Service Design and Urban Policies

Abstract

The urban environment has been facing multiple challenges, considering the social, political and economical forces which act within this realm. Indeed, various stakeholders have been debating over problems spread within the cites. The international community is aware about the needs to rethink the urbanisation model. Indeed, there is an high number of examples which show the necessity to bring new approaches, methods and processes in the cites’ strategies and policies. In this paper we will briefly show experimentations, methods and solutions deployed according to the different realities. The digital revolution has a role in facing these challenges, since it is possible to exploit its new means in order to enhance the possible interaction between the urban actors. The service design method becomes fundamental for a different understanding of the urban reality where the technological aspect is intertwined with the social innovation aspect. This possibility gives the chance to investigate an innovative frontier allowing a new engagement and dialogue between public administrations and civil society. This leads to a different collaborative system among the various urban stakeholders, witch gives to citizens the opportunity to become active participants in the city’s transformations and planning. UN-HABITAT is dealing with these digital challenges and is going to address them in the international conference Habitat III, which will be held in Quito in 2016. Various Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) have been set up across the world as occasion to debate over the multiple experiences which will be enriching contribution during Habitat III. In this framework, the mission of the UTC in Palermo was to better understand the capacity of the combination of ICT and Service Design to reimagine cites, especially in less globalised contexts, debating the role of the key actors involved: urban communities, researchers, private businesses and local authorities.