Innovating urban governance through ‘Challenges’

ABSTRACT

In recent years, urban “Challenges”—competitions that solicit and reward novel solutions to urban policy problems—have become embedded within a wider program of governance innovations presented to city governments as effective means to solve complex urban problems. This paper offers an overview and critical evaluation of the uses of Challenges in contemporary urban governance innovation, based on an extensive analysis of existing Challenges and related practitioner and promotional literature. Situating Challenges within the increasingly prominent urban governance innovation trends, we suggest a fourfold categorization for understanding the diverse positionings, motivations and objectives at play in the application of Challenges. We present a critique of the prominent logics of projectification, technological solutionism and competition associated with Challenges and conclude by offering coordinates for more intensive and contextually-specific analyses of the Challenge phenomenon.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenges
• urban governance innovation
• entrepreneurialism
• projectification
• competition

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank editor Bernadette Hanlon and the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback and guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Where capitalized, Challenges refers to the challenge competition mechanism that is the subject of this paper.

2. Our scoping activity identified over 300 examples or urban governance innovation, including urban innovation teams and iLabs, design-led and co-design initiatives, diverse philanthropic and private-sector funded initiatives, and urban Challenges.

3. A full list of the 30 examples is available from the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the by the Australian Research Council under Grant ARCDP200100176 Innovating urban governance: practices for enhanced urban futures.

Notes on contributors

Alistair Sisson

Alistair Sisson is a Macquarie University Research Fellow in the School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University. His work spans housing, gentrification, urban development, and urban governance.

Pauline McGuirk

Pauline McGuirk is Director of the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space, University of Wollongong. Her work revolves, broadly, around critical studies of urban governance, its changing geographies, material practices and politics, and the differential implications for urban places, communities, subjectivities and power.

Robyn Dowling

Robyn Dowling is Dean of the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney. Her current research is concerned with the ways in which urban governance and urban life are responding to climate change, technological disruptions and the diffusion of innovation practices.

Tom Baker

Tom Baker is associate professor in the School of Environment, University of Auckland. His research focuses on how public policies are made and implemented, addressing social, institutional, ideological and spatial dimensions.

Sophia Maalsen

Sophia Maalsen is senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney. She is currently researching the application of computational logics and technologies to “hack housing” and address issues of housing affordability and innovation. Her research is predominantly situated at the intersection of the digital and material across urban spaces, housing and governance.