From our perspective as engineers, designers, artists and economists, working with resilient cities around the world there is no doubt that you we have to be thinking about how to redesign so that people can move back off the coast so they’re at less risk. How can any politician build a career on telling people they have to move?
We can design the solutions. We can make a rational argument based on science, fact and current examples – but people do not make decisions based on rationality, they make decisions based on personal beliefs, tribal beliefs, nostalgia, fear and a whole host of other emotional factors. The big question for the design community is:
“When are we going to realize we’re in a political situation and stop believing that better design will be compelling enough to create massive change?”
The world’s most developed societies are failing to respond to the warnings. The choice to act is a political one – and cities are forgetting their social contract.
A survey conducted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the United States revealed that if residents of Houston, Texas could be guaranteed the same job with an equitable salary in another city, 60% would choose to leave rather than stay and fight for the future success of their city.
How can a City ensure that the people it nurtures and educates choose to stay and invest in the successful future of their City?
Objective
In almost every case, any proposed high budget solution meets with strong public resistance. This is inevitably because investments can only be made in one area of concern at the expense of another.
It can be all too easy for professionals to propose solutions to problems that stakeholders either do not think need addressing or are of lower priority than other issues cared about. Part of this is the result of not getting the question right. Part is what is referred to as “the tyranny of experts” where the public is expected to simply defer to the intellectual superiority of others when experience is clear that this is often a path to heartache. Part is a failure to appreciate and incorporate the wisdom of the masses when they are provided unbiased information that is accessible to them, not just to the experts. This is not to suggest that majority must rule. The literature is pretty clear however that if institutions and individuals that the majority trusts and for whom they feel some kinship are not convinced that the problem at hand is a priority then the majority will withhold their permission.
Objective
There can be greater confidence (and influence) in addressing attributes of problems rather than fundamentals. Design can go a long way towards addressing aspects of some problems, but it cannot address the fundamentals. The fundamentals are political.
Is the money we’re spending today going to be value added given what we can reasonably predict? How are we going to ensure that our investment in the future is actually based upon a strong foundation and an integrated approach to the future of communities? How do we understand the whole range of risks and how do we optimize available resources so that every investment we make helps address risk across the whole spectrum? What is the opportunity cost of not addressing the future?
Objective
Be able to answer the following questions:
Without the choice to act differently, conventional wisdom will dominate and we will make much less progress than would otherwise be possible. The choice to act differently is a risk management issue – political risk, financial risk, resource management risk. Good design and good science can help reduce the risk of different choices of course. More fundamental however are culture, nostalgia, aspiration, fear and what Frances Bacon described as the preference for truths that we would rather believe.
How can we communicate honestly and openly with the public about the levels of confidence we have in the decisions being made, and the limits to their impact?
Objective