Cities as Urban Laboratories: Time to re-think what prosperity really means?

As the world enters yet another period of unprecedented political and environmental tumult, it is becoming even more clear that our current economic system based on the primacy of profit over the health and wellbeing of people and planet is failing. Throughout history, cities have always been at the forefront of new ways of thinking, and are urban laboratories to test and pilot new concepts. The same holds true today: the degrowth strand of economics, along with policies that focus on healthy people and environments, are being trialled in some Spanish cities, such as Barcelona and Girona. On the other side of the world, it is becoming more widely accepted that GDP is an outdated and inaccurate measurement of the health and wellbeing of a city or nation, and new tools and indexes are being implemented in cities across Japan. Despite their very different cultural contexts, these cities are thriving. Now, the question is: will nation states follow their lead?

Featured guests: 

Dr Angelos Varvarousis, Author & Research Fellow at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)

Takehiko Nagumo, Director of the Smart City Institute Japan

Links:

GDP Is the Wrong Tool for Measuring What Matters - Scientific American

This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession With Growth Must End - New York Times

'Letter to Nature' by Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau - C40 website

Girona City Council, a pioneering administration in exploring degrowth - Nació Impacte

What is a Smart City anyways? - IMD

Japan has a new way to measure city success – happiness - Cities Today

New Zealand – Implementing the Wellbeing Budget - Wellbeing Economy Alliance

Policy Design for a Wellbeing Economy - JCCPE

If you want to learn more about the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, please visit our website: https://jccpe.utpjournals.press/

Cities 1.5 is produced by the University of Toronto Press and Cities 1.5 is supported by C40 Cities and the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy. You can sign up to the Centre newsletter here. https://thecentre.substack.com/

Our executive producers are Calli Elipoulos and Peggy Whitfield.

Produced by Jess Schmidt: https://jessdoespodcasting.com/

Edited by Morgane Chambrin: https://www.morganechambrin.com/

Music is by Lorna Gilfedder: https://origamipodcastservices.com/

Transcript

[Cities 1.5 theme music]

David 00:01

I am David Miller and you’re listening to Cities 1.5 a podcast exploring how cities are leading global change through local climate action. [music ends]

[whimsical music] When I was mayor of Toronto, we built transit, housing, addressed climate change, and prioritized investments in those neighborhoods that needed excellent public services and the opportunities they bring the most. We used the power of local government to help build a city where no one was left behind. Cities worldwide face mounting challenges from the climate crisis to economic inequality and public health concerns and more, yet traditional economic indicators like gross domestic product, or GDP, fail to capture what truly makes a city livable, sustainable, and equitable. GDP doesn’t measure how many of a city’s residents have clean air to breathe, for example. It doesn’t account for the percentage of people living in poverty or ability to access nature and green spaces. As we’ve seen in some other episodes this season, it also doesn’t measure how well a city is preparing its infrastructure and its residents against the increasing frequency of devastating weather events. [music ends]

[slow rhythmic music] A great example of how unreliable GDP is when it comes to measuring the progress which society is making, is that it is often booming when a nation is at war. The GDP of Ukraine, for example, has grown sharply since the Russian invasion, but how healthy, happy, and prosperous are the residents of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities who are having Russian missiles fired at them on a daily basis? The endless growth which GDP measures and the orthodox and old-fashioned economic theories it rests upon are also unsustainable for people and planet. If we continue on the path of relentless expansion and reliance on the fossil fuel industry, we will destroy our future.

[whimsical music] This we know, but what are the alternatives? Alongside accelerated climate action, implementation of mitigation policies to protect against the worst impacts of climate breakdown and the transition to clean energy, we need an economic systems change. Originally flowing from theories best explained by Herman Daly, the father of ecological economics, there are now many schools of thought which argue against continued growth. These concepts prioritize the health and well-being of people and our ecosystems over the pursuit of profit. They also disregard GDP because it’s such a poor measurement tool of true well-being. As ever, cities are acting as urban laboratories. Developing strands of economic thought and even alternative indexes to GDP are being built into policy and practice across the world. This innovation and ability to discard old economic orthodoxies means that once again, cities are leading the way to building new economic systems which protect people and planet and result in our cities being better, healthier, and more prosperous places to live, work, and play in. [music ends]

[fast rhythmic music] My guests today come from very different geographies, but are both implementing ideas, policies, and actions in the unique context of two wildly differing cultures and cities. We’ll be hearing from Takehiko Nagumo, director of the Smart Cities Institute Japan, who will be sharing how the livable well-being city indicator, which he has helped to develop as an alternative measurement tool to GDP, is transforming cities across Japan. But first, I speak to Dr. Angelos Varvarousis, a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, who will be exploring the ideas that lie behind the Degrowth School of Economics and how Barcelona is implementing policies which prioritize the health and happiness of people over profit and support making Barcelona a great city to live in. [music ends]

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 04:45

[phone rings] [whooshing] So, I am Angelos Varvarousis and I am in Barcelona. I am a professor here at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, a faculty member, a senior researcher and the director of the masters on Degrowth: Ecology, Economics and Policy. [handset clicks]

David 05:07

Professor, welcome to Cities 1.5.

