Dynamic decision trees for building resilience into future eco-cities

摘要

Intensifying global urbanization and environmental changes bring about the imperative of sustainable urban development and decisions upon inescapable pressures and risks, but knowledge integration between disciplines is a limiting contextual challenge. This paper proposes a reformulation, in terms of urban risk management, of an earlier developed ontological scenario generation method. The procedure consists of several steps: (ⅰ) identification-and-prioritization of main pressures, (ⅱ) paired discussion of pressures using four-cell matrices, (ⅲ) re-visit of the pressures' priority order, (ⅳ) articulation of short-listed pressures as decision-making questions, and (ⅴ) generation of scenarios via "yeso" responses to each question, in their order of priority. In this article, the method feeds upon the general context described in recent multi-disciplinary urban studies and public strategic plans in the city of lasi (Romania), to propose a formal procedure for enabling the acceleration of productive decision making towards city sustainability. Answering three top priority questions, namely "Implement a business-friendly and efficient governance system?", "Develop a resource management system?", and "Carry out a human capital accelerator strategy?" results in a 4-scenario set: Receding City, Wanting City, Promising City, Inspiring City. The scenarios are discussed in terms of systemic risks at the end of post-communist transition and beginning of the socio-economic convergence with Western Europe.