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New Outcomes from Research Challenge 1 – City Analysis Methodology

RESEARCH TEAM. Joanne Leach, Susan Lee, Dexter Hunt, Chris Bouch, Chris Rogers.

ASSOCIATED PHD STUDENTS. Martin Locret-Collet, Dan Hunt, Marianna Cavada, Valeria de Laurentiis

AIMS & OBJECTIVES. The aim is to develop an urban analysis, incorporating all relevant dimensions, to enable the performance of cities to be assessed with regard to liveability (carbon reduction, resource security and wellbeing). The objectives of this research theme are to:

Critically review existing assessment methodologies relevant to liveability in cities, embracing sustainability, resilience, wellbeing and related concepts, and capture the dimensions of their analyses.

Develop a ‘lens framework’ for the urban analysis, covering environment, society, economy, governance.

Develop a set of performance measures (indicators) that can be used to assess a city’s performance with regard to its carbon footprint, resource use and wellbeing.

Combine the indicators in new and innovative ways in a set of indices that allow for their improved measurement and interpretation – the indicators and indices form the City Analysis Methodology (CAM).

Apply the CAM to Birmingham, Southampton and Lancaster, and to refine the CAM accordingly.

PROGRESS, NOVEL FINDINGS. The critical review revealed the need for a lens framework comprising a set of goals and related actions for each of the four lenses (environment, society, economy, governance). Performance measures (indicators) are then assigned to each action. A first draft of the indicators has been created and is being validated with the wider Liveable Cities team, and against the academic literature and current practice, and indices are being identified – currently there are 740 indicators and 53 indices. Indicators and indices for Birmingham are being gathered, and their relevance is being assessed. For example:

The Environment Lens includes goals of minimising waste, minimising operational and embodied carbon, enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem services, ensuring resource efficiency, and ensuring resource security. This latter goal results in a number of actions, including maximise sustainable use of low-carbon local water first and then maximise the security of supply of non-local water, and similar actions for energy, food, raw materials, and manufactured goods. Indicators then include volumes of non-potable water generated from different sources (e.g. rainfall harvesting, greywater recycling, groundwater abstraction), while an index that combines these and other indicators might be city water resilience.

NEW OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES. A selection is as follows:

Boyko CT, Leach JM, Eyre J, Woodeson A, Cooper R, Rogers CDF. The ‘Art’ of Urban Design: Does Objectivity Constrain Imagination? Paper accepted by Urban Design and Planning, Proc. of ICE.

Leach JM, Lee SE, Braithwaite PA, Bouch CJ, Grayson N, Rogers CDF (2013). What Makes a City Liveable? Implications for Next-Generation Infrastructure Services. International Symposium for Next Generation Infrastructure, Wollongong, Australia, 30 September 2013. Presentation available at: http://www.slideshare.net/smart_facility/smart-international-symposium-for-next-generation-infrastructure-29372193

Hunt DVL, Braithwaite P and Rogers CDF (2013). A Band Rating System for Domestic Water Use: Influences of Supply and Demand Options. Proceedings of the 3rd World Sustain. Forum, 1-30 November 2013. Sciforum Electronic Conference Series, Vol. 3, 2013 , e005; doi:10.3390/wsf3-e005

Liveable Cities responded to Defra's consultation on the Sustainable Development Indicators

Rogers CDF, Leach JM, Tyler NA, Cooper RFD, Collins BS, Bahaj A. (2013). Zero Carbon Britain and Liveable Cities. Centre for Alternative Energy. http://zerocarbonbritain.com/images/pdfs/ZCB%20and%20liveable%20cities.pdf

PLAN FOR NEXT 6-12 MONTHS

The research will focus on validating the performance measures (indicators), creating indices that effectively combined the indicators, and trialling the CAM with data from Birmingham (0-6 months). The CAM will then be applied to Southampton and Lancaster and comparisons across three cities will be drawn (6-12 months).

A method will be devised for visualising the links between indicators and indices, and how changes in cities affect the indices (and how they can be identified and visualised – sometimes referred to as the ‘mixing desk approach’). This will allow for the wider impacts of policies and practices to be made explicit, and for the interconnected nature of the city to be made more transparent.

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New Outcomes from Research Challenge 1 – Urban Metabolism

RESEARCH TEAM. Dexter Hunt, Susan Lee, Joanne Leach, Chris Bouch, Chris Rogers.