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 05:10

Thank you very much, David. I’m also thrilled to be here and looking forward to the questions and our discussion.

David 05:17

Well, me too. I’m looking forward to your answers more than my questions. But can you just give a little bit of an explanation about your background, your academic focus and work and the program you lead at UAB?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 05:31

So, I am basically trained as an urban planner and my field of expertise is critical geography, urban studies, planning with an emphasis on participatory planning. Of course, like here at the University of Barcelona we are like a really genuinely interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary institute, and this is why we have been trained in mixing and collaborating and learning from other disciplines. So at the same time that I am an urban planner by training, I have been also always trying to understand, what are the other dimensions of planning? The economic dimensions of planning, the social dimensions of planning, how planning and sustainability science go together. And this is like one part. One part that has to do with my studies. The other thing is what has to do with my life, and my life was always, like, very much connected to this idea of living better with less, which is like, I would say, the core principle of what we can call, like, degrowth economics. I think I was lucky enough. I have been given the opportunities to bring these two things together; to bring planning and [inaudible 06:57] and critical geography with a quest for an economy that satisfies human needs and social needs with less materials and tenancy.

David 07:09

It’s quite interesting that your background is in urban studies and urban planning, and you came to economics through that lens. Because, you know, at the C40 Center we’re learning more and more how interconnected are the rules that we collectively set about economics and the underlying thinking are to climate change, and, you know, one could argue that the neoliberal system that the world agreed to post World War II is actually what’s driving climate change in many ways. I mean, I guess first of all, from your perspective, can you talk about what degrowth economics is to a lay person so they can understand, you know, clearly the main pillars?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 08:01

Degrowth economics is like, I would say, an expanded version of ecological economics. And to say so this means that it is a sort of economics where matter matters, as we say. Where economy is not like an abstract X things or like of goods and services that happen outside the biophysical realm, but it’s a very material process. A process that has an impact. So, this means that as the economy grows, it’s very profitable, almost inevitable. We argue that also the material flow and the energy flow is growing along with the economy. So, degrowth economics starts from this fundamental understanding that the economy is a material metabolic process, and that’s to it a series of dimensions that have not been originally considering biological economics. Meaning insights from the anti-colonial, decolonial and post-colonial struggle, meaning an understanding of our society and of our planet. Not only as scarce, in the sense that we live in a regime of an absolute scarcity so we have to manage, so we have to innovate, so we have to accumulate more in order to defend this scarcity. But it starts from an idea that with different power relations, different social relations, different economic relations among people and territories, we can thrive in a nature—in an earth that is very generous to us. So it’s not defined only by its finity, but it’s also by its abundance, which is—I feel, is something different than what ecological economics originally did.

David 10:18

[whimsical music] And certainly quite different than the economic series that underpin global organizations like the IMF and the World Bank?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 10:30

I think degrowth economic system is a sort of economics that tries to understand how we should shape our provisioning systems. So, the important thing here is how to maintain socio-ecological sustainability and also provision to the people the things that they need to thrive, to be happy, to do what they want and to have, like, a good life. So this is the substantially different objective than mainstream neoliberal economics.

David 11:05

How does that core idea about degrowth thinking, about how to build a good life for people within material limits, how does that manifest itself in cities and why do cities and urban areas matter from your perspective?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 11:24

Well, first of all, it’s important to not think of all the cities as if they are the same. Cities have changed throughout history. So, cities were, like, initially few and they were like strong hubs of commerce and trade, then, like, through the industrialization period, they became the locus of hosting industries. Afterwards, especially in the Global North, they became, like, growth machines. They industrialized and at the same time they became the locus for global speculation in a way, based on rent mostly. [music ends]

At the same time, cities have been always places of encounters, places of novel ideas, of social innovations, places of radical politics, of new ideas about, “How can we live together?” And also, like, the role of cities have interestingly changed throughout the history in relation with the sustainability discourse, and I think this is also something important. Because if we remember like 100 years ago perhaps, or even more, cities were always framed as diseases. As something bad for the planet. And we see gradually that cities are becoming, like, the forefront of sustainability politics, so they are the [inaudible 13:01] of sustainability politics. Everyone speaks about now of green cities, of sustainable cities, of fearless cities, of new municipals, of, like, having cities, you know, like at the very edge of sustainability discourse and policy. And why do we think this is, like, important? And there are reasons why this is happening. In our laboratory here, and like our research group here, we tend to understand cities not as bounded entities. Not as, like, something that exists on their own, but as a network. As territorial networks that expand in near and far places. And so this is important because when we want to understand how to change our cities, how to make our cities more sustainable, we tend to think of networks, of flows of materials, as I said before, which is the essence of degrowth economics, and we don’t limit ourselves in greening policies that will take place inside the cities. We want to make the whole territorial configuration of what we call a city more sustainable.

