SHARING CITY GAME

The Sharing City Game is a game designed by shareNL to approach a sharing design for urban challenges in an interactive and playful manner through the lens of fictive cases and diverse stakeholder profiles. Players become aware of the diverse perspectives that creative solutions to urban challenges require. At the same time they experience the potentials of a sharing mindset and how sharing initiatives and principles can benefit the progress of their city in an equitable and fair way. 

Background

Technology and extensive internet access have not only changed our daily lives but also our cities and the ways in which we are able to create our urban futures. Citizens, organisations, and platforms connect with each other to create resilient, synergetic local networks. Innovation and creativity are the baseline of these initiatives to tackle common urban challenges. Many areas of city life that have been under municipal governance are increasingly the focus of multi-stakeholder solution finding processes. In the field of public goods – the so-called urban commons – a new definition describing who has the right and access to the city commons, needs to be found. A shift away from traditional governance models calls upon citizens, governments, public agencies, and the civil society to find their roles within this new dynamic and shape it towards liveable and resilient cities.

The Game

We designed a game based on fictive but realistic cases of our present-day cities. The game was prepared for 5-10 players per city case who are invited to join a fictive municipality meeting, each playing a case-specific role, representing the diversity of stakeholders within the urban context. The players are challenged to find sharing city solutions to the conflicts they encounter in their city in an interactive manner. The game outline provides a safe space in which players can cooperate and discover synergies between various stakeholders to come to feasible solutions. They are led through the process by a “local expert”, a game leader from shareNL or from within your organisation. As a result of their efforts, support by the local expert, inter-city learning processes, and other sources of inspiration, each city team will develop a sharing city project. The game featured seven city cases/tables, however, we suggest to do it with five city cases/tables. 

The game comes with:

• Seven fictive, but reality based city cases that entail common urban challenges. The cases can be adapted to the local context if required
• Each city case entails 10 stakeholder roles in form of profile cards
• 10 inspiration cards per city case to support the players finding a solution
• One “local expert” per city case: A game leader provided by shareNL or your own organisation
• Three task cards that players have to fulfill at a certain point during the game
• The “Sharing City Platform” grid that supports each city team to formulate and present the outcomes of the game in form of concrete projects
• Optional add-ons can entail: additional playing elements such as a quiz, a sketched or 3D designed map of the city cases, secret missions that players have to fulfill, and a utopia phase for the big visionary.
   

Extra features

• The game can be translated into several languages, including; Dutch, English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Swedish. 
• Sharing City, its issues and stakeholder profiles can be developed based on different contexts and challenges in a specific city, area or community. This could be achieved through a primary meeting and round table in order to establish the challenges and struggles for the situation at hand. 
   

How can you play the game?

If you would like to play the game or discuss the possibility of playing the game, you are more than welcome to contact us at info@sharenl.nl or samantha@sharenl.nl. You can also click the button below and send us a message.

Participants sharing their sharing city game story

Quotes

"The Sharing Cities Game is an excellent tool to get people out of their soiled thinking and into the shoes of other stakeholders in their community to come up with equitable solutions to the complex challenges that cities are facing." - Tom Llewellyn, Organising Director of Shareable. 

"ShareNL’s Sharing Cities game is a great introduction to the challenges and possibilities of collaboration in (re)building our urban commons. Its careful designed scenarios create opportunities for learning, empathy and entertainment in equal parts. If you get the chance to join in, don’t miss out!" - Duncan McLaren, author of 'Sharing Cities, A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities', former Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland and Director of McLaren Environmental Research and Consultancy. 

"The Sharing City game was a useful tool to get a better understanding of the role of different stakeholders in developing a city with sharing and collaboration as core values. Pedagogic and great fun!" Tove Lund, planning manager, city of Gothenburg.