ASSOCIATED PHD STUDENTS. Valeria de Laurentiis

AIMS & OBJECTIVES.

To identify resource demand and provision (water, energy, food, carbon-intensive materials and

people) alongside sustainable waste utilisations;

To develop an objective and repeatable methodology for identifying and modelling metabolic flows

within cities.

PROGRESS, NOVEL FINDINGS.

Resource flow data have been collected for Birmingham and datasets identified. These data are

informing the development of the City Analysis Methodology (CAM).

Repeatable and objective modelling methodology: City policy, strategy, operational and procedural

data continues to be gathered. The process of eliciting the systems data from these documents is

due to start shortly. The data will be integrated to create the model using CORE 9, a powerful

systems modelling tool. Resource flows between functions will be identified using a novel approach,

which seeks to link system functions with line items in the City budget.

Symbiosis of shared ‘mixed-use’ greywater supplies has the potential to significantly reduce mains

water demands and related carbon emissions for a city. When accompanied by reductions in

demand, through changes to user behaviour and technological efficiency, a reduction by 80% is

possible in the domestic sector. Domestic band rating systems provide an excellent, as yet

unexplored, opportunity to rate water use based on socio-technological influences.

An enriched understanding of these influences can be provided (in a range of sectors) by applying a

newly developed Futures Framework (FF) approach.

Underground space provides an excellent underutilised opportunity that can facilitate many future

planning requirement of cities (e.g. resources including space), this requires a long-term vision which

includes use of new techniques (e.g. MUTs, Rain Water Harvesting) and holistic approaches (i.e.

improved asset management and geospatial considerations).

NEW OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES.

Hunt, D.V.L., Braithwaite, P. and Rogers, C.D.F. (2013). A Band Rating System for Domestic Water Use:

Influences of Supply and Demand Options. Proceedings of the 3rd World Sustain. Forum, 1-30

November 2013. Sciforum Electronic Conference Series, Vol. 3, 2013 , e005; doi:10.3390/wsf3-e005

Hunt, D.V.L., Nash, D. and Rogers, C.D.F (2014). Sustainable utility placement via multi utility tunnels.

Special issue of Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology. 39, 15-26

Lee, S.E., Hunt, D.V.L. and Rogers, C.D.F. (2014) Urban flows: Domestic Energy and Water in

Birmingham, UK. Accepted for the BEHAVE 2014 conference. 3 and 4 September 2014 at the Said

Business School in Oxford

Zadeh, S.M., Hunt, D.V.L., and Rogers C.D.F. (2013). Future Water Demands: The Role of Technology

and User Behavior. Proceedings of the 3rd World Sustain. Forum, 1-30 November 2013. Sciforum

Electronic Conference Series, Vol. 3, 2013 , i002; doi:10.3390/wsf3-i002

Zadeh, S.M., Hunt, D.V.L., Lombardi, D. R., and Rogers C.D.F. (2014). Carbon costing for mixed-use

greywater recycling systems. Proc. Institute of Civil Engineers: Water Management, 1-15

PLAN FOR NEXT 6-12 MONTHS

Further data collection for Lancaster and Southampton.

Repeatable and objective modelling methodology: Complete document gathering and data elicitation.

Build integrated system model and link functions to budgetary line items as a basis for calculating

approximate resource and waste flows.

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New Outcomes from Research Challenge 1 - City Ecosystem Services

RESEARCH TEAM. James Hale, Jon Sadler.

ASSOCIATED PHD STUDENTS. Martin Locret-Collet, Dan Hunt.

AIMS & OBJECTIVES. Ecosystem services are essentially the improvements to people’s wellbeing that species and habitats deliver. Some are relatively tangible such as the recreational benefits of local parks, whilst others may be less obvious such as the removal of pollutants by vegetation hundreds of metres away from its source. Changes to urban form or social practices may radically alter the delivery of ecosystems services, so tools are needed for city managers to identify the magnitude and distribution of current services and to explore how they might be altered. The aim is therefore to identify and develop a set of measures that can be used to understand how cities currently perform in terms of ecosystem services and how this may change given a range of radical engineering interventions. The objectives of this research are to:

Review existing literature on urban ecosystem services and select a set of indicators based upon their relevance to the wellbeing, resource security and low carbon agendas, the practicality of estimating these across entire cities and the ability to model the impacts of future urban configurations.

