Contingencies in Urban Future-Making: Pitfalls, Potentialities, and Transformative Practices

In an era of rapid change and growing uncertainty, we are facing an urgent question: How can cities be built for futures that defy prediction? The contributors to this volume tackle this challenge by exploring the role of contingency in urban future-making. Through a range of case studies, they examine relevant aims, strategies, and decision-making processes in both past and present contexts. They reveal how unexpected events and unpredictable factors unsettle established urban conditions but also spark new ideas and possibilities for rethinking and reshaping the city. The volume shows how urban future-making involves navigating highly uncertain environments and extreme conditions, opening new spaces of knowledge and action.

Joachim Thiel is a senior lecturer with a habilitation in social-economic urban and regional research. He works at the research group of »Urban and Regional Economics« at HafenCity Universität Hamburg. His research focuses on large-scale urban development projects, urban smart city strategies, and urban testbeds in technological innovation trajectories. He is one of the deputy spokespersons of the DFG research training group »Urban Future-Making«.

Monika Grubbauer, Prof. Dr., ist Professorin für Geschichte und Theorie der Stadt an der HafenCity Universität Hamburg.

Lucas Pohl (PhD) is a geographer working at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.