Design thinking for city dashboard development: Recommendations from a study of smart asset management in Sydney,Australia

The city dashboard has become an integral component of smart city asset management systems. It leverages data collected from multiple sources to monitor performance and enable evidence-based decision making. This article investigates the use of a design thinking framework to develop a functional and easy to understand city dashboard. The Smart Social Spaces project is used as a case study to illustrate how design thinking can be employed to develop an asset management dashboard, enabling efficient management of public space and infrastructure. The article profiles the unique collaboration between a local government, a multi-disciplinary team of university academics, and a street furniture designer and manufacturer, all located in Sydney, Australia. We unpack some of the design practice nuances that led this project to receive national awards and international recognition, and most importantly, created a user-friendly system to track and maintain public micro assets. We conclude with lessons learnt and recommendations for dashboard development through a design thinking process.     

The Making(s) of an Alternative Urban Policy: What Happens When Free Fares Come to Town?

While many urban policies and practices claim to offer an “alternative” to the “mainstream” of urban entrepreneurialism, they remain under-theorised and prone to alignment with entrepreneurial agendas. In this paper I examine fare-free public transport (FFPT) as a salient example of an alternative urban policy. Looking at Aubagne (France) and Tallinn (Estonia), I explore what happens when an alternative policy “comes to town”. I detect how FFPT enters local urban regimes, and study the (non-)participation of public transport passengers and workers in the decision-making process about whether and how to abolish public transport fares. My analysis reveals that albeit alternative policies such as FFPT seem to oppose entrepreneurialism, they may hinge on urban regimes that span across institutions, leave the local configurations of power unchallenged, and strenghten local elites. The adaptability of alternatives to diverse political and intellectual positions explains their resilience. Consequently, their radical character cannot be taken for granted and remains an object of political struggle.     

HONOURING ‘ONE OF THE GREAT FORCES OF THE DOMINION’*: THE CANADIAN PUBLIC MOURNS McGEE

Urban publics - the self-conscious interest groups that emerged to characterize much of the social and political climate of city life - claimed attention, contended for influence, and celebrated their values through performances of a wide variety of rituals in urban public space. In this paper our attention will focus on one dramatic and important episode expressing the nature of public ritual in Confederation-era Canada: the memorialization of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, assassinated in Ottawa, and buried in Montreal on Easter Monday, April 13, 1868. In paying homage to McGee, urban publics in Montreal and across the Dominion seized an almost unparalleled opportunity to bear witness to their images of themselves, in the very particular circumstance of an intensely felt moment in time. The nature of this ritual allows us to explore one significant aspect of a social geography of the city that is otherwise not easily recoverable and often forgotten: the evanescent but powerfully signifying geography of behaviour in public space. Les publics urbains - ces associations gênées qui ont émergé pour dépeindre I'essentiel du climat politique et social de la vie en ville - se faisaient remarquer, préten-daient à I'influence, et célébraient leurs valeurs à travers des performances de rites d'une grande variété dans un espace urbain public. Dans cette dissertation nous exa-minerons surtout un épisode dramatique et important qui exprime la nature du rituel public dans le Canada de I'ère de la Confédération: La commémoration de Thomas D'Arcy McGee, assassinéà Ottawa, et enterréà Montréal le 13 Avril 1868 - le lundi de Pâques. En rendant hommage à McGee, les publics urbains à Montréal et à travers la Confédération profitèrent d'une occasion sans pareil pour porter témoignage des images qu'ils se faisaient d'eux-mêmes, dans la circonstance très particulière d'un moment perçu très intensément dans le temps. Le caractère de ce rituel nous permet d'explorer un aspect important d'une géographie sociale de la ville qui, autrement, n'est pas facilement récupérable et sou-vent oubliée: La géographie éphéèere, et pourtant puis-samment significative, du comportement dans I'espace public.     

Le Conte de deux cités1 : Analyse comparative des conflits urbains de Montréal et Valence, 1995–2010

A tale of two cities: 9 Comparative analysis of urban conflicts of Montreal and Valencia, 1995–2010 Metropolization processes at work in contemporary societies produce social and spatial change, which can raise strong opposition from a variety of urban actors, leading to acts of dissent. While such urban conflict has been examined in the past, geographical analysis of urban conflicts as sociospatial processes is more recent. Systematic quantitative research on urban conflict is virtually nonexistent in terms of comparative analysis conducted with an international perspective. Systematic comparative analysis sheds light on the existing relationship between urban conflicts and the socio‐territorial contexts in which conflicts emerge and evolve. This article presents a comparative analysis of urban conflict that occurred in a selection of boroughs in two cities characterized by different geographical realities, Valencia (Spain) and Montreal (Canada), between 1995 and 2010. Spatial autocorrelation techniques applied to a conflict database show a significant relationship between the emergence of urban conflict and the spatial distribution of some contextual variables. Indeed, for Montreal as for Valencia, the concentration of urban conflict is the greatest in the most deprived neighbourhoods. Also, regarding the management and regulation of urban conflict, results shed light on important differences between Montreal and Valencia. These differences include the outcome of urban conflicts, repertoire of action of actors involved in conflict activity, and the type of contestation faced by actors who promote the challenged urban projects.     

Site prioritization and the reproduction of inequity in the restoration of Biscayne Bay

The restoration of urban estuaries is challenging due to the complexity of prioritizing sites in a context of social and biophysical unevenness. Site prioritization and selection are crucial components of ecological success and equity in restoration. In many cases, site prioritization is conducted according to simple opportunity or political expediency, but this needs to be investigated further in local contexts, with accompanying analysis of the impacts on urban environmental equity. Using a critical physical geography framework, I explore site selection processes in the restoration of Biscayne Bay through case studies of two urban streams. I use multiple data types to present an integrated perspective on urban restoration priority and the social context that produces restoration siting decisions. I find that the logics of restoration site selection in the Biscayne Bay watershed have produced ecologically questionable decisions and inequitable outcomes. Therefore, I argue that restoration decision making needs to include environmental justice criteria.     

Does time heal all wounds? Restoring place attachment in Halifax's Point Pleasant Park after Hurricane Juan

On September 29, 2003, Hurricane Juan profoundly altered Halifax's Point Pleasant Park, resulting in feelings of solastalgia (the distress caused by perceived negative changes to a beloved place) as park users mourned the loss of a place that held great significance for the city. Starting in 2008, over 100,000 trees have been planted in order to restore the original Acadian mixed forest to this landscape. Drawing on scholarly literature focused on place attachment and disaster recovery, this paper utilizes interviews (n = 11) and online surveys (n = 79) to determine whether long‐term park users have re‐established positive place attachments in conjunction with the park's restoration. Our results indicate that participants have largely overcome their solastalgic outlook and restored meaningful place attachments to the park. Unexpectedly, our results also suggest that long‐term participants have current place attachments that appear stronger than the place attachments expressed by participating short‐term users, who never experienced the traumatic impact of Hurricane Juan on Point Pleasant Park.