Identify/develop spatial models that link the composition and structure of urban green infrastructure (street trees, public green spaces, canals, etc.) to key measures of wellbeing.

Apply these models to case study cities – which locations and demographic groups benefit most from these urban ecosystem services?

Develop indicator subsets that are meaningful for urban management, from the perspective of health, equity and spatial planning.

PROGRESS, NOVEL FINDINGS. Three broad indicators were identified based on the criteria described above: 1) Summertime cooling; 2) Access to recreational green space; and 3) Access to “charismatic” wildlife species. Spatial models were then developed, allowing each indicator to be estimated across Birmingham.

1) Temperature data for a heatwave event in 2013 (supplied by the Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory) were modelled against local vegetation (using NIR data supplied by Bluesky Ltd), demonstrating a cooling effect of up to 4

0C depending on the abundance of vegetated surface cover.

This was then applied to a vegetation map of Birmingham to estimate spatial patterning of this cooling effect (see figure).

2) The distance from each private residence to its nearest large public green space in Birmingham was calculated and an accessibility threshold of 300m applied based upon Natural England’s Accessible Natural Greenspace Standards (ANGST).

3) Presence/abundance models for a range of “charismatic” species such as common birds and bats were applied using land-cover and vegetation maps of Birmingham (the aim is to provide an indication of parts of the city where positive encounters with nature might be expected). Each spatial model of ecosystem services was overlaid with fine-scale demographic data, to allow us to query who was benefiting from these services and where deficiencies lay. For example, young children and those suffering the highest levels of deprivation are more likely to live in neighbourhoods exposed to temperature extremes than the general population.

NEW OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES. A selection is as follows:

Future Proofing the Benefits of Urban (tree) Planting. TPBEII 2014

Bats, lighting and urban futures. INTECOL 2013

Hale, J. D., Davies, G., Fairbrass, A. J., Matthews, T. J., Rogers, C. D., & Sadler, J. P. (2013). Mapping lightscapes: spatial patterning of artificial lighting in an urban landscape. PloS one, 8(5), e61460.

PLAN FOR NEXT 6-12 MONTHS

Refine our models – are they too simplistic? For example, do simple linear proximity measures between residential locations and green spaces produce similar results as more complicated models that use path networks?

Apply these models to Southampton and Lancaster

Refine our sub-indicators, e.g. what thresholds for heat waves are likely to result in health impacts?

Explore the impact of radical changes to case study cities on these ecosystem services, e.g. low carbon interventions, such as LED lighting, and shifts in the density and location of city living.

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New Outcomes from Research Challenge 2 – Wellbeing, Mobilities and Aspirations

RESEARCH TEAM. Chris Boyko, Milena Büchs, Rachel Cooper, Claire Coulton, Jane Falkingham, Héléne Joffe, Mamusu Kamanda, Katerina Psarikidou, Nick Smith, John Urry.

ASSOCIATED PHD STUDENTS. Duygu Cihan, Claudia Peñaranda Fuentes, Cosmin Popan.

AIMS & OBJECTIVES. The aim is to ensure that radical engineering solutions take into account the human dimensions of living and working in cities by assessing wellbeing, citizen aspirations, mobilities and energy use, and translating them into effective design criteria. The objectives of this research theme are to:

Undertake a comprehensive literature review of quality of life indicators, wellbeing & the relationship

between the physical environment, infrastructure & low-carbon institutional systems.

Create a portfolio of wellbeing & quality of life assessment tools that will be used to collect data on quality

of life & wellbeing.

Trial wellbeing indicators to provide criteria for the design & engineering of the physical environment &

infrastructure, & institutionalised low-carbon systems.

Explore city dwellers’ aspirations for the future in three case study cities & then to assess whether these

fit with the notion of a low-carbon future.

Understand how to sediment low-carbon social practices involved in the use of transport & mobilities

within the case study cities.

Assess the relationship between design and wellbeing using several neighbourhoods that are contrasting

(e.g., different density & deprivation) within the case study cities.

Investigate the relationship between energy consumption and wellbeing in a case study in Southampton.

PROGRESS, NOVEL FINDINGS.

