Cities of the future and collaborative management

“At a recent conference in Aveiro, João Ferrão [a geographer at the University of Lisbon], when talking about the idea of ​​proximity, drew attention to a risk: proximity can sometimes be misleading. Two people can live in the same building for years and never have spoken to each other. The proximity we want is relational, which has to do with an emotional, cognitive, experiential dimension, which cultivates care, common interest, empathy, which, curiously, we have felt a lot during the pandemic.”

The pandemic, for the researcher, was an excellent laboratory. “I am convinced that we have not lost this learning, it is just that it is not activated. It is necessary to reactivate it, bearing in mind the moments in which we were forced to organize ourselves and cooperate to find answers for the common good”.

The common good, which many may shrug their shoulders at or raise an eyebrow at, considering it to be a concept that is perhaps too abstract or distant, is not, according to José Carlos Mota.

“It’s about asking ourselves, each of us, what we can do together that has an impact and improves everyone’s lives. It’s not a utopia, but it does require greater political will, at local and national level, more technical mediation and training to support participatory processes, a coordinated effort between different levels of government — local, national, European.”

A better future for cities – which is the signature of UNHABITAT – depends, according to the United Nations guidelines for urban and territorial planning, largely on their ability to adopt models of shared, participatory and collaborative governance, as proposed by José Carlos Mota, who points to the cities of Barcelona, ​​Bologna and, in a different way, Paris as references and inspiration.

Bologna, according to the researcher, because it has an urban innovation agency, it has citizen laboratories and it has something called a community pact, made possible thanks to Italian laws that allow citizens to be granted the management of public common goods.

Barcelona is “a model for participatory neighbourhood dynamics” and has an innovative model of participatory urban planning, through which, with the help of an online platform, citizens participate in decisions about public spaces, mobility, culture and infrastructure. Based on online votes and permanent digital consultations, they can suggest projects for their neighbourhoods; vote on proposals from other residents, follow the progress of public works and budgets or participate in virtual forums, consultations and debates. The proposals with the most support are integrated into the city’s participatory budget and receive a budget and implementation schedule, allowing urban planning to respond to the real needs of the population.

Paris, on the other hand, has developed the dynamics of proximity cities and a new urban model based on the concept of 15-minute cities. Although José Carlos Mota is not a fan of the concept, he believes that it “rethinks and reorganizes, from an urban planning point of view, the city model in terms of its citizens”.

It is they, the citizens, who must be at the center – and here the center is the physical, symbolic and decision-making place – of the cities.