Emerging Cityscapes: The UNESCO/CEF Futures Literacy and Sustainable Cities ForumWorkshop
A storm is brewing in Asia, will Philippine cities transcend beyond the narrative of trauma and disasters? Is there an alternative future for Philippine cities or would it learn from the past to innovate, act and create the preferred story?
Are current strategies enough to transform our cities or do we need to question our assumptions now of continued economic growth and rethink our ways of knowing the city and change the way we imagine our cities and leadership from the big man rule – autocratic, corrupt and isolated to the fresh food market – pluralistic, democratic and participatory?
These are some of the questions that the participants of the UNESCO Resilient Cities, Brighter Futures workshop explored for four days. Using anticipatory thinking and strategic foresight methods, city leaders and experts, researchers, managers, advocates, social scientists, futurists, and consultants from the different parts of the country and the world debated, deconstructed and reconstructed Philippine city futures in a Post-Haiyan era.
The Laoag forum workshop is a part of a broader global foresight project launched by UNESCO and the Rockefeller Foundation on futures literacy and introduce foresight to decision-making, public policy and governance.
The initiative aims to help communities better prepare for the future and assist them to become future-literate. Similar workshops have been held in Oslo Norway; Munich, Germany and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Reimagining Philippine Cities
To Sohail Inayatullah, a fellow of the World Futures Studies Federation and the World Academy of Arts and Sciences and the main speaker and facilitator of the UNESCO future lecture series and knowledge workshop, “cities are fast emerging agents of global policy-making and change.”
(Livestream link of Sohail Inayatullah’s lecture and forum-workshop updates and proceedings powered by SMART Communications Philippines are available here – http://new.livestream.com/accounts/6161035/events/3007612/archives)
And as cities faces multiple challenges like climate change, globalization and demographic shifts, Inayatullah argued that cities need to re-think the context, to be versatile and to be flexible enough to respond, innovate and usher in a new era.
Rigid concepts, models, priorities, worldviews and leadership practices of and in the city that leads to urban poverty, pollution, overcrowding, decay and decline must be questioned. Questioning the future of cities enables communities and leaders to create alternative concepts, frameworks and life-urban interfaces.
To do this, Philippine cities should embark and perhaps invest more aggressively on urban regeneration and knowledge creation projects that increases social, economic and community resilience.
Population drifts from rural to urban are expected to rise and if cities fail to read the weak signals they might end up becoming or repeating the stories of Metro Manila, Baguio and Dagupan cities – living beyond 3, 500% of sustainable levels, caught in the middle income trap and highly vulnerable to climatic changes and exposures.
In Asia, it is projected that its urban population will double from 1.6 to 3 billion by 2050. Philippine cities have to face up to this emerging population and migration trends but how many of its cities will be able to meet the challenge? Just imagine the social, cultural, environmental, political and economic cost of the ASEAN integration and climate change to an unprepared Philippine city.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Simply put, if you know something beforehand, you can prepare for it.
Being aware of the critical drivers and taking the big picture approach can help cities regenerate and transform in the midst of rapidly evolving challenges.
Strategies and Metaphors to the transform the future
Participants were able to re-imagine the contexts and purposes of Philippine cities in a post-Haiyan plus the ASEAN integration, the rise of Asia, Chindia, etc. scenario.
New narratives, metaphors, images, strategies, policies and programs to achieve the preferred future Philippine cities were proposed. Cities are at the forefront of these solutions and innovations and when they happen it could accelerate inclusive growth, open up new value chains for innovation and better city living conditions.
The low hanging fruit was the Smart city.
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of urban systems, social cohesion, innovation, infrastructure, architecture, energy, transport, national and local governance and the participation of the media, academia and the non-profit sector was essential to creating the smart city.
We have to be smart enough to see the intersection of all the drivers mentioned to create the smart city that we want participants noted. Changing the way we live, work and play in urban environments requires asking the unasked questions. Integrating or applying the best tools like anticipatory thinking and foresight can improve urban planning practices and innovation.
Technology is a critical driver to this type of city.
The metaphor was arangkada. Downside however was the tusong-matsing – a city trying to catch up with its neighbors, economic growth driven, getting smarter but stupidier.
The G4 city. This is the Laoagueno version of the smart and green city.
Here the city is smarter and wiser.
The green worldview of inclusive interaction, collective emergence and local creativities informs the G4 city. From pure gold in 2012 to the pure and interactive trees, from hypermart (big man rule driven) to the fresh food market (pluralistic, participatory and democratic) city in 2030.