David 14:22

By networks you would include, for example, the farms that supply the food to the city, the hydro dams that supply electricity, and you’d think about the areas loosely called ‘suburban’ that might be outside the strict boundaries of the city, but are related to it economically and socially. Is that a fair summary of—overly simplified, obviously, but of what you mean by networks?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 14:48

Yes. I mean, this is what we mean. But of course, like, cities were always dependent on other places to feed themselves.

David 14:56

Yes, of course.

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 14:57

To move their waste, to take energy, to take water, yeah, and many different things. But this is changing now. So cities in the current world are becoming global networks, planetary networks, so they have lost more or less. The adjacent areas and regions to the cities have lost their meaning and the significance for the cities, and cities now are being fed through networks that cover the whole planet. So it’s very important that urban sustainability politics and policies don’t make cities greener and more sustainable at the expense of all these places outside the cities, which also matter for sustainability and social prosperity reasons. So we don’t want, like, green cities that shift the cost outside their boundaries.

David 16:01

In that context from a degrowth perspective, what would a Global North city look like and how would it act, perhaps, as a city government if it was trying to act in a way consistent with the insights that your work gives us? And how would people’s lives look, perhaps as well, maybe as a second part of that?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 16:27

Life is changing. Life is not the same in every city and not all the cities are the same. But, I mean, what we can do is first of all to start with this, to start from a different understanding of what the city is and what it entails. Then, one important thing that we can do is to create new indicators about how to measure sustainability. This is the second thing we can do. The third thing we can do is to understand that we don’t have only to reduce gas emissions, for instance, within the boundaries of the city, but we also have to control the supply chains that feed the cities and also shift the cost of what’s happening within the city outside of the cities. The fourth thing that we can do is understand how global capital shapes our cities and try to reduce its influence. Because, for instance, it’s not coincidental that many cities in the Global North suffer from the same things: an acute housing crisis, turification over tourism, scarcity in—too much pressure to the facilities and, like, the social services of the cities, maybe health, education and other things. So, financialization of land and housing, competition among cities about which will attract the richer and more affluent people. So when we think about post-growth cities and an application of some of the principles of degrowth economics in cities, we can also add to the previous things like avoiding vacant houses and, like, all these processes that practically create an artificial scarcity of housing stock in the cities in order to regulate rent and extract as much profit as possible, we can think of processes of participatory planning that slow down the process of decision making, which is good. I mean, although perhaps it sounds a little bit paradoxical, but it’s good to slow down a little bit the decision making processes and bring people in this decision making and not leave it to technocrats. Because it is this movement from democratic planning and democratic decision making towards a technocratic decision making that is actually spinning up the growth machine and creates, like, conditions of further unsustainability. We have to control tourism and we have to control some sort of digitalization of real estate market that favors global leaders and people who have the money to buy land and houses everywhere. All these are part parcel of a degrowth pack for the cities. And, of course, like the most well-known green solutions that are still valid and important, like creating good infrastructure, creating, like, all the conditions, of course, for recycling, creating healthy environments within the cities and all these things.

David 19:59

[slow rhythmic music] It’s interesting to me, at the heart of what you just said, is a very democratic principle that people have a right to a say over the decisions that affect their lives and need to be engaged in the process, particularly around land use and other changes that affect them. To me, if you engage people, they know their city best and they know their needs and desires and neighborhoods and it’s the place we should really start.

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 20:33

I’m not saying that it is easy, but we want these challenges. And not only because people know their neighborhoods, know what they want, of course, and we have to respect it. It’s not only for the practical point of view that, “Okay, let’s gather information that we don’t have and this will allow us to make us better planning proposals,” but also because we want people to be agents in the implementation of the proposals. [music ends]

We want people to take, like, an active role and don’t be only pathetic receivers of some invisible and increasingly less effective public authority that will do everything. So we need like a city based on the commons. We want a city in which communities can actively contribute to the making of their lives, and should also find ways to negotiate their differences, to manage their conflicts. Because if we don’t involve people in the decision making process, then something will substitute their presence. And what usually substitutes their presence in decision making is capital; money and capital expansion. So it’s a little bit of a neither/nor dynamic here. We either put people inside and in this way we’re avoiding displacement, gentrification and implementation of costly solutions that don’t work. What others have said, like, ‘zombie policies’. You know, policies that we know they do not work and we still circulate them around because we don’t have anything better to suggest.