Wellbeing preliminary findings from the Birmingham case study (87 wellbeing surveys, 4 focus groups and 2 built environment audits):

This is the first ever study of wellbeing and the built environment as it relates to low carbon. It has

validated some common assumptions (e.g., wealthier areas are generally healthier, happier and have

greater levels of satisfaction); however, there are some anomalies, such as younger people in poorer

areas have higher perceptions of happiness and optimism than residents in wealthier areas

In the poorer areas, the cultural make-up of residents may play a big role in general satisfaction, with

larger families of multiple generations living together in close proximity

Access and quality of greenspace is better in wealthier areas. A recommendation to allow people to move

to these areas may not work; rather, local authorities should improve the quality of greenspaces

elsewhere

Physical health appears to be related to environmental quality whereas mental health appears to be

related to social networks: wealthier areas had the best environmental quality and residents with good

physical health whereas poorer areas had the best social networks and residents with good mental health

Aspirations preliminary findings (144 qualitative interviews with matched samples of Birmingham, Southampton and London city dwellers):

The interviews assessed city dwellers’ aspirations for themselves and their aspirations for cities of the future

In Birmingham, there is a complex interaction between wellbeing and personal aspirations: extrinsic aspirations (e.g., an aspiration for money) are not as prominent as might be expected, and when they are expressed, they are not necessarily at odds with wellbeing, as prior literature asserts.

While city dwellers’ aspirations align well with a wellbeing agenda, they are far less supportive of a low-carbon agenda. Air travel and holidays, as well as large houses, feature highly as promoters of personal wellbeing

With regard to city aspirations, the picture is less complex: Birmingham city dwellers have an aspiration for future cities to be friendly (with a strong connectedness to others), safe and clean and to have green spaces

Personal and city aspirations differ according to key demographic characteristics. For example, 18-35 year olds aspire for educational attainment and job security, and to live in a vibrant and friendly city. In

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contrast, 55-67 year olds aspire for a healthy, happy and financially secure retirement whilst their ideal cities of the future would be more efficiently governed

Mobilities preliminary findings from the Birmingham case study (23 semi-structured interviews and 4 focus groups):

In areas with low deprivation, despite the dominance of the car for accomplishing various practices,

cycling and walking are central in people’s visioning of a low-carbon mobility system. Linked to ideas of

rural idyll and the British countryside, such slow travel practices constitute mostly outdoor and out-of-city

activities

In high-deprivation areas, although the bus is the main means of transport, citizens expressed high

aspiration for car ownership. Generally, property ownership–including both car and house–were

significant in organising high-carbon mobile living

The alleged rising value of digital technologies might play an important role in generating low-carbon

mobility. However, concerns were expressed over their potential impact on future social lives and

relations, but also over new social divides related accessibility to such technologies

Distinct ethnic and religious differences can contribute to the development of more localised patterns of

social and economic lives. Issues of affordability, also possibly linked to an alleged stigmatisation or

social exclusion of such communities might also be crucial for developing such localised ways of living.

Attachment to tradition and national food cultures also might contribute to revitalisation of more localised

patterns of consumption and production

Energy progress:

Ethics was approved in April 2014 for the experimental study on energy use and wellbeing involving a

target sample of 200 households in Southampton

1000 recruitment letters have been prepared, which will be sent to randomly-selected addresses from the

target areas in Southampton from the beginning of May

Analysed data on energy use and wellbeing at the Lower Super Output Area Level and Local Authority

Level, and presented preliminary results, were presented at a seminar in London in February 2014

NEW OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES. A selection is as follows:

Boyko CT, Leach JM, Eyre J, Woodeson A, Cooper R, Rogers CDF. The ‘Art’ of Urban Design: Does

Objectivity Constrain Imagination? Paper accepted by Urban Design and Planning, Proc. of ICE.

Boyko CT, Cooper R. Developing a Set of Measures to Assess Wellbeing in Low-carbon Cities. Paper

submitted to Social Indicators Research.

Boyko CT, Cooper R (2014). Density and Mental Wellbeing. In C. Cooper (Series Ed.), E. Burton & R.

Davies-Cooper (Vol. Eds.), Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide: Wellbeing and the Environment (pp. 69-

90). London: Wiley-Blackwell.

Boyko CT. Can Liveable Cities Be Age-friendly, Too? Population, Ageing, Urbanisation and Urban Design

Research Unit Seminar, University of Manchester, 2 April 2014. Presentation available upon request.

Büchs M. Spatial analysis of energy use and wellbeing in England. Spatial Variation in Energy Use, Attitudes

and Behaviours, Policy Studies Institute, University of Westminster, 7 February 2014.

