Sustainability Science Days workshop: How can cities support transformative change?

The CircHive Cities Hub recently participated in the Sustainability Science Days conference in Helsinki 26.5.2023 by organizing a workshop! Four themes were selected for discussion after short presentations of each topic:

HEALTH: Health promoting environment – Marketta Kyttä, Professor of Land Use Planning, Aalto University

NATURE: Urban forests and their biodiversity – Leena Hamberg, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Institute Finland

BUILDING: Land-use planning as a driver for sustainable building – Atte Koskivaara, Research Scientist, Natural Resources Institute Finland

PARTICIPATORY PLANNING: Can we realize smarter participation? Marketta Kyttä, Professor of Land Use Planning, Aalto University

The 30 participants, research scientists, employees and inhabitants in the cities, were divided into three groups according to their interest: HEALTH, NATURE, and BUILDING & PARTICIPATION.

HEALTH

The group was discussing how urban lifestyles disconnect citizens from nature. Regarding both physical health, e.g. microbial exposure, and mental health, the citizens would benefit from a walk in the forest or doing some gardening. However, from a practical point of view the free time in the evenings after working hours is restricted and does not allow one to travel very far for any activities. Both urban forests and community gardens provide easy access to nature and are therefore so important. Community gardens also provide a social environment and an understanding where the food comes from. Unfortunately, economic considerations are still prioritized over health and wellbeing, and very little space is left for urban forests or areas suitable for community gardens. What should be emphasized is that economic growth should not be a competing interest against health and wellbeing, but rather that the health benefits are not monetarized and included into the economic aspects. If all health aspects would have a monetary value, the understanding of the true economic value of supportive land use would be different.

NATURE

Urban forests provide citizens a place for recreation and playing, shade and cooling, and help to create a pleasant microclimate inside the city. At the same time urban forests are rich in biodiversity due to the mild management practices supporting recreational purposes rather than timber production. Therefore, they also help to maintain certain nature types in addition to protected areas. Biodiversity in cities can be also much more than urban forests. Even areas for energy production could support biodiversity and solar panels might provide suitable shade for vegetation. So why not let nature come to cities and promote biodiversity where you can!

BUILDING & PARTICIPATION

In the subgroup that discussed the possibilities of smarter public participation, the members represented many parts of the world (e.g. Brazil, Germany, Turkey) and had varying experiences of participatory practices. Few had experiences of the type of digital participation that has been developed and mainstreamed in Finland already since 2005. Many referred to activist groups and topic group meetings as a means to realize participation. We discussed to what degree activists represent wider groups of participants and identified both challenges and possibilities in this kind of smaller scale participation. In contrast, digital participation can help realize large scale participation with thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of participants. Some way of prioritizing the produced knowledge is, nevertheless, needed to make sure that there are enough resources to realize the wishes of participants and to use the knowledge from participants’ daily lives. In the group discussion, it was considered important for the digital participation to reach different citizen groups. 

Strategic urban planning and the informal practices related to it (e.g. MAL agreements) mean often that formal channels and legislation related to public participation may be bypassed. This is a topical issue at least in Finland. Participants also noted that although public participation is carried out, it may sometimes appear as a “legal seal” for the plan to meet the legislative requirements, but not to affect the actual decision making. 

Participants considered the possibility to influence sustainability in building through land-use planning generally limited and possibilities seemed to differ between countries. For example, the inability of land-use planning to affect material selection or certain technological solutions in building was highlighted.

Authors: Erika Winquist, Marketta Kyttä, Atte Koskivaara, Leena Hamberg, Jacqueline Moustakas-Verho