understand a long-term urban development process and how an episode of experimentation evolved within this process. We discuss the theory’s shortcomings and reflect critically on whether the process contributed to strengthening collaborative and experimental approaches in the governance of city development.

KW - Collaborative planning

KW - Governance experiment

KW - Participatory city-making

KW - Theory of strategic action fields

KW - Urban change

KW - Urban experimentation

KW - Environmental planning

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103431342&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.17645/up.v6i1.3629

DO - 10.17645/up.v6i1.3629

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85103431342

VL - 6

SP - 235

EP - 248

JO - Urban Planning

JF - Urban Planning

SN - 2183-7635

IS - 1

ER -