Joffe H. City dweller aspirations and their visions for future cities. Wilkinson Eyre Architects, London, 3

February 2014. Presentation available upon request.

Joffe H, Smith N. Aspirations “Lates” event [public engagement event about links between aspirations,

happiness and low-carbon living]. Dana Centre, Science Museum, London, 2 July 2013.

Psarikidou K. Re-thinking Innovation through the Moral Economy of Alternative Agro-food and Mobility

Practices. Revised paper re-submitted to Ephemera.

Psarikidou K Review and Commentary on Societies beyond Oil. Review accepted by Foresight.

Psarikidou K. Innovating Mobilities for Low-Carbon Cities. Global Conference on Mobility Futures, Lancaster

University, 4-6 September 2013.

Smith N, Joffe H. Assessing Birmingham City Dweller Aspirations and Their Visions for Future Cities.

Understanding Risk Group, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, 7 November 2013.

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Smith N, Joffe H. Assessing Birmingham city dweller aspirations and their visions of futures cities: A dialogical

perspective? International Conference on Social Representations, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 20-23 July 2014.

Presentation available upon request.

Urry J. Some Alternative Futures after Carbon. Keynote Speaker, Culture and Development Conference,

Warsaw, Poland, 27 November 2013.

Urry J. Moving Beyond the ‘Car’. Mobilities in Cities: From Visible to Invisible, Columbia University, New York,

11 April 2014. Presentation available upon request.

Urry J (2014). Offshoring. Oxford: Polity Press.

Urry J, Psarikidou K. Innovating Mobilities for a Low Carbon Future. Paper submitted to Sociological Review.

Urry J, Birtchnell T, Caletrio J, Pollastri, S. Living in the City. BIS Foresight of Future Cities Report (in

progress).

PLAN FOR NEXT 6-12 MONTHS

The wellbeing team plan to collect about 20 additional wellbeing surveys and undertake two more built environment audits in Birmingham to complete their case study. Once collected, the data will be statistically analysed in summer. The Lancaster case study also will begin in late summer or early Autumn, with wellbeing surveys being distributed and built environment audits starting in four wards that vary according to density and deprivation, identified using GIS.

The aspirations team will have fully analysed all the aspirations interviews and questionnaires in the next 2 months, with a specific focus on how aspirations match or clash with the wellbeing and low carbon agendas. This research will be submitted to Global Environmental Change, and additional aspects of the research will be sent to other journals in the wellbeing, place and aspirations fields.

The mobilities team will focus on: 1) analysing the data collected from Birmingham; 2) beginning data collection in Lancaster and Southampton, with the former involving the collation of data gathered from previous research projects as well as a series of focus groups in different neighbourhoods and potential interviews; 3) cycling as a leisure and exercise activity in the New Forest and the possible impact of such bicycle practices outside the city upon everyday urban life.

The energy team will be: 1) recruiting householders in Southampton by the summer for their energy use and wellbeing experiment; 2) installing energy monitors and conducting initial householder and individual surveys with participants in autumn; 3) conducting intervention interviews with participants in the “intervention group” by summer 2015.

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New Outcomes from Research Challenge 3 – Energy & Well-being

RESEARCH TEAM. AbuBakr Bahaj, Luke Blunden, Milena Büchs, Jane Falkingham, Patrick James, Mamusu Kamanda. ASSOCIATED PHD STUDENTS. Duygu Cihan, Philip Turner, Phil Wu

AIMS & OBJECTIVES. Develop modelling for intervention paths through a parameter space of time and cost, by which a city can progress from its present state to one that produces 80% less carbon in 2050. Distinctively, the analysis is spatially disaggregated so that we can show the effects of interventions at the building level, neighbourhood level and so on up to the aggregated city level. Principal objectives are:

Quantify the practically achievable emissions reductions from energy efficiency measures at the small area level. This will be achieved through developing a generic modelling approach taking existing available datasets as input. Initially it has been focussed on the domestic sector, but the scope is currently being broadened to the non-domestic and transport sectors. A set of ‘reduction factors’ to be developed to take account of socioeconomic factors in assessing carbon and energy savings.

Test the hypothesis that a ‘soft’ energy intervention – an intervention targeted at changing attitudes and behaviour rather than physical infrastructure – can cause a significant decrease in transport and home energy use at the household level, over an extended period.

