Cities are incubators for social change due to their high population density and their diversity. Urban spaces and neighborhoods are often learning spaces for social, cultural, technical and economic innovations. Increasing conflicts over space and usage make it necessary for the various interest groups to engage in a productive and understanding-oriented debate in order to jointly develop sustainable solutions for living together in the future.
We are convinced that strengthening participation on the ground not only leads to sustainable urban development, but also contributes to a trusting culture of discussion and cooperative networking. After all, the major urban policy challenges of the future can only be overcome by working together. Viable solutions for sustainable urban development require close and democratically organized cooperation between all stakeholders.
We use purpos-developed multi-actor formats such as the Trialog ® of the Berlin Governance Platform in our urban development projects to bring together actors from politics and administration, business and organized civil society, and academia. For the synergy of city-related research and urban society actors, we facilitate structured exchange, develop innovative solutions, and sound out joint options for action.
On behalf of the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing and the district office of Berlin Mitte, we are implementing digital citizen participation: The project "Voices at the Push of a Button" collects ideas via voice messages for the new city hall of the future in Berlin-Mitte.
The Trialogue series "Participation in Housing" (2017) resulted in the introduction of guidelines for participation for the state-owned housing associations in Berlin, which do justice to the diversity of perspectives of the urban society. After a pilot phase, we captured initial sentiment in an interim review (2019).
In a series of talks on social housing in cities (2019 and 2020), we brought together representatives of politics and administration, business and organized civil society to discuss current challenges in the field of housing.
Our international project "Cities for Citizens" (2019 and 2020), funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, facilitates exchange between German and Belarusian stakeholders on pressing issues of urban development, housing and citizen participation.
In the past, the method of transdisciplinary trialogues was successfully tested in a first trialogue series with the Technische Universität Berlin "Aufbruch Stadt: Für zukünftige Infrastrukturen" (2016). In our joint project " New Urban Agenda Berlin" (2018-2020), funded by the LOTTO Foundation, we developed trialogues and transdisciplinary project ideas on the topics of mobility, immigration, housing, and tourism that benefit urban society and science alike.