The city’s strategies create the conditions for the greeny Ilocano way of life and lifestyle to thrive; the system and the city and its people finding their own path.
The city is emergent and organic, alive, breathable, walkable and liveable as well safe and inviting for brilliant people and ideas in this city scenario.
The metaphor was the garden of trees and the ecosystems of life.
Laoag emerges as the smart and green capital of the Philippines.
The city is shaped by her residents, community organizers, musicians, ecologists, settlers, farmers and artists and Pamulinawen finds her heart and wooed by a French artist and entrepreneur.
Laoag is globally connected and emerges as a global brand for city resilience and transformation by 2030.
The Bayanihan City – bayan (community, connectivity), bayani (hero catalyst, peer to peer, sharing economy), ani (wealth, next generation inclusive and sustainability).
Here, Philippine cities get transformed by resiliency and natural disasters.
An empowered, pragmatic and a climate responsive city is created in 2030.
Cities become a prototype, a model for disaster risk reduction and management.
The Japanese proverb that says a bamboo that bends is better than the oak that resist was the myth.
City’s in this context have future-proof flexibility and have adaptable spaces that accommodate multiple changes and challenges.
The city is bayani as it is also generationally inclusive. It accounts and imagines the need, the resources and the opportunity required by future generations. The future generation becomes a part of the policy discourse, planning and urban city design.
From the city of isa, isahan at naisahan to the city narrative of bayan, bayani and ani, Philippine cities creates new hero icons, stories, proverbs and opportunities for the future.
The Healthy, Interactive Living City.
The city takes the title for fit and healthy living.
Philippine cities invest and create the healthy, living cities and some would even take the top spot in an annual global ranking of healthy cities.
The indicator here was the walk or the bike score, number of yoga and meditation practitioners and decline in the number of citizens suffering from chronic health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity. Fruit consumption rate, investment in curative healthcare, number of homeopathy shops, tea shops, number of farmer markets, the decline in the number of patients were significant and are indicators of the healthy living cities.
Physical infrastructures are designed and invested on based on fitness and health impact index.
A healthy city strengthens personal and social immune systems.
Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz
From the King (the king can do no wrong, father knows best) and the Unruly Citizen of the past and present (bahala na, short term oriented, corruptible citizens) to Dorothy (creative, inclusive and emergent) and the Wizard of Oz (a future world designed by her community and friends, playful and organic and generative), people and local governments leads the way in the diversification and creation of new Philippine cities.
Participants aspired for a city and systems that are people oriented, novel and nonconventional.
They want the Filipino to prosper and participate in creating the preferred.
Restrictive Factors
Too much democracy, closed economy that benefits only the ruling elite, feudal culture, the nation-state, hierarchy, strong power distance index, the raping of natural resources, the middle income trap, short-termism, systemic corruption, asyong aksaya (corrupt and wasteful leadership patterns trends), the alamat of ibong adarna (tinutulugan ang kalamidad at oportunidad) are weights of history, the restrictive factors and barriers to the preferred future.
The future is an active aspect of the present
Like the past, the future is an active aspect of the present. It is the ‘forward looking equivalent of history’. Using it as a medium to expand planning, policy and governance, the future can provide us practical and imaginative space to create and enact the future today.
Futures thinking can help us reveal the unknown unknowns and imagine multiple alternatives and choices. One does not need to be an expert to take part in futures thinking and strategy development.
Thank you! Thank you!
Now I would like to personally thank Mayor Chevyyle Farinas and Northwestern University President Liza Nicolas, the Northwestern University community and the Laoag City Government for their overwhelming and generous support.
Also, the futures team of the Graduate Institute of Futures Studies at Tamkang University and the University of Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies and the International Society of Heal Being Studies at Chung Ang University, Seoul South Korea, Dr. Shunji-jie, Dr. Kou Hua Chen, Dr. Meimei Song, Dr. Jiang Bang Deng, Dr. Hyun Ryul Park, Mark Alexander, Cesar Villanueva, Dr. Mahar Lagmay, Architect Jun Palafox, Dr. Mario De Los Reyes, Dr. Merlita Panganiban, Mr. Moncini Hinay, Jerome Escobar, Atty. Ferdinand Nicolas, Dr. Rudy Bareng, Mayor Dolly Clementd and Vice Mayor Jessie Galano, Ilocos Times Publisher Jay Ramos and Mr. Mitch Esmino, the City Tourism Office of Vigan and the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines Dr. Virginia Miralao and Ms. Emmy Yanga thank you so much!
Event photos below.
Lots of photos here – https://www.flickr.com/photos/125022124@N05/
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