Conceptualizing Testbed Planning: Urban Planning in the Intersection between Experimental and Public Sector Logics

Abstract

Urban planning is, in many countries, increasingly becoming intertwined with local climate ambitions, investments in urban attractiveness and “smart city” innovation measures. In the intersection between these trends, urban experimentation has developed as a process where actors are granted action space to test innovations in a collaborative setting. One arena for urban experimentation is urban testbeds. Testbeds are sites of urban development, in which experimentation constitutes an integral part of planning and developing the area. This article introduces the notion of testbed planning as a way to conceptualize planning processes in delimited sites where planning is combined with processes of urban experimentation. We define testbed planning as a multi-actor, collaborative planning process in a delimited area, with the ambition to generate and disseminate learning while simultaneously developing the site. The aim of this article is to explore processes of testbed planning with regard to the role of urban planners. Using an institutional logics perspective we conceptualize planners as navigating between a public sector—and an experimental logic. The public sector logic constitutes the formal structure of “traditional” urban planning, and the experimental logic a collaborative and testing governance structure. Using examples from three Nordic municipalities, this article explores planning roles in experiments with autonomous buses in testbeds. The analysis shows that planners negotiate these logics in three different ways, combining and merging them, separating and moving between them or acting within a conflictual process where the public sector logic dominates.

Urban Planning by Experiment: Practices, Outcomes, and Impacts

“…This suggests that "urban planning in practice pursues different rationalities simultaneously and independently, thereby inevitably contributing to development contradictions and conflicts" (Wolfram, 2018, p. 106), which also seems to apply to the new rationality and associated instruments and objectives of urban experimentation. In Stockholm, for example, this new approach sits-somewhat uncomfortably-next to more traditional planning approaches (Eneqvist & Karvonen, 2021), and a similar development has recently been reported for cities in Denmark and Norway (Berglund-Snodgrass & Mukhtar-Landgren, 2020). These authors explain the mixed feelings of urban planners towards urban experimentation, as reported in this thematic issue by Eneqvist and Karvonen (2021), Räuchle (2021), andWanner et al (2021), as arising from a conflict between institutional logics (beliefs that shape how individuals act).…”

Experimental Governance and Urban Planning Futures: Five Strategic Functions for Municipalities in Local Innovation

“…We began by developing an analytic framework of strategic local government functions inspired by previous research on urban experiments but with a new focus on the broader processes of experimental governance. We then applied this framework to study contemporary experimental governance practices in Stockholm to understand how the municipality performs these functions in practice and, in turn, how this challenges the local government on multiple fronts (Berglund-Snodgrass & Mukhtar-Landgren, 2020). These functions are not new to municipalities but the recent emphasis on urban experimentation reframes and combines them in important ways.…”

Re‐thinking urban infrastructures as spaces of learning

“…The city, in turn, "becomes a distributed laboratory for testing smart city technologies, especially those utilizing Internet of Things (IoT), run by public and private stakeholders to help solve city challenges and attract investment." (Berglund-Snodgrass & Mukhtar-Landgren, 2020;Coletta et al, 2018, p. 357).…”

“…This smart citizen then is the one who has successfully learned how to deal with Information and communication technology (ICT) enhanced urban infrastructures. The city, in turn, “becomes a distributed laboratory for testing smart city technologies, especially those utilizing Internet of Things (IoT), run by public and private stakeholders to help solve city challenges and attract investment.” (Berglund‐Snodgrass & Mukhtar‐Landgren, 2020; Coletta et al., 2018, p. 357).…”