Uploaded on 2017-08-30 by Immo Janssen

1. Top livability criteria? 1. Environment 2. Recreation Possibilities 3. Education 4. Culture 5. International Connectivity 2. Why do we live where we live? I live in Berlin, the capital city of the German state. I came here three years ago for 1. the opportunity and quality of studies 1: Presentation of Workshop Results at TU Berlin - CHORA Consious City Chair 2. being able to share thoughts with people from very diverse backgrounds 2: International Course on Smart Cities at TU Berlin - CHORA Consious City Chair 3. because of the high quality of public spaces, healthy green spaces and water-sides 4- the possibility to live “my life” in a city of tolerance and free mindset 3: Old canal with superb water and recreational quality – swimming is prohibited, but people don’t care. 5. the multimodal PT and the ease to go by every means of transport, especially by bike 3. Fulfillment of livability criteria by my place? Fulfillment of the criteria in (1.): 1. by 70% 2. by 85% 3. by 65% 4. by 95% 5. by 95% Overall score: 85% 4. What would you change? I would first of all analyze how to reconfigure the public authorities in a more coherent and integrated way, making them more accessible and providing better services either for the citizens as for the various authorities themselves, making clear who is responsible for what and setting up contact agents to improve the interconnection and communication between single entities. Furthermore, I would try to establish a fruitful, democratic but still effective standard of interaction and engagement between the citizens (as a means) and the city authorities (as an instrument) to let the citizen more room – and self-responsibility – to advocate for their ideas of how to change/improve the(ir) city. Also, citizen need to be engaged to report damages and things that are not in a good state to support the authorities in fixing them. To be able to act like that, the city needs to train and educate their citizens to act responsibly and to care about their neighbor/next as about themselves. It is clear, that this is a long-term issue, which needs to be addressed by school and university curricular, citizen trainings/tutorials, public discussions and artistic interventions which critically reflect the human behavior and help to set up a new/modified civil code of conduct. Upfront, the city officials and employees need to become idols and advocates for such a “new civic culture”, themselves to act in a good example. To become encouraged to do so, we need modified rewarding systems and a more human friendly and engaging working culture. 5. Why do we move? 1. Leipzig (Germany) => empty and free spaces to take part in the (re-)creation process of the city => similar culture and city feeling as Berlin => slightly more green and recreational potential => family friendly and friends living there => high efforts to engage people to act as a stakeholder in decisions 2. Gela (Italy) => lots of problems to come over, though, high potential of improvement => opportunity to take a stake in improving the urban room, together with friends => very contrasting city: beautiful, fertile sea-side-city and mafia-industrial-complex => high quality of groceries and food culture => reachability of different landscape types (sea, agriculture, forest, mountains) 3. Anywhere (Globe) => curiosity for how people live there life elsewhere => and for which reasons they do so => what I or we as society can learn and adapt from that => what can I contribute from my biographical background => making good friends an ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ PS: I would have prefered to submit a WORD file with multiple photos and a more reading friendly layout. (Feedback for next course)