David 22:30

Barcelona to the outsider has a reputation as a place that is trying to encourage this sort of citizen participation. What’s your perspective on that and are there some things that other cities could learn from Barcelona about the engagement of residents in the decisions that affect their community and the future of their community?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 22:54

Yes, it’s true. Barcelona has been, like, an interesting place for many decades now. Especially after the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the mass anti-eviction movement, we have seen many important—many interesting dynamics to play out both inside and outside the city. And I think, yes, other cities could learn a lot. Barcelona under the administration of Ada Colau, we started in 2015, tried an amazing amount of institutional innovation in the city governance and involving many different things, from the strong incorporation of social and solidarity economy as an important and indispensable part of the local economy to the implementation of policies of housing that tried to put forward social and cooperative housing, to, of course, like [inaudible 24:01] displacement measures. There are the famous superblocks, the superilles as we say here. There are, like, many different things that have been tried.

And obviously one important thing was the—that Barcelona led for many years the so-called ‘new municipalism movement’, a movement that puts cities at the forefront for fighting social equality and climate change. And, of course, like a network of cities across the globe, that after seeing national politics and policies [that failed 24:40], they try to take some sort of initiative and create something at their place. Another dimension of this period, which I think is important to be examined in detail, is why this massive amount of institutional innovation didn’t manage to block, for instance, the actual housing crisis. And here, I think we have to understand and we have to pay, like, a little bit more attention on what I said before, that the cities have been transformed into growth machines. And even progressive municipalities in order to do public spending, to apply progressive policies, they need money, they need income, and all this income comes from the growth machine, so they need more growth. In order to provide for the people, they need more growth. And this creates like a vicious cycle that we call growth dependency—urban growth dependency.

David 25:44

They’re structurally addicted to it?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 25:46

They’re structurally addicted to economic growth. And, like, I think it’s a step forward, but we are trying, actually, to implement like a few things now with collaboration. We have started last year with the new municipality of Girona. Girona is a historical city here in Catalonia, about an hour from Barcelona by train, and they have a city governance that is leaning towards degrowth. And there we are trying to hack, as we say, these dynamics.

David 26:22

So, we need to watch what happens in Girona over the next few years to see if a city can be delinked to the addiction to growth?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 26:33

Absolutely, yeah.

David 26:35

One of the criticisms of degrowth, that’s all fine for the Global North, but it’s not fair to the Global South. In your very conception that we spoke about at the beginning, you talked about structures of colonialism, post-colonialism, and it’s very clear that it’s at the heart of the thinking. Can you speak a bit about how the ideas of degrowth would apply to urban region, a city and its networks, in the Global South?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 27:05

Yes. With some excellent colleagues, Maria Kaika [inaudible 27:08] and Federico Demaria, we ask precisely this question and we said that, “The insights we’re offering here are very relevant for the cities for the Global North, but [inaudible 27:22] other cities in the Global South.” First of all, it’s important to understand that, again, global elites, urban elites, powerful elites inhabit everywhere including the cities of the Global South. Financialization dynamics and financialization of housing, of land and all these things happen everywhere, including the cities of the Global South. So-called ‘exploitation of rural lands’, all these things that are [inaudible 27:59] these are also happening in the Global South. So, I mean to say that what we are arguing for the Global North is completely irrelevant for the Global South is untrue. Of course, it is very important to also understand that the Global South as a whole is still a subject of strong patterns and dynamics of unequal exchange between the Global North and the Global South. So, like in the past, like 10 years ago, we were saying something that now I feel it’s not very correct. But what we were saying is like, “Let’s degrow in the Global North to leave some room in the Global South to take the wrong developmental pathways. Choose what they want to do. Because as long as they are linked in unequal and exploitative ways with the Global North, there is very little room for maneuver.” We say that degrowth in the Global North must be like the one process, and the other face of the same process is what is called delinking of the Global South from the Global North. So not only that we, again, take the initiative to be global in order for we to leave room to the Global South to do whatever they want to do with the developmental pathways, but also the Global South should take the initiative to delink, to create conditions of sovereignty, and then we shall see what we can do if we can manage, like, well in the Global North. These are things, of course, that are [stigmatic 29:38], are suggestive and they don’t really solve the problems, but I think they offer an entry point to think about sustainable passive transformations both here and in the Global South.

