Check out the episode:

You can find the shownotes through this link.

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Are you interested in the controversy between experimentation and projectification?

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Our summary today works with the article titled Experimentation or projectification of urban change? A critical appraisal and three steps forward from 2021 by Jonas Torrens and Timo von Wirth, published in the Urban Transformations journal.

This is a great preparation to our next interview with Frank Elavsky in episode 272 talking about the need for urban experimentations.

Since we are investigating the future of cities, I thought it would be interesting to see urban experimentation outside of only project-thinking. This article proposes three steps to overcome the challenges of “projectification” to foster genuine urban change.

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Welcome to today’s What is The Future For Cities podcast and its Research episode; my name is Fanni, and today I will introduce a research paper by summarising it. The episode really is just a short summary of the original paper, and, in case it is interesting enough, I would encourage everyone to check out the whole paper. Stay tuned until because I will give you the 3 most important things and some questions which would be interesting to discuss.

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In recent years, urban experimentation has become a prominent tool to tackle sustainability and governance challenges in cities, ranging from smart initiatives to eco-friendly projects. Cities have embraced various forms of experimentation, such as urban living labs and pilot projects, aiming to address pressing issues like climate change, social inequality, and economic recovery. However, while these initiatives offer innovative solutions, they are often hampered by short-term goals and limited by their project-based nature, making it difficult to achieve long-lasting impact.

This shift towards experimentation reflects the growing complexity of urban governance, where traditional planning and centralized authority give way to more dispersed and collaborative approaches. Yet, as experimentation becomes more widespread, it also inherits the characteristics of projects—short timelines, fixed objectives, and rigid frameworks—that undermine its potential to foster deep, systemic urban change. This tension between experimentation and projectification lies at the heart of the current urban transformation efforts.

Urban experimentation has become a key method for cities to address complex challenges like climate change, inequality, and economic resilience. However, these experiments are increasingly shaped by the logic of “projectification.” In practice, this means that many urban experiments are structured as short-term projects with clear, measurable goals, operating within strict timeframes and budgets. While this may make them more manageable, it also limits their scope, often reducing them to isolated initiatives that struggle to achieve broader, systemic change.

The issue with projectification lies in its focus on immediate results and measurable outcomes. Projects are typically designed to meet specific objectives within a given period, which pushes cities to prioritize incremental improvements rather than transformative innovations. As a result, urban experiments often focus on what can be quickly achieved rather than addressing deeper, more complex problems. This leads to a fragmentation of efforts, where different experiments run in parallel without building towards a coherent, long-term strategy for urban transformation.

Moreover, project-based urban experiments can reinforce existing structures rather than challenge them. Instead of serving as platforms for exploring radical new approaches, they are frequently designed to fit into the current systems of governance, economic models, and urban planning. This approach tends to favour technological or market-driven solutions over social or environmental considerations, reducing the potential for urban experiments to truly drive transformative change. As a result, many experiments fail to scale up or produce lasting effects, limiting their ability to create meaningful urban transformations.

To move beyond the limitations of projectification, cities must first stop assuming that all experiments need to follow a project structure. Urban experimentation can take on a wide range of forms that are not bound by strict timelines, predefined objectives, or rigid frameworks. By allowing experiments to unfold more organically, cities can encourage innovation that is responsive to evolving urban challenges, rather than constrained by the narrow demands of project management. This shift would promote more open-ended exploration and learning, creating space for experiments to generate unexpected insights and more radical solutions.

Secondly, cities should strive to make existing projects more experimental. Rather than launching new initiatives for every urban challenge, cities can embed experimental practices into ongoing projects and daily operations. This approach leverages the resources and momentum of existing efforts, while introducing the flexibility and learning-oriented mindset of experimentation. By connecting experimental practices with routine urban activities, cities can ensure that the insights gained from experiments are not lost, and that lessons learned are applied to broader urban strategies.

Lastly, cities need to establish hybrid spaces that foster collaboration between experiments, traditional projects, and permanent governance structures. These spaces can serve as hubs where diverse stakeholders—planners, policymakers, citizens, and innovators—can come together to share insights, reflect on outcomes, and co-create new strategies for urban transformation. By creating dedicated environments for cross-project learning and dialogue, cities can bridge the gap between short-term experiments and long-term urban goals, helping to sustain and scale transformative efforts over time.

Urban experimentation has the potential to drive significant urban change, but it is currently hindered by its entanglement with project-based thinking. By reframing the way experiments are conducted and integrating them into broader governance structures, cities can unlock their transformative potential. Urban policymakers, planners, and sustainability advocates need to use this approach, seeking to overcome the limitations of short-term projects and pursue long-term, systemic urban change.

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What was the most interesting part for you? What questions did arise for you? Do you have any follow up question? Let me know on Twitter at WTF4Cities or on the wtf4cities.com website where the transcripts and show notes are available! Additionally, I will highly appreciate if you consider subscribing to the podcast or on the website. I hope this was an interesting paper for you as well, and thanks for tuning in!

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Finally, as the most important things, I would like to highlight 3 aspects:

1. Urban experiments often fall into the trap of projectification, limiting their long-term impact.
2. Cities need to adopt more open-ended, flexible approaches to experimentation that encourage deeper learning and transformation.
3. Integrating experimental practices into routine urban processes can bridge the gap between short-term projects and lasting change.

Additionally, it would be great to talk about the following questions:

1. What would happen if cities embraced uncertainty and allowed experiments to evolve more freely, without strict timelines or rigid goals?
2. How might we create spaces in our cities where citizens, policymakers, and innovators can collaborate on experiments that push for transformative change?
3. In your city, have you seen examples of experimentation that felt too short-term or narrowly focused? How could they have been more impactful?

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