{"id":1886,"date":"2026-03-11T12:05:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T12:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/mui\/?p=1886"},"modified":"2026-03-11T17:02:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:02:47","slug":"from-urban-silos-to-joined-up-city-where-next-for-urban-governance-and-knowledge-co-production-joe-ravetz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/mui\/2026\/03\/11\/from-urban-silos-to-joined-up-city-where-next-for-urban-governance-and-knowledge-co-production-joe-ravetz\/","title":{"rendered":"From Urban Silos to ‘Joined Up City’: Where next for urban governance and knowledge co-production? | Joe Ravetz"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cities are increasingly shaped by complex political, social and economic tensions that challenge traditional ideas of who governs and whose knowledge counts. Using a recent Greater Manchester by-election as a starting point, Joe Ravetz<\/strong> explores the changing landscape of urban politics and the growing importance of knowledge co-production in understanding and shaping our cities. Joe asks a simple but fundamental question: in today\u2019s fragmented urban systems, who really runs this place?<\/h3>\n

The Greater Manchester byelection in Gorton & Denton (26 February 2026), covered some of the most deprived wards in the city, and the winning candidate is a plumber by trade. So why was she standing for the Green party, not Labour, the historic party of the workers and under-privileged? \u00a0And what does this say about the changing landscape of cities, how they are run, and how to understand it?<\/p>\n

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Image \u00a9 Cal3000000 (Creative Commons: CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

This highlights some conundrums for cities and governance \u2013 and then, some topical ways forward for urban research and knowledge co-production.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a conundrum of \u2018multi-level governance\u2019, where cities and city-regions are all tangled up with national politics.\u00a0In this case, Labour\u2019s fall seemed a direct result of the National Executive Committee\u2019s blocking of Andy Burnham, the current mayor of Greater Manchester, to stand as the obvious challenger for national leadership.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a conundrum of the \u2018politics of grievance\u2019 \u2013 two of the three main contenders, Reform and Green, were riding the waves of distrust of establishment \u2018politicians\u2019 and their managerial compromises.\u00a0 Each points in opposite directions, so highlighting the schisms in the \u2018body politic\u2019\u2026 \u00a0(and in British surrealist style, the sixth\u00a0placed candidate, after the Conservatives, was Sir Oink-a-Lot of The Official Monster Raving Looney Party).<\/p>\n

There are conundrums in the national story of progress, as the cost of living rises, jobs look more insecure and mental distress spreads. \u00a0Rarely has an upcoming generation been so technologically affluent but so pessimistic, as in \u201cThe old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.\u201d<\/em> (Gramsci \u00a01971).<\/p>\n

Cities are then the site of everyday conundrums. Even while GM is seen as the most successful \u2018Devo\u2019 metropolitan anywhere in the UK, there is a common narrative that distant forces are playing games. \u00a0The city centre is now overlooked by gleaming high-rises for overseas investors, while the local homeless sleep on the pavements beneath.\u00a0 While many people here \u2018Love MCR\u2019, for others it\u2019s a global crossroads with little connection to its local governments, still based on a 19th<\/sup> century model of democratic representation.<\/p>\n

So what could or should MUI do in response, on this vital theme of urban governance \u2013 or in plain language \u2013 \u2018who runs this place\u2019<\/em><\/strong>? \u00a0Here are four directions of travel, drawing from a decade of experience with the LUCI (Laboratory of Urban Collective Intelligence<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

Multi-level governance<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Each decade sees yet another change in urban, rural, county, city-region or regional systems of administration, which then translate into hard choices, in planning, infrastructure, health, education or housing. Meanwhile real-world economic and social geography extends far beyond the \u2018grey areas on the map\u2019, cutting across administrative boundaries, with the forces of peri-urban sprawl, post-industrial shakeout, commuter-sheds or watersheds. \u00a0Urban \/ regional research is beginning to catch up with such complex VUCA (\u2018volatile, uncertain, complex \/ controversial, ambiguous\u2019) realities \u2013 and the new styles of governance also emerging.\u00a0 Adaptive, collaborative, participatory, deliberative, \u2018urban reform coalitions\u2019 \u2013 each model also suggests new ways of doing research.<\/p>\n

