Here, There and Everywhere – Negotiations on the Redistribution of Street Space

Abstract

Many cities aiming for climate adaptation pursue, amongst others, the strategy of redesigning streets by reducing the amount of on–street parking to implement more nature-based solutions. Their implementation alternates the primary use of streets to a different share of space for traffic and for staying and recreation. Consequently, the mix of users of public space shifts radically, along with the intensity of its use.

This is what the urban living lab “aqt” carried out temporarily in Summer 2023 in two neighborhoods in Munich. The transdisciplinary research project aims to find answers to how the livability of a neighborhood may be increased by reducing privately used cars in street space. What's specific in this case of the aqt urban living lab is that the neighborhoods are the adaptive type, according to Försters typologies of neighborhoods. (Förster, 2023) They are characterized by a relatively constant social environment, demanding much participatory work to increase acceptance in adapting to change. Offering little spatial resources, they have high requirements for climate adaptation.

During the project's runtime, the daily life of the neighborhoods and the practices and routines of the residents in public spaces changed dramatically. This caused a conflict between some of the directly affected residents, criticizing and objecting to the mutations, and those who quickly adapted to the change, playing with kids or relaxing in the green spaces. Conflicting stakeholders' interests and their moderation are a daily business in urban planning. Nonetheless, executing an urban living lab in an adaptive neighborhood is highly challenging because of the complexity of the environment and the diversity of stakeholders involved. Thus, to make the findings of an urban living lab transferable to different contexts and to scale them to enable the successful climate adaption of existing neighborhoods, it is essential to better understand the relation between the actual impact that the urban living lab had and the specific role of locality defined by the particular context of the two neighborhoods.

The basis for the conducted impact analysis is a qualitative text analysis of the collected data applying the “embedded actor perspective.” The EAP is a “socio-spatial framework for scaling transitions.” (Bögel et al., 2022): It was developed to analyze the impact of urban living labs by putting the socio-spatial and socio-psychological dimensions in relation. (ibidem) The analysis is guided by the research questions: What aspects of daily life and what public space features are emphasized by citizens, and how do they describe them? What forms of scaling, e.g., new practices, can be identified? (von Wirth et al., 2019)

The results give valuable information on the impact assessment of urban living labs. Enabling transdisciplinary collaboration, improving communication, and, thus, the transformative literacy of stakeholders involved in an urban living lab. Those learnings contribute to the increase of acceptance for redistribution of street space by giving an outlook on what these findings may imply for future urban living labs in adaptive neighborhoods and for urban transformation in the long term.