Transformative capacities: From individuals to systems in the co-creation of urban values

The paper elaborates a vision and a method developed in the context of MUV (Mobility Urban Values), an EU Horizon 2020 project (2017-2020) that intends to foster more sustainable mobility lifestyles, enhance local development and improve urban planning policies. MUV activities are co-designed to enable spatial and virtual social interaction in six different European neighborhoods in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Fundao, Ghent, Helsinki, and Palermo. In this paper, a framework of multiple lenses grounding on the theories about change – behavior change, social practice, and systemic perspectives – is combined for a new progressive transitional perspective to understanding MUV as a potential change agency. A critical scholarship angle allows elaborating on the transformative capacity of societal discourses within contextualized neighborhoods and their effects through participative methods of interpretation in six EU cities. The idea of change is here operationalized through an interpretation of the multi-level perspective (MLP) as an urban ecosystem which frames the macro-and-micro levels that intertwine and co-evolve together through the flow of societal ‘desired values’, the dynamic of stabilization of urban practice and potential urban governance strategies. The first part of this paper focuses on the MUV vision about change and the agency within this urban ecosystem. The framework points to the efforts to value change envisioned within co-creation activities with individuals, local communities, informal groups of citizens against the discursive landscape of societal desired values (sustainability, resilience, safety, inclusiveness). The conclusion presents the results of this process with a critical consideration of discursive re-scaling. Lessons from MUV draw on what planning for transitions require in terms of capacities: first a practical way to interpret values with local communities in view of regenerating a positive culture that reflect the identity of places; second the opportunities to integrate scale-linking perspectives to develop new capacities for action.