Anna Ankowska

Despite much interest in healthy, sustainable cities, currently they are often on the margins of urban planning and design, not the centre. Part of the reason for this is technical. Many planners are interested in designing healthier cities but wonder how to link their objectives with actions. This study develops 99 indicators for a healthy city. The basis for the development of indicators was the 11 objectives of a healthy city according to the World Health Organisation. Application of these indicators helps push healthy city objectives to the centre of urban planning and design in two ways: (I) the indicators can show gap with each objective; and (II) monitoring the indicators over time can show the performance of solutions for each objective. It is possible to explore synergies and trade-offs between the 11 objectives of healthy cities by examining the relationships between their 99 indicators. Trade-offs between healthy city objectives in some contexts might require local adjustment of these objectives. This, in turn, would require adjustment of their indicators. Thus, the set of 99 indicators can be used as a starting point in an iterative process of adapting healthy city objectives and indicators to local circumstances.

Approaches to growth planning and spatial governance on larger-than-local scales are matters of entrenched contention. Following the annulment of regionalised patterns of working and policy coordination across England during the early 2010s, much of the country was left without suitable larger-than-local scales of spatial governance and planning arrangements for delivering growth ambitions. This paper analyses the emergence of new approaches to planning for growth that have arisen on larger-thanlocal scales since the abandonment of regionalised policy working. Specifically, the nature and capabilities of strategic economic plans are examined, derived from a national comparative analysis of all of them. The findings draw attention to some of the defining challenges of informal growth planning on larger-than-local scales, as the research considers the extent to which these plans address an apparent strategic void. A key distinction is drawn between plans resembling bidding documents and those that could be considered to be plans for the area. In doing so, the intent is that the research contributes new knowledge to the evolving practice of strategic planning and economic strategy.

An initial assessment, by researchers on behalf of the RTPI, of a sample of LEP strategic plans which were submitted this week to the government, has concluded that those LEPs benefiting from a history of larger-than-local partnership working, local authority collaboration and/or a policy active business community have produced some of the most credible and distinct Strategic Economic Plans.

Embedded within the qualitative paradigm, this chapter presents the application of gamification in the public sector through a case study of Helsinki, Finland. Gamification, understood here as the application of different game mechanics to non-gamified realities, has been on the rise in a variety of contexts. In the public realm, gamification aspires to correct the deficits of participation and apathy that often limit the attainment of goals, address democratic shortages, and improve citizen engagement in decision-making processes. When applied to business scenarios, gamification contributes to employee innovation and helps achieve various business objectives across a range of disciplines. Application of gamification in the public sector in Helsinki should be understood as a practice of collaboration between citizens, public administrators, and other actors in pursuit of co-management and co-creation of public services in a novel way. The Participation Game, Osallisuuspeli, along with participatory budgeting, and particularly a Finnish platform for digital participatory budgeting, Omastadi, used by the City of Helsinki to promote public participation, are among many initiatives developed in entrepreneurial pursuit of shaping the locality, making use of gamification-based methodologies and open innovation as new strategies to increase local participation. Together, Osallisuuspeli and Omastadi are paving the way as prime examples of fostering entrepreneurial and innovative mechanisms of the contemporary public sector.