In 2019, Ges Rosenberg won an Impact Acceleration Award (IAA) to support Bristol City Council develop its Bristol ‘One City’ Planning approach and integrate neighbourhood-scale considerations.
‘Whole-City’ Planning Approach
Development of the whole city approach included:
- A systems thinking workshop identifying interdependencies between urban challenge areas and joined-up planning;
- Facilitating a multi-disciplinary review of the draft One City Plan prior to launch.
“Independent validation of the work of the City Office is crucial to both its credibility and eventual success. We were really pleased that the University of Bristol, in partnership with the University of West of England was able to provide an independent assessment of the work of the City Office to date, and some of the recommendations have helped shape the form and direction of the City Office going forward.” Ed Rowberry (co-Head of City Office)
‘Many Neighbourhoods, One City’
The ‘Many Neighbourhoods, One City’ workshop built on the learning, methods and tools developed on UrbanID. Group model building, structured canvasses and mapping activities were used by participating communities to identify connections between different neighbourhoods, diagnose the challenges faced by their communities and relate these to overarching vision for the city set out in the Bristol One City Plan.
“This report, derived from a lively and constructive workshop bringing together neighbourhood leaders from across Bristol, and held in July 2019, adds another dimension to the idea of how to develop inclusive city leadership. In essence, it addresses a very important question for Bristol: How can we add a really significant neighbourhood dimension to the Bristol One City Plan?” [Robin Hambleton, Emeritus Professor of City Leadership, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK in Forward to Many Neighbourhoods, One City report.]
Key findings include:
- The high level of interconnections that workshop delegates were able to map out between their chosen community development aims and the One City Plan themes, shows an encouraging level of common purpose at city and neighbourhood scales.
- The mapping process piloted could readily be used, extended and replicated in other neighbourhoods to explore further the connectivity between neighbourhood development priorities and the Bristol One City Plan. It would show where community engagement with the One City Plan themes is likely to be strongest, and where interconnections from neighbourhood to ‘whole-city’ scale are weaker or missing.
- Digital and physical connectivity were identified as important enablers of beneficial social and environmental outcomes and a priority of the community groups at the workshop.
The full report can be found here.