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Urban Living Labs: Opportunities in and for Planning

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Human Smart Cities

Part of the book series: Urban and Landscape Perspectives ((URBANLAND))

Abstract

This chapter explores some of the most significant potentials of Living Lab environments in urban systems while viewing urban planning as the entire set of transformative practices possible and available in urban contexts. It explores three main potentials of Urban Living Labs, i.e., their being practice-based innovation environments, their capacity to create cross-boundary arenas where many diverse actors and organizations can interact, and, lastly, their being contexts for new modes of urban activism. This chapter also analyzes some challenges launched by Living Labs in urban environments and discusses some possible roles for planners who recognize Living Lab potentials as transformative drivers. Finally, considering the collective (public) experimental perspective introduced by Urban Living Labs, the idea of the city as a laboratory is discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The original term autogestión used by de la Pena is preferred here to the English term self-management in coherence with the author’s choice; see de la Pena’s explanation at page 2, 2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Grazia Concilio

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  1. Grazia Concilio
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Correspondence to Grazia Concilio .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Grazia Concilio

  2. Department of Architecture and Territorial Development, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Francesca Rizzo

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Concilio, G. (2016). Urban Living Labs: Opportunities in and for Planning. In: Concilio, G., Rizzo, F. (eds) Human Smart Cities. Urban and Landscape Perspectives. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33024-2_2

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