David 29:57

One final question on the degrowth as it relates to cities and urban agglomerations. If we had the political power to make one system’s change in order to start to get us on a direction that was more oriented around satisfying human needs in a way that was possible within living on one planet, what change should we be trying to do and why?

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 30:29

I feel like if we have, like, a magic wand now and, like, could do anything, I think magically end all property and land registers and that would redistribute individual property equally in a way. And I would do the same also with all the money, bank deposits in a way. Because I think one of the most important reasons that drive economic growth and drive unsustainability is inequality, and this has been very much documented very convincingly by many before us. So I feel like you cannot have—really, you cannot have sustainability, you cannot have regenerative economies, you cannot have circularity in the planet in the way it is. Very, very few people want to preserve with whatever sacrifice what they possess. I mean, this is very difficult. So yeah, I would start from inequality and then I would do other things perhaps. [chuckles]

David 31:47

[fast rhythmic music] Very interesting. You know, I’ve always seen our economic neoliberal capitalist system drives inequality. It’s a very interesting insight that the inequality also drives the system. Thank you for your ongoing work. The insight that you can’t have a continually growing economy on a finite planet was only the beginning of what needs to be done to change our paradigm, and your work is really contributing in an incredibly insightful way to help advocates and hopefully governments around the world start to change, to think of, “How do you ensure that people’s needs are met through the economic rules and systems that govern us?” It’s been a privilege to speak with you and we wish you every success.

Dr Angelos Varvarousis 32:38

Thank you very much, David. It was also very much enjoyable for me too. [music continues then ends]

David 32:46

[slow rhythmic music] This episode of Cities 1.5 is produced by University of Toronto Press, with generous support from C40 Cities. Want more access to current research on how city leaders are approaching climate action? We also publish the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy. Our mission is to publish timely evidence-based research that contributes to the urban climate agenda and supports governmental policy towards an equitable and resilient world. The journal serves as a platform for dynamic content that highlights ambitious near-term climate action, with a particular focus on human-centered solutions to today’s most pressing climate challenges. To read the latest issue, visit jccpe.utpjournals.press or click on our link in the show notes. [music ends]

Takehiko Nagumo 33:44

[phone rings] [whooshing] My name is Takehiko Nagumo, or you can call me Tak Nagumo. I’m a representative director of Smart City Institute Japan and I’m calling in from Tokyo. [handset clicks]

David 33:58

Tak, thanks so much for joining us today.

Takehiko Nagumo 34:00

Hi, David. Thank you very much for having me. I am very happy to be here with you.

David 34:04

Could you maybe just tell our listeners a little bit about the Smart City Institute Japan, it’s work and how it thinks about a smart city?

Takehiko Nagumo 34:16

Okay, thank you for asking. So, Smart Institute Japan is a non-profit intermediary organization supporting public and private, even academic entities, involved in smart cities in Japan. It has been established back in 2019, so a little over five years ago, by two entities. One was Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting, it’s a think tank under Mitsubishi UFJ, the financial conglomerate, the another was Nikkei, the newspaper company. So jointly between the think tank and the newspaper company, we decided to support Smart City stakeholders from the private side so that we can deepen and expand the knowledge about smart cities in Japan.

David 35:04

To North Americans’ ears that’s an interesting way of creating a think tank. I’m not sure we would have a company with the heft of Mitsubishi from their finance side and a newspaper collaborating like that. One of the things that the Smart City Institute Japan has been working on is the livable well-being city indicator, which from my perspective seems to have been developed as an improved and updated way of thinking about the prosperity of people who live in cities. Can you talk a little bit about that indicator and why the Smart City Institute was interested in creating it?

Takehiko Nagumo 35:46

Yes. To talk about the genesis of the indicator, we were probably excessively focused on the technology side at the early stage of the Smart City implementation in Japan. So, everyone’s talking about smart technologies bringing in bright future for everyone, but it became a little question to many of the early adopters of the smart cities in Japan. So probably what we misunderstood was that technology was assumed to be a goal instead of a means to the end, and we recognize that after implementing various Smart City technologies. It doesn’t really make us happier, right? So we really have to revisit the purpose of implementing smart cities or any kind of technologies. Of course, we have to think about what makes us happy, right? So we positioned well-being of systems as a goal and we positioned the technology as a means to the end. An alarming call to me was my conversation with my wife, actually. So I was too much excited about the technology dreams, just like any other Japanese folks. And if you think about the Japanese anime, it’s all about robots, you know, the vehicles transforming into something like a robot, so everyone’s talking about technologies. And I was in the same way thinking about technology driven cities may make us happier, and, you know, my wife said, “Hi, honey. So, how can you make me happier with such and such technology and smart, blah, blah, blah, blah?” So it looked like people in general, including my wife, were so indifferent about technologies. They care about the outcome of implementing technologies. So we recognized that, “Let’s wake up from technology fantasy,” so to speak, “And come back to who we are. We are human beings living on earth.” So that’s why we started to pay attention to well-being of humans, and then we expanded the view to well-being of communities then to the planet earth. So, that’s the goal we positioned in the Smart City implementation in Japan. And that’s a kind of, you know, a light history about our indicators.

