Incremental urbanisation: repairing cities through massive small change

Keywords: Urban development, change processes, governance
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Urban stakeholders are increasingly designing and implementing small-scale interventions to realise more liveable, resilient, and prosperous cities. Using various terms such as lean urbanism, radical incrementalism, and acupuncture urbanism, these interventions provide a wide range of opportunities to change the form and function of cities at the block, neighbourhood, and district scales by staying small and impactful. While these activities serve as an intriguing antidote to modernist urban planning ideals, it is unclear how they contribute to broader urban transformations. In this presentation, I reflect on the governance implications of incremental urbanisation and compare and contrast these more design-oriented interventions with science-oriented interventions such as urban experiments, living laboratories, and testbeds.