Determine the relationships between changes in energy use and changes in wellbeing parameters over time.

PROGRESS, NOVEL FINDINGS. Developed an overarching city scale model that simulates the impact of energy efficiency measures in buildings and provides an overarching analysis of carbon reductions at building, community and city scales. Outputs of this modelling are informing decisions of local authorities in Solent region cities. Analysis of temperature data from a large social housing block of flats in Portsmouth, where tenants are individually metered, has provided evidence that people on a low income limit their spending on energy to the point where the indoor temperature in their home is below accepted norms used in thermal modelling. Two additonal tower blocks have now been incorporated into this work. In a separate study in Southampton, with communal heating, energy consumption rose significantly in retrofitted blocks compared to identical blocks left unrefurbished. Both these cases have clear implications for assessments of the benefits of retrofit and raise difficult questions about the balance between improving wellbeing and reducing energy consumption. For the field experiment, promotional material and survey questionnaires have been generated by the team. Households have been targeted for promotional material (delivered via post) using a random sample from the set of unique buildings, weighted by the number of addresses per building, with the constraint that each building must be separated from each other by at least 30 m. A combination of Gazetteer, LIDAR and Ordnance Survey datasets in conjunction with GIS and other software were used for this process. Relationships between energy consumption over time (in terms of domestic, non-domestic personal transport and freight) and subjective health status have been investigated at the lower super output area and local authority level (finest resolution of energy data) for all of England and Wales. Initial results suggest that there is a positive correlation between the level of energy use and subjective health status but no correlation between the change of energy use and health status. GIS analysis of available mapping data has demonstrated ability to estimate the main thermally-relevant parameters of building stock, such as Total Floor Area. The focus now is on intelligently interpolating Energy Performance Certficate (EPC) data, in order to estimate the possible energy savings from all buildings in the city.

NEW OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES. A selection is as follows:

Wu Y, Blunden L, Bahaj AS, Assessment of building refurbishment and the impact on city-level space heating energy consumption, under review.

Blunden attended the SHAP conference in Birmingham (17 February 2014) and gave a presentation on Liveable Cities: http://www.shap.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/SHAP-2014-Conference-Presentations.pdf

Dimitriou, Theodorous, Teli, Despoina, James, P.A.B., Bahaj, A.S., Ellison, Louise and Waggott, Andrew Impact of current occupant behaviour on potential carbon savings in a council owned tower block undergoing retrofit, was presented at CIBSE National Conference, April 2014. A reviewer commented, “This should be mandatory reading for all policy-makers”. http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/364174

Rogers CDF, Leach JM, Tyler NA, Cooper RFD, Collins BS, Bahaj A. (2013). Zero Carbon Britain and Liveable Cities. Centre for Alternative Energy. http://zerocarbonbritain.com/images/pdfs/ZCB%20and%20liveable%20cities.pdf

PLAN FOR NEXT 6-12 MONTHS

Handle recruitment of 200-250 households in Southampton and carry out initial householder interviews

Set up data infrastructure (databases and interfaces) for acquiring and analysing the monitoring data

Installing equipment to monitor home energy use for a baseline period

Deploying GPS trackers and travel diaries to monitor baseline transport patterns Interpolate EPC data to extend GIS city models

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New Outcomes from Research Challenge 4 – Future envisioning and transformative engineering

RESEARCH TEAM. Nick Tyler, Adriana Ortegon

AIMS & OBJECTIVES. Our aim is to understand cities of the future and how we can radically transform the engineering approaches to deliver future cities that address upcoming challenges and enhance the well-being of society and the planet.

To achieve our aim we will reconceptualise engineering to meet the needs for cities in the future. This incorporates identifying and understanding the core elements of the urban systems to construct the anatomy of the city which includes: people, ecosystems, hard and soft infrastructures, as well as purposes, functions and the interdependencies required to create civilised urban processes and functionalities.

PROGRESS, NOVEL FINDINGS.

Envisioning the future means cutting its links to the present so that distortions from current belief systems and methodologies are minimised. Current approaches take activities of current living and forecast them into the future by considering technological transformations on the “form” in which they are developed (e.g. automated flying cars). Our approach aims to innovate and complement the state of the start in the field by focusing on understanding the main functionalities that cities provide to people and the high level objectives that need to be addressed in order to achieve societal and planetary well-being. In this approach the future vision of a city is a set of desired outcomes and functionalities, from which we will backcast to engineer and design the required pathways and the holistic solutions.

