Don’t be afraid of failure: Experiment to unleash the power of change

By Karl Dickinson

How can we unleash a city’s innovative power and create change for good? For CityChanger Lior Steinberg, it’s all about experimentation. To make the most of it, we need to lose our inhibitions: it’s the unexpected trials that provide the most valuable learning opportunities and this has made him a pioneer in innovative city design.

Inspired by the teachings of Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl, Lior Steinberg founded Humankind in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he works “as an urban planner, consultant, and on urban-change projects”.

Watch Lior’s TED Talk and you may pick up on his use of the word ‘kind’. This is significant. His motivation is to plan public spaces that make people smile. Happiness, Lior believes, “is not a constant state of being satisfied”. He refers to the happiest cities rankings. Those that top the charts are places “where people have enough social networks and social security to also be failing or sad or depressed or have an accident and be able to go to the hospital”. In other words, they smile because they feel human even at their most vulnerable.

A shift in focus

Building a human-centric city is easier said than done. As Lior points out, in the 20^th century “we completely rebuilt our cities according to the car”. This takes a lot of unravelling.

Decent design is about creating places that bring people together regardless of their differences. Interaction rather than segregation.

“I think that if people meet each other more, they will be nicer to each other,” Lior says.

Some will hug, others will argue about politics. Some will play football or walk the dog, while others go on dates. “I think that it’s just this fostering of connections that is the way toward urban happiness, whatever it means.”

Success story: Basel Square, Tel Aviv

Following months of lockdown due to COVID-19, the people of Tel Aviv were craving better outside spaces. Many had lost their jobs. Others were stuck working from homes. The Tel Aviv city administration approached Lior and his team to repurpose a series of public spaces, including a former car park closed due to the drop in traffic. It became Basel Square.

A wealthy part of town with copious numbers of cars, this was met with tremendous opposition. Up until that point, “everybody spoke about mobility” but no one represented “the silent majority” who wanted somewhere to sit, meditate, or play with their grandchildren, etc. Lior knew the way to catalyse change was to reframe citizen participation: “We didn’t ask anything about ‘do you agree to remove a car or not?’ because this was a given. The cars are out! Sorry.” Instead, Lior asked: “What do you actually want?”

This really gave the project “power”. Together with the Urban95 initiative, Humankind created spaces for the city’s youngest citizens. And when it worked, it wouldn’t be undone. “Good luck with asking to remove children and putting cars back now,” Lior quips.

Challenges and solutions

Lior knows urban planners have a reputation that they don’t listen. The preconceived notion that citizens’ voices won’t be heard is hard to shake off.

Anyway, people are busy – how can we expect them to attend meetings to consult about street design? “The majority of people have other important things to do” including “real work that pays for the bills”.

The answer is: work from the ground up. A “culture of participation, a culture of cooperation” starts with citizen-led ideas. They are passionate. They know the people in the community who have dreams; they know who wants to help and what skills they have. These are the people Lior suggests planners approach.

A secret to success is proof, our CityChanger reflects. Temporary, cost-effective solutions that demonstrate impact, which can be scaled up, work wonders for inspiring confidence. If it doesn’t work, revert it back and move on to the next idea. This is called tactical urbanism for a reason!