David 38:02

It’s quite interesting to me because if you listen to some elected officials globally, they talk about things like growth as sort of a proxy for well-being, but they don’t actually talk about well-being. This has turned the smart city movement a little bit too. I think it’s quite an interesting insight that you had, or your wife had; that it’s not technology, it’s the results of it. Can you talk about the structure of the indicator? What does it measure to help you get to that conclusion about the well-being of people as opposed to things that other indicators like GDP might measure?

Takehiko Nagumo 38:41

[slow rhythmic music] So, let me explain the architecture of the indicator. It’s a little complicated in a way that it has multiple layers within the framework. What’s sitting on top? The most important part is the general well-being subjective questions, actually. It’s a famous question in psychology called country letter question of well-being. Using the scale zero to 10, zero being you’re very unhappy, 10 means you’re very happy, and that’s the question about yourself. The second question is the people around you who are the community. “So, from zero to 10, what do you think about happiness of people around you?” So we care about people around us, not only about ourselves. The third question is the life satisfaction in your city. So it’s more of the city setting or urban setting where you’re living. Those three questions sit on the very top of the indicator for the first layer. [music ends]

After collecting the survey from the citizens, you can come up with an average number. Let’s say for the first question, well-being of yourself, in the city A the average is about 6.5, so it’s the level of the well-being of the city. Secondly, we have to go down to the second layer, which is composed of 24 categories of well-being factors. That, of course, includes economic side, but also social community, environmental, et cetera, et cetera. So, we try to be a 360-degree assessment of well-being factors. And sitting in the core of this 24 is about yourself, a healthy of yourself, whether that you have, you know, an opportunity to update your skillsets, an opportunity to learn what you want and also whether or not you’re happy with the culture, exposure to a local culture, et cetera. And the second layer in this category was the community. Whether or not you feel like you have a place in the community. You’re belonging to this—the community. And also we ask the diversity within the community. “Does the community have enough tolerance to different values [that 40:55] people from different parts of the world?” So it’s open. That’s a—you know, kind of a question.

[fast rhythmic music] The third section within the same layer is about the urban setting: transportation, healthcare system, educational system, local governments, services. Those kind of, you know, typical urban planning areas. The last part is the more natural environment-related. Whether or not you have enough blessing of nature in—where you live in. Whether or not the disaster prevention is enough in the area you live in. You know, those kind of questions. And by measuring the same way with survey for those 20 categories, we know which part of the areas we have strengths, which part of the area we have a weakness. [music ends]

And again, David, you are right in the sense that economy isn’t really the only answer. Economy could be, growth could be, but people are more concerned about, you know, human-to-human relationships within the community. Whether or not you have someone to ask for help when help is needed. Whether or not you have a civic pride in the community. Whether or not you have a good connectivity to the nature. So, we are now open to different qualities of life rather than just the economic part.

David 42:15

It sounds like very rich data underlying those basic numbers of 6.5 for personal and, you know, six for community. For policymakers as well, if you were on the governor’s team in Tokyo, for example, how you might use this data to change policies to help the well-being index show improvement?

Takehiko Nagumo 42:40

I can tell you two cases which have already occurred in Japan, in Tokyo. The first one is something called well-being budgeting, which took place in one of the [world 42:51] sub-areas within Tokyo. In a traditional democratic system, you have to go through the legislative process to fix the budget for the next year. But what we looked into as the survey results, what the people say in the city rather than what the politicians say. [chuckles] Right? And then the mayor discovered that there’s a little gap between what the politicians say and what the people say through the survey. The mayor decided to prioritize areas that people say are important to allocate more budget. So, well-being-based budgeting is a very innovative way to respond to people’s well-being needs. And actually the idea came from New Zealand. Last year one of the Tokyo’s sub-area has implemented the policy measure in Japan.

David 43:46

That’s a fascinating idea, and I can see how that could be implemented. There have been, you know, people’s budgets in places like Porto Alegre in Brazil, but the idea of connecting it to well-being and to the actual research, you know, as a former elected official I know very well that your goal, if you are trying to be your best, is to make sure people’s lives improve, everybody, and that’s a fascinating way to connect that. You mentioned environmental parts to some of the surveys. Is there anything connecting to climate or climate-related issues in the questions you asked to build the index?