Systems thinking in governance and \u2018collective urban intelligence\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

It\u2019s also self-evident that cities have many layers \u2013 social, technology, economic, environmental, political, or cultural \u2013 with many kinds of synergy and inter-connection between them, positive and negative, stable or volatile. The systems approach to urban governance highlights the quality of emergence, where the whole is greater than the parts, with transformation of the nature of the system itself. Here in the LUCI we extend systems thinking to the \u2018metro-mindscape\u2019 or \u2018collective urban intelligence\u2019<\/em> \u2013 the capacity for learning, co-creation and collaboration, with a wider community of stakeholders, and deeper layers of value. This is explored in projects such as the \u2018risk and resilience\u2019 in Melbourne, smart cities of India, shack-dwellers in Mexico, the global peri-urban, and the Manchester Local-wise<\/a> as in the graphic. Each of these shows a similar pathway, from the gaps and disconnections of the \u2018silo-city\u2019, to the synergies of the \u2018joined-up city\u2019, and the enablers of \u2018knowledge co-production\u2019 in different parts of the system.<\/p>\n

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Graphic from the \u2018Local-wise\u2019 program, in partnership with Manchester City Council (sponsor: UoM Humanities Strategic Investment Fund) \u00a9 JRA<\/p><\/div>\n

Urban futures & governance in transformation <\/strong><\/h4>\n

Urban governance around the world sees rapid transition, with cities now pictured as centres of progressive policies, often in contrast to national authoritarian governments.<\/p>\n

Some current trends can be projected, such as \u2018urban globalization\u2019, as seen with the 143 languages spoken in Manchester. Demographic \/ economic change then shows a new \u2018localization\u2019, with semi-retirement, working from home, and multi-generation households. Peri-urbanization also brings hybrid polycentric landscapes such as \u2018auto-carceral cities\u2019 and \u2018eco-gentrification\u2019 (Ravetz & Sahana 2025).\u00a0 All these raise challenges for government systems so far based on clear urban or rural units: they point towards new forms of multi-level, multi-sectoral partnership \u2018adaptive governance\u2019. \u00a0Many variations on adaptive \/ deliberative \/ participative democracy are now in testing, from citizen\u2019s assemblies to participatory budgeting, community asset management, and public service co-production (Cottam 2028).<\/p>\n

Digital systems can now take such prototypes to the next level, with for instance, crowd-sourcing, sentiment analysis, AI-enabled decision support or public engagement platforms, as tested by Plurality<\/a> or the NESTA Centre for Collective Intelligence Design<\/a>. However, general levels of trust in democratic government continue to fall, pointing in the direction of extremism, post-truth and authoritarian leadership.\u00a0 The last futures \/ foresight project in Greater Manchester highlighted the challenges for democratic government, just before the 2016 Brexit vote and a new wave of distrust, as in the graphic here (Ravetz & Miles 2016). A proposed update \u2013 \u201cGM2050\u201d \u2013 <\/em>would start with the scenario of a radical change of government and work back from there.<\/p>\n

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Graphic from the \u2018GM2040\u2019 workshop of the UK Foresight on Future of Cities (Ravetz & Miles 2016) \u00a9 JRA<\/p><\/div>\n

Manchester may be a digital leader (home to the world\u2019s first computer etc), but up to now it works largely as a \u2018silo city\u2019, even while the aspiration grows for \u2018joined-up\u2019.\u00a0 While the digital frontiers of \u2018smart governance\u2019 move rapidly, the challenge of a \u2018wiser society\u2019, with methods and tools just emerging, is running to catch up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Knowledge co-production and the \u2018collective human-artificial intelligence\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

All this points to a changing picture on what is useful knowledge, who can produce it, how and where?\u00a0 Here MUI aims to lead the way with methods, tools and demonstrations, in the context of \u2018Manchester 2035\u2019 as a leading civic university.\u00a0 Following the logic of collective urban intelligence<\/em>, such wider and deeper inter-connections are clearly beyond any one sector, department or field of knowledge. This points to a bigger picture for participatory research and knowledge co-production \u2013 not only as community or stakeholder input to academic research, but where stakeholders and researchers work together as equals. Current directions include:<\/p>\n