Implementation of the New Urban Agenda on a local level: an effective community engagement methodology for human-centred urban design

ABSTRACT

This paper explores multi-method community engagement activities used to quickly and effectively produce an action plan based on city stakeholders’ perceptions and wishes. A UN-Habitat Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC), focused on promoting urban liveability, adopted a methodology aimed to effectively engage participants through the completion of urban diaries prior to the event. Engagement with participants was further enhanced through urban labs and discussions culminating in a Design Sprint, producing meaningful action statements. The methodology was aimed at capturing impressions, concerns and roles of each stakeholder group in producing human-centred urban environments. Results suggest the adopted methodology was successful in producing a clear set of tangible action statements, identified as potentially generating high impact and requiring low effort to be implemented. These readily applicable actions were compiled by the end of a single but intense workday.

KEYWORDS:

• Engagement methods
• co-design
• human-centred urban design
• community empowerment
• urban diaries

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the work of Charles R. Wolfe, Richard Briggs, table facilitators, volunteers and participants during these two intensive days of work. We also acknowledge the UTC was sponsored by Fulbright, Cairns Regional Council, Planz Town Planning and Milford Planning, and had the support of Townsville City Council, Griffith University, the Health Research Institute at the University of Canberra, Urban Synergies Group, City Space Architecture, and the Planning Institute of Australia.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. The only exception was students who attended as part of school activities. In this case their teachers were responsible for ethics compliance.

2. Participants were advised that by sharing their images via Facebook or email they were providing copyright for these images to be used during the UTC and in subsequent publications.

3. PUSH is a design lab working in environmental sustainability, digital technologies and social innovation: https://www.wepush.org/en/.

4. The World Urban Forum is a conference on urban issues established by the United Nations. The conference examines rapid urbanisation and its impact on communities, cities, economies, climate change and policies. Further information: http://wuf9.org/.

5. There were 10 facilitators in Cairns and nine (9) in Townsville – one per table – and they were academics, health and built environment professionals invited prior to the event. Facilitators were given a “tip sheet” with the information about their roles and what the UTC aimed to achieve.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fulbright Australia, through its Fulbright Specialist Program: https://www.fulbright.org.au/scholarships/fulbright-specialist-program/ [FSP-P001484].

Notes on contributors

Silvia G. Tavares

Dr Silvia Tavares is an urban designer with a background in architecture, urbanism, and building and city science. Her work focuses on climate-responsive design in all built environment scales and she is interested in the production of high-quality well-designed public spaces which enhance the quality of life of people using them. Silvia is currently a Lecturer in Urban Design and Town Planning at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia) and an Adjunct Lecturer in Urban Design at James Cook University (Australia). She has also worked as a lecturer and researcher at Lincoln University in New Zealand, at the Research Institute for Regional and Urban Development in Germany, and at the Universidade Federal do Tocantins in Brazil. Silvia has received several awards for Planning and Design in Australasia and South America. (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8405-9717; Twitter: https://twitter.com/silgtavares; LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/silviatavares/)

David Sellars

David Sellars is a Senior Lecturer (Environmental Health) employed by James Cook University and is based in Cairns. His specialty areas are Public Health Emergency Preparedness, Food Safety, Environmental Health Law, Public Health Risk Assessment and the Environmental Determinants of Health. David came to James Cook University after a long successful career in Public Health based in North Queensland. (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1782-7800; Twitter: https://twitter.com/D_Sellars_JCU; LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-261a5617/)

Karine Dupré

Associate Professor Karine Dupre is a registered architect and affiliate to the Planning Institute of Australia. She is currently Program Director at Griffith Architecture (Australia) and member of the Griffith Institute For Tourism. She has an extensive experience in place-making, participation, heritage and feasibility studies. She specializes in regional development, specifically in Queensland and with outback communities. (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1936-0597; LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karine-dupre-86668840/?originalSubdomain=au)

Gregor H. Mews

Gregor H. Mews philosophy is based on social constructivism researching the nexus of human condition in relation to spatial practice, sustainable and healthy development with humanities collective bio-history in mind. Growing up in Germany, living in the US and working as an artist, urban planner and design practitioner in Colombia, Kazakhstan, Germany, Netherlands and in Australia defined and shaped his thinking. Greg obtained his urban and regional planning degrees at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, and Environmental Design degree from the University of Canberra, Australia. Greg holds an honorary adjunct position at the Health Research Institute at the University of Canberra and is on the Advisory Board for Research into Practice of The Journal for Public Space. He lectures regularly at Technical University of Berlin (Germany), Yale University (USA), University of Canberra (Australia), University of Kassel (Germany) and University of NSW (Australia). Greg has received several high-profile research scholarships, nine work-related awards and completed his PhD on the production of space and play (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9447-7413; Twitter: https://twitter.com/GregMews; LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregor-h-mews-5185491b/).