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Dealing with Surprise in Urban Regions—Some Ideas and Examples for Planners

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Urban Regions Now & Tomorrow

Part of the book series: Studien zur Resilienzforschung ((STRE))

Abstract

Planners are concerned about the future, the future of cities and regions in particular. However, the future is full of surprise—at least this is what complexity science and concepts like resilience suggest. Unfortunately, planning research has not yet developed a genuine approach to surprise. The paper follows a modest ambition to further planning research with regard to surprise. It proposes a definition of “surprise”, interprets dealing with surprise as component of a commitment to resilience, and presents some ideas how to perform foresight and surprise preparation by actors that are involved in urban development. The paper then presents examples from empirical research to illustrate these ideas. The outline of a research agenda concludes the paper.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In May of the year 2011, external experts conducted an audit of FRM in the City of Dresden: “Hochwasser—wie gut sind wir vorbereitet” developed by the “DWA—German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste”. The audit concludes that the strategy of the city of Dresden shows some specific shortcomings, for instance, with regard to dealing with extreme flood events. However, the audit is constructed as a kind of “check list” without systematic consideration of surprise and without distinguishing between floods of different probability, frequency and in relation to surprise as an actual or “virtual/simulated” experience of actors. Hence, the audit is only of limited value for suggestions about foresight and surprise preparation in the City of Dresden.

  2. 2.

    For instance, communication shaped as a pragmatic procedure that emphasizes a step-by-step approach to dealing with uncertainty, complexity and surprise in the sense of “First, think and talk about events of high and medium probability; then, second, begin the consideration of low-probability, rare, and even extreme flood events” (see Hutter and Schinke 2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), Weberplatz 1, 01217, Dresden, Germany

    Gérard Hutter

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  1. Gérard Hutter
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Correspondence to Gérard Hutter .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. HafenCity Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Sonja Deppisch

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Hutter, G. (2017). Dealing with Surprise in Urban Regions—Some Ideas and Examples for Planners. In: Deppisch, S. (eds) Urban Regions Now & Tomorrow. Studien zur Resilienzforschung. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-16759-2_7

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