From the initial review of case studies and the participation of the team in transformational projects in Latin America we have conceptualised a vision of a desirable future and projected this in the ‘futures cone’ (see left). The 5-cities model presents the ‘ideal’ city as the merging of the courteous city, the active and inclusive city, the healthy city, the city as a public space and the evolving city. This forms a model for a preferable future outcome.

Five Cities Diagram: (Tyler, 2013); Futures cones: Authors adapted from Voros (2003)

NEW OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES.

Our visioning approach is in itself evolving and has been tested and retrofitted through the work in other countries, the case studies and the participation in high level meetings. However, one important finding remains constant and that is that a future vision acts as a magnet or a compass that both attracts and guides the present towards the envisioned future. However, the vision must not define what to do. In that sense the real transformative power is only truly realized through the active role of humans both in the bottom up behavioural change dimension and the top down leadership dimension. Hence, although this future envisioning does not define specific solutions it gives a conceptual framework common to all city’s agents, who then need to evaluate potential actions.

We are developing a new method for creating a simulacrum. A simulacrum is “a copy without an original”. This enables us to examine a phenomenon which has neither a historical existence, nor a clear rationale to believe that it would exist as the end point of some historical trend. The objective of constructing the simulacrum is to move beyond the boundaries of the possible (in the futures cone) by removing the deterministic nature of the discussion in which ideas follow a causality process or trend from the existing knowledge of the present. This effort is meant to emphasize that a far future cannot be predicted with certainty even if we had and exact knowledge of the initial conditions.

This work has been presented and explored in workshops and seminars in Colombia, Peru, Cuba, China and Japan.

PLAN FOR NEXT 6-12 MONTHS

We will be running more sectoral workshops in order to generate the simulacrum and thus create a collage of ideas that give new meanings to existing concepts to envision and thus feed a transformation of engineering for future cities.

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New Outcomes from Research Challenge 5 – Economics and Finance

RESEARCH TEAM. Prof. Francesca Medda, Dr Minette D’Lima

ASSOCIATED PHD STUDENTS. Alessandra Coda, Raul Martinez Oviedo

AIMS & OBJECTIVES. Our research work aims to define new ways to support and foster sustainable investment in cities. This general objective is achieved through the implementation of two main concepts: the portfolio approach to urban investment and the evaluation of natural capital and its integration into the economy. The portfolio approach in this study will comprise the definition of a set of investments that provide positive impacts to the city beyond financial returns and yet remain attractive to private investors. The portfolio will be tested in the New Birmingham City Centre Enterprise Zone. Natural capital will thereafter be evaluated through the application of Sovereign Wealth Funds as financial instruments to maintain the value of natural assets and promote sustainable development within a region.

PROGRESS, NOVEL FINDINGS. A fundamental aim of a green economy is to develop ways to maintain and recover the value of natural capital. Maintaining the value of natural capital nevertheless requires investments by governments. Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are financial instruments that can be implemented by city authorities to invest in natural assets and in so doing promote sustainable development. These instruments can be used at national or regional level, with their success depending on appropriate portfolio management and strategic investment. Results from the experiences of SWFs in Norway and Alberta, Canada, show that these financial instruments can support investments to protect the value of natural capital and also generate significant returns to keep savings for future generations. Lessons from these experiences are analyzed to determine the key elements needed for the successful application of SWFs in UK regions. In line with its national growth agenda, the UK National Government has launched the implementation of Enterprise Zones in cities. These zones require a sophisticated investment strategy that takes the wider scope of urban assets into consideration and treats them together as an integrated entity. The portfolio approach is capable of addressing this consideration, helping local authorities in discerning which investments are more financially feasible and, at the same time, provide benefits for the area. As our initial case study, we have used the portfolio approach in the Birmingham Enterprise Zone. This analysis brings new challenges compared to previous applications, in which the portfolio has been tested on projects specifically designed to satisfy socio-environmental requirements. The social environmental impact of Enterprise Zone projects needs a deeper evaluation in relation to the development plan regarding the inner and surrounding area. Moreover, the new portfolio application abandons the concept of diversification based on geographical distribution of investments.