Takehiko Nagumo 44:27

Yes. Yes. So, our indicator is—consists of two different components. One is the subjective well-being survey. That’s—I have been talking about. The second component is objective indicators such as CO2 emission, GHG, you know, greenhouse gas emissions, and, you know, those, you know, objective data coming from the government bodies, and we look into it whether or not people have [similar 44:55] understanding between subjective and objective outcomes. Sometimes people believe that we have been doing well in terms of the environmental care, but the objective indicator tells it’s not enough, right? So, you know, that’s [inaudible 45:11] to overcome kind of cognitive biases. People think we are doing well for the environment [chuckles] but, you know, the temperature is still going up during the summertime, so what’s wrong? We are not enough to get there, and that’s how we tackle the human shortcomings in terms of the environmental care.

David 45:32

That intersection between objective and subjective indicators sounds very powerful to me to build a case for action on whether it’s about climate or social or economic challenges. Do you have any other examples of how city governments might have used the data that comes out of this process to make change?

Takehiko Nagumo 45:54

[whimsical music] Right. So, traditionally, many local governments have been focusing on longevity of citizens, right? So, life expectancy ratio is an indicator commonly used across the local governments. So, the longer life, the better you are. That’s the kind of fundamental belief, isn’t it? And we had a statistical analysis between the life expectancy ratio—healthy life expectancy ratio and the degree of happiness of citizens, same citizens in the city. And we originally assumed in a naive way that the—you know, if the people are living in a healthy life longer, then all those people should be happier. But in the data source, there’s no correlation between the two.

That’s an astonishing discovery for us because lots of local governments are spending a lot of, you know, health-oriented, you know, policy measures to support citizens. And what we identified was that, even if you lived longer it doesn’t make any sense if people don’t have a meaning for life. Like, you know, being loved by someone, having a sense of contributing to communities, you know, having your dream come true, so that’s kind of qualitative things. So we are convinced that the governments shouldn’t be just focusing on longevity, but more on the meaning of life. So that’s changing the kind of focus of policies within the city.

David 47:27

It’s a fascinating example of how you can have a very real outcome from asking the right sorts of questions beyond just asking, “What’s the impact of policy on gross domestic product?” [music ends]

There is a segment of economic thinking who looks at the economy in Japan and sees not a lot of growth. Those economists would say it’s a sign of problems. You’ve been speaking about something that’s quite inspiring, because it’s actually about helping people’s lives improve, which, for me, is the goal of all politics. What would you say to economists who think that Japan has significant economic problems and therefore has failed policies, and is the livable well-being city indicator a chance to actually demonstrate that there is quite a different Japan? It’s one where governments and people are taking active steps to improve people’s well-being.

Takehiko Nagumo 48:32

Hmm… it’s a great question. Put it this way. So, economic stagnation is actually happening in Japan. So we are not growing as fast as other, you know, Asian countries, the Taiwan, Singapore, China. It’s because we are facing the fastest aging society and depopulation in Japan, so productivity cannot catch up with the declining of the population issue. We are now focusing on what to do with this. And then probably, you know, just going back to technology ideas we talked at the beginning of this, it is one of the issues. But knowing that we are shrinking, how can we shrink smartly has been now the real focus of discussion. Not growing in economy but, you know, smartly shrinking in terms of population. So, everyone is having quality of life, well-being, you know, good cultural content and the connectivity to environment. We avoid a dipping of economy, so we are smooth enough to become [a bit 49:35] smaller in scale. Right? So, I think we are talking about a little different philosophy than, you know, growth-oriented economist ideas.

David 49:44

Well, we’re definitely talking about a different philosophy, and, you know, economists like the great Herman Daly, he stood for the proposition that you can’t grow forever. And, you know, others would argue that other economies should be planning for situations where you can’t keep growing and prioritizing well-being, so I find it very interesting that Japan’s already there and has found a way through your institute to think about prioritizing well-being indeed.

You seem to have some success in Japan in provoking this conversation, including in changing policies, certainly, at a city level. Any thoughts about how decision makers in cities could be persuaded to shift more towards a model that values people’s well-being, that values public health, that values sustainability, that values the parts of life that make it joyful and real and meaningful as your indicator seems to do?

