Urban living laboratories: Conducting the experimental city?

TLDR

The experimental city has become a focal point for urban sustainability research, with diverse forms of experimentation emerging, yet it is clear that experimentation cannot be understood from a single conceptual perspective. This paper focuses on urban living laboratories (ULLs) and develops a typology to compare 40 European ULLs, aiming to understand how and why these experiments are designed and implemented and to identify the specific forms of experimentation they entail. The authors propose three ideal ULL types—strategic, civic, and organic—situated along a spectrum of four dispositions: trial, enclave, demonstration, and platform. They find distinct ULL types that are delineated by both their design and practice configurations and by the laboratory dispositions they embody.

Abstract

The recent upsurge of interest in the experimental city as an arena within and through which urban sustainability is governed marks not only the emergence of the proliferation of forms of experimentation – from novel governance arrangements to demonstration projects, transition management processes to grassroots innovations – but also an increasing sensibility amongst the research community that urban interventions can be considered in experimental terms. Yet as research has progressed, it has become clear that experimentation is not a singular phenomenon that can be readily understood using any one conceptual entry point. In this paper, we focus on one particular mode of experimentation – the urban living laboratory (ULL) – and develop a typology through which to undertake a comparative analysis of 40 European ULLs, to understand how and why such forms of experimentation are being designed and implemented, and to identify the particular forms of experimentation they entail. We argue that there are distinct types of ULL taking shape, delimited by the ways in which they are designed and deployed through, on the one hand, specific kinds of configuration and practice and, on the other hand, by the ways in which they take laboratory form: the different dispositions towards the laboratory they entail. We propose three ‘ideal’ ULL types – strategic, civic and organic – and argue that these can be placed along the spectrum of four dispositions: trial, enclave, demonstration and platform.