Geodesigning Our Future

Due to mounting social and environmental pressures, the demand for efficient and secure urban and rural land uses has noticeably increased (Ewert et al. in Sustainability 12:8098, 2020). Thus, planners and policymakers are called upon to work with diverse policy and management structures, as well as NGOs, private business actors, issue-oriented interest groups, locally based citizen groups and ordinary citizens. They must also confront shifting and sometimes conflicting territorial interests within the national, regional or local context (Milanovic in Global inequality: a new approach for the age of globalization. Harvard University Press, 2016). Many times, decision-makers tend to focus on specific issues, e.g. climate forecasts, overlooking the mutually entangled socio-economic and political effects (Tollefson in Nature, 2022). It is becoming clear that there are no “one-size-fits-all solutions” for regions and cities because of the very specific local conditions (location, population density, financial and human resources, and stakeholder interests). Moreover, scientists and decision-makers need to support the communities’ autonomy, since the effectiveness of the planning strategy depends on community participation (Pisor et al. in Nat Clim Change 12(3):213–215, 2022). Therefore, regional and local communities must have the ability to understand the local impacts of candidate solutions and modify them as needed (Flint Ashery and Steinlauf-Millo in Urban informatics and future cities. Springer, 2021; Flint Ashery and Steinlauf-Millo in Micro-segregated cities. An international comparison of segregation in dense cities. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2022), while developing their own vision for their future. In terms of hierarchical planning systems and decision-making processes, these policy and management structures can be broadly classified into the “top-down” planning approach, whereas NGOs, private business actors, issue-oriented interest groups, locality-based citizens groups and ordinary citizens constitute the “bottom-up” approach, although these distinctions are often not absolute. In both instances, the stakeholders must negotiate since consensus is crucial to the long-term resiliency of the decision-making process. This book, therefore, brings together researchers across various fields to explore scenario-driven designs and resolve negotiations across different locations.