Co-Creating Urban Environments to Engage Citizens in a Low-Carbon Future

The article highlights the challenges of co-creative stakeholder engagement processes when designing and creating eco-neighbourhoods as cities try to lower their carbon footprints. The authors argue for “co-creation” as a specific type of co-operation that is needed from the wide array of stakeholders and entities that support low-carbon neighbourhood developments. Co-creation is increasingly being advocated because it facilitates deeper user engagement in the design process of SUMP measures. It is thus a shift from ‘consultation’ to an ongoing and iterative process that can facilitate the creation of innovative user centred cities.

The papers relates to SUMP participation processes because to it can help to combine technological innovations with social and behaviour changes to aid low-carbon lifestyles. The following key critiques are argued and should be taken into consideration when planning co-creative participatory processes:

• Applying co-creative models to larger scale developments are highly complex and it can be difficult to clearly identify who the user is in greenfield developments.
• There is an added level complexity by the perceived risk to budgets and project timelines due to uncertainty in feedback loops of the co-creation process.
• Stronger critical shifts in power dynamics are needed between professionals and citizens to alter engagement from consultation processes to an ongoing and iterative co-creative process

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