How can a car-centric city implement a sustainable mobility strategy, ensure that it benefits all of its citizens and gains support from key stakeholders in order to pave the way for an ambitious green transformation? Those were some of the questions that representatives from the City of Munich and BLOXHUB set out to explore in a cross-disciplinary workshop.
In recent years the City of Munich has had a strong focus on a green transformation and with the Green Party, Die Grünen, gaining a central position in the local election of 2020, the city council has succeeded in maintaining the ambition to introduce more sustainable mobility solutions into the City of Munich despite the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The deputy mayor of Munich, Katrin Habenschaden, has built a new mobility division to drive this process involving a broad range of stakeholders and made it a priority to visit Copenhagen and BLOXHUB last year to seek out inspiration.
This led to an increased interest in a close collaboration across borders. Habenshaden and central profiles from the Munich mobility department soon decided to engage in a cross-disciplinary workshop in collaboration with BLOXHUB to involve experts and innovative minds from the Nordic ecosystem of sustainable urbanization.
The workshop, which was held on March 5th, gathered experts within urban mobility from Gehl Architects and MOE Consulting engineers as well as the Head of the City of Copenhagen’s Bicycle Program along with a central group of representatives from the City of Munich.
“Since the deputy mayor’s visit last year it has been inspiring to follow the ambitious goals and firm focus towards a more sustainable development in Munich. The challenges that Munich is facing are a reality for many cities worldwide and a close cross-sectoral collaboration with experienced partners sharing knowledge and solutions is central to solve complex challenges like these. When we work together great potential opens up.” Said Martine R. Kildeby, Global Network Manager in BLOXHUB and workshop facilitator.
By creating a global arena for cross-disciplinary partnerships with inspiration and innovation from Denmark and the Nordics, it is the ambition of BLOXHUB’s co-creation workshops to develop sustainable future cities together – across disciplines, sectors and borders. The interdisciplinary perspectives and the professional competencies that BLOXHUB’s members bring to the collaboration help to ensure a holistic approach to the challenge around which the workshop revolves.
Apart from facilitating an initial discussion of the solutions, a knowledge-sharing sequence and a discussion of key aspects of the mobility strategy, the workshop also laid the ground for further collaboration and the opportunity to go deeper into specific focus areas and solutions. Great to see Munich is walking the talk!