NEW OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES. A selection is as follows:

R. Martinez Oviedo and F. Medda (2014). Building the Green Economy with Sovereign Wealth Funds. Working paper 1404. 54

th European Regional Science Association Congress.

A. Coda and F. Medda (2014). Portfolio Approach to support investment in Enterprise Zones: the case of Birmingham. Working paper 1423. 54

th European Regional Science Association Congress.

PLAN FOR NEXT 6-12 MONTHS.

Our research plan for the upcoming months is to conduct a comparative analysis of the implementation of SWFs in three countries (Norway, Canada and the US). The analysis will study the performance of these funds by focusing primarily on portfolio investment, financial returns, and management. Based on the experiences reviewed, we will then define a framework for the use of SWFs to support natural capital investment in UK cities. The results obtained will provide clear insights for UK city authorities and policy makers in their implementation of SWFs and ultimately in securing natural capital and promoting sustainable development in the urban context. Thereafter we will investigate the interdependency between different natural assets more widely, that is, between a region and its economy.

In subsequent research on the portfolio approach we will compare the findings obtained from the Birmingham Enterprise Zone with the evaluation of a portfolio performance when combining similar investments located in different cities. We suggest that the overall analysis will provide decision makers and authorities with a clearer choice of which portfolio composition is best-suited to their own context, and in this way simultaneously attract private investors and strengthen the resilience of the city to yield benefits for its citizens. Lastly, as a feedback strategy, we will define a new framework to measure socio-environmental impacts of investments and their interactions in order to further enhance the performance of the portfolio evaluation.

Liveable Cities 5

th Bi-Annual Summit, 28

th May 2014

New Outcomes from Research Challenge 5 – Policy and Governance

RESEARCH TEAM. Katie Barnes, Ellie Cosgrave, Andrew Chilvers, Brian Collins.

ASSOCIATED PHD STUDENTS. Nicole Badstuber

AIMS & OBJECTIVES.

Develop four strands of work which will bring together theoretical insights and review with empirical data gathering from a broad empirical inquiry into governance priorities, opportunities and barriers in three UK cities, a ‘deep dive’ case study on transport policy, and an inquiry into the potentially disruptive opportunities and challenges for the future around smart cities and transforming knowledge systems. The principal strands of work constituting this work are:

1. A comparative review of organisational and management theory and its adaptation for the purposes of city governance. The review will focus on selected governance models and seek to draw insight from commercial and other organisational domains (Katie Barnes).

2. Two rounds of interviews with city leaders and council officers in Birmingham, Southampton and Lancaster where round 1 will adopt an open, explorative approach to the broad priorities, opportunities and barriers respondents report. This data will be developed into a second, more focussed and inquiry-led round of interviews and analysis (Andrew Chilvers).

3. A study of the governance of integrated transport policies in a range of cities, comparing and contrasting the factors which have or have not made them successful (Nicole Badstuber).

4. Research on the opportunities for increasing city liveability posed by developments in ICT, ‘smart cities’ and the transformations this makes possible for new and existing knowledge systems (Ellie Cosgrave).

PROGRESS, NOVEL FINDINGS.

According to the strands of research detailed above, progress is as follows:

1. A research methodology has been defined and review of key theoretical works is under way. A parallel activity to select and analyse governance models for review has begun. Initial findings suggest that parallels between organisations and city governance are strong, particularly with regard to the need to take cognisance of and respond to changing market and social conditions beyond the control of the organisation or city itself.

2. Archives of publically available documents from city councils have been compiled, interview design is in its final stages and detailed interview scheduling has commenced.

3. The literature review of integrated transport governance is nearing completion, a number of interviews both national and international have been carried out

4. Literature review work, research scoping and methodological design is underway.

PLAN FOR NEXT 6-12 MONTHS

According to the strands of research detailed above, progress is as follows:

1. Preliminary findings from the theoretical review will be applied to the selected governance models and outcomes of this exercise will direct the final stages of research. A theoretical, future-focussed analysis will be undertaken using the city types espoused in the Five Cities model to test emerging hypotheses.

2. Round 1 of interviews to be completed by the end of July ’14 which data analysis Archives of publically available documents from city councils have been compiled, interview design is in its final stages and detailed interview scheduling has commenced.

3. A programme of proposed further work is now near completion

4. Finalise research scoping and design and implement this.

The current intention is that this work will come together into either a special issue of a journal or be compiled into book volume on city policy and governance.