Takehiko Nagumo 50:49

Yes. So, we have embarked on a small journey with different cities around the world on this well-being indicator. So, if you talk to people around you, people are, you know, convinced that economic growth isn’t really their focus. You know, they know that, you know, nature is important, the human relationship community is important, and the missing piece was the indicator. How can you make the talk more realistic with evidence? Right? So, I started to talk to people from Tampere city in Finland and Amsterdam in Netherland, Barcelona, Spain, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, even New York City in US to exchange ideas. So, you know, they have their own definition of well-beings. They have their own history and culture, so we respect their dignity and the background. But still, we agree that well-being should be the future focus. So gradually we started to exchange what each one of us had and we are happy to share our insights and the toolkits to those who are interested in the world. So, you know, maybe a few years from today, it’s going to be a bigger networking of global cities talking about an indicator to actually carry out well-being ideas throughout the cities.

David 52:18

In the context of the work you’ve done and the conversation we’ve been having, if you could give one key piece of advice to leaders of city governments worldwide who want to create healthier, more sustainable, more livable cities, what would it be? And if you could make one economic global change to do that, what would that be?

Takehiko Nagumo 52:42

Yeah. So for mayors, I think we have to believe again what the human-centric city should be, right? And that’s, you know, bottom-up approach rather than pure authoritarian approach. Listen to what people say, people know what a happy life should be, and use the data to see yourself like a mirror. You know, you look at the mirror to organize your hair and everything, right? But without the mirror, you can’t really see, you know, in what position you are. You know, you are already embedded in the social system, so unconsciously you’re behaving in such a way that, you know, the system is navigating you. But if you have a mirror to look at yourself through the mirror, i.e. the indicators, you know who you are better. Not only individually, but as a community of a city itself. Then you can come up with ideas, “What makes us better in terms of well-being in the city?”

David 53:39

I love the way you put that, because people of a city do really know their city. And they say things like, “We want more trees. We want to be part of something, we want to belong.” They don’t say, “We want more GDP growth.”

Takehiko Nagumo 53:53

[fast rhythmic music] Right. Thanks to my wife for telling me that, “Honey, how can you make me happier with such and such technology [tools 54:00]?” [laughs] That was the genesis of the idea.

David 54:03

She was your mirror—

Takehiko Nagumo 54:04

Yeah.

David 54:05

—in a way? The other inspiring thing about your work is, I do think a lot of the smart city movement got stuck in technology.

Takehiko Nagumo 54:15

Yeah.

David 54:16

And you’ve managed to turn it around. How do we make technology useful to create places that are really good places to live? It’s a brilliant model and it’s applicable globally. We wish you continued success in your work. Tak, thank you so much for your time and for your innovation and for being married to somebody who had this powerful insight.

Takehiko Nagumo 54:37

[laughs] David, thank you very much. I enjoyed the talk with you and I was very honored to be part of this podcast. Thank you very much. [music continues then ends]

David 54:51

[fast rhythmic music] We know that our current economic systems are not fit for purpose. They drive inequality, they’re built on industries which are killing the planet, and they do not support cities and their residents to live healthy and happy lives. But cities like Tokyo and Barcelona are urban laboratories for trialing fresh and much needed economic policies, frameworks, and measurement tools, which are creating more livable environments for all residents. Now we just need national governments to follow their lead. [music ends]

[Cities 1.5 theme music] On the next episode of Cities 1.5, we discuss a topic that sadly becomes more timely every year due to global temperatures and sea levels rising, along with the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events: climate-induced migration. At C40 in particular, we know that this issue has far reaching impacts across the globe, and how often the facts of this complex global issue become distorted and manipulated by the far right. So I’ll be sitting down with some C40 colleagues for an overview of the facts of climate migration and how cities can prepare and benefit from this phenomenon. I’ll also be speaking to Mayor Spencer Coyne of Princeton, British Columbia. A Canadian town where devastating floods in 2021 forced many residents from their homes, unsure of if and when they would be able to return. Make sure to tune in. You won’t want to miss it. 

This has been Cities 1.5, leading global change through local climate action. I’m David Miller. I was the mayor of Toronto, Canada, and I know firsthand the role cities can play in solving the climate crisis. Currently, I’m the editor-in-chief of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, published by the University of Toronto Press in collaboration with the C40 Center for City Climate Policy and Economy, where I’m also the managing director. C40’s mission is to help its member cities halve their emissions within a decade while improving equity, building resilience, and creating the conditions for everyone everywhere to thrive.

Cities 1.5 is produced by University of Toronto Press in association with the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy and C40 Cities. This podcast is produced by Jessica Schmidt and edited by Morgane Chambrin. Our executive producers are Peggy Whitfield and Calli Elipoulos. Our music is by Lorna Gilfedder. The fight for an empowered world is closer than you think. To learn more, visit the show’s website linked in the episode notes. See you next time. [Cities 1.5 theme music continues then ends]