Serena Pollastri

Dataset of the livability performance of the City of Birmingham, UK, as measured by its citizen wellbeing, resource security, resource efficiency and carbon emissions

This data article presents the UK City LIFE1 data set for the city of Birmingham, UK. UK City LIFE1 is a new, comprehensive and holistic method for measuring the livable sustainability performance of UK cities. The Birmingham data set comprises 346 indicators structured simultaneously (1) within a four-tier, outcome-based framework in order to aid in their interpretation (e.g., promote healthy living and healthy long lives, minimize energy use, uncouple economic vitality from CO2 emissions) and (2) thematically in order to complement government and disciplinary siloes (e.g., health, energy, economy, climate change). Birmingham data for the indicators are presented within an Excel spreadsheet with their type, units, geographic area, year, source, link to secondary data files, data collection method, data availability and any relevant calculations and notes. This paper provides a detailed description of UK city LIFE1 in order to enable comparable data sets to be produced for other UK cities. The Birmingham data set is made publically available at http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/3040/ to facilitate this and to enable further analyses. The UK City LIFE1 Birmingham data set has been used to understand what is known and what is not known about the livable sustainability performance of the city and to inform how Birmingham City Council can take action now to improve its understanding and its performance into the future (see “Improving city-scale measures of livable sustainability: A study of urban measurement and assessment through application to the city of Birmingham, UK” Leach et al. [2]).

Envisioning urban futures : from narratives to composites

Abstract Design (and design research) have a rich history of developing ways of making possible futures visible and tangible through prototypes, models, scenarios, or visualisations. Less common are platforms that gather multiple perspectives in the same space about possible futures. Thinking about diverse, rather than alternative, futures is particularly relevant in the context of cities. This paper suggests an alternative way of developing future visions for cities, moving away from coherent narratives to more pluralistic composites. Using the Liveable Cities project as a mechanism for exploration, it reflects on how participatory design methods and information visualisation techniques can engage participants in developing visions of urban futures. The paper will describe the details of the approach. It will present a summary of the findings as well as a discussion on the methods, which will include challenges and shortcomings.