Urban Climate xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Urban Climate
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/uclim
Social strategy games in communicating trade-offs
between mitigation and adaptation in cities
Sirkku Juhola a,⇑, Patrick Driscoll b, Janot Mendler de Suarez c, Pablo Suarez d
a
Department of Real Estate, Planning and Geoinformatics, Aalto University and Department of Environmental Sciences, University
of Helsinki, Finland
b
The Danish Centre for Environmental Assessment, Department of Planning, Aalborg University, Denmark
c
Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of Longer-Range Future, United States
d
Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre, The Netherlands
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 27 October 2012
Revised 9 April 2013
Accepted 15 April 2013
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Mitigation
Adaptation
Trade-offs
Games
Urban planning
Planning education
a b s t r a c t
Cities are becoming the locus of climate change policy and planning, both for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting
to the impacts of climate change. These actions involve a number
of trade-offs, including densification of the urban structure, concerns over social equity and the proper use of green infrastructure
for adaptation. Many of these impacts are difficult to quantify and
their interdependencies are often challenging to comprehend and
communicate. There are a number of outstanding gaps in knowledge both in research and in practice in relation to how decisions
are made between adaptation and mitigation strategies and what
kinds of negative and positive synergies can be identified between
them. This paper explores how social games can help people to
communicate the trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation
measures in an urban environment and examines the possibilities
of using social gaming as a research method. Data was collected
from Denmark, Finland and the US through organized gaming sessions. The conclusion of the study is that social games, although
methodologically challenging, are a promising method to communicate complex planning problems.
! 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Globally, rapid urbanization is a trend that is set to continue well into the 21st Century. In terms of
climate change, cities are at the center of not only reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but also
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +358 50 512 4631; fax: +358 9 470 2 4071.
E-mail address: sirkku.juhola@aalto.fi (S. Juhola).
2212-0955/$ - see front matter ! 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2013.04.003
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S. Juhola et al. / Urban Climate xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
central actors in addressing the impacts of climate change. Although accurately measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of a city is a complex methodological challenge, according to the World Bank, cities now consume more than two-thirds of global energy and produce more than 70 percent of the
greenhouse gas emissions (The World Bank, 2010). In terms of the impacts, UN-HABITAT estimates
that currently more than half of the world’s population now lives within 60 km of the sea, while
approximately three quarters of all large cities are located on the coast (UN-Habitat, 2008).
In addressing these problems, cities have also become the spaces within which solutions to
climate-related problems can be found and need to be further developed (Ruth and Baklanov,
2012). Cities are pursuing innovative solutions in terms of mitigating greenhouse gases and dealing
with specific vulnerabilities in terms of climate change impacts worldwide (Zimmerman and Faris,
2011; Carter, 2011; Hardoy and Romero Lankao, 2011; Liu and Deng, 2011; Kithiia, 2011; Carmin
et al., 2012).
Decision-making processes in this context of global change have become more complex with a
multitude of actors now engaged in decision-making across multiple scales, spanning from the global
to the local (Dietz et al., 2003). In terms of urban decision-making related to climate change, urban
planners and civil servants have to increasingly weigh competing demands in the urban space, against
a backdrop of uncertainty and limited knowledge of climate change. Planning is beset with such
‘‘wicked’’ problems (Rittel and Webber, 1973) that resist simple solutions. These decision-making processes involve making trade-offs between competing policy objectives that can also be identified between adaptation and mitigation in the urban context.
However, advances in gaming and computing power have provided researchers with a wider range
of tools to address wicked scientific problems. For example, Cooper et al. argue using the protein folding game Fold.it, as an example that ‘‘[t]he integration of human visual problem-solving and strategy
development capabilities with traditional computational algorithms through interactive multiplayer
games is a powerful new approach to solving computationally-limited scientific problems’’ (Cooper
et al., 2010).
The central focus of this paper is how gaming can help communicate the trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation measures in an urban environment, highlighting the potential of social gaming
as a method of data collection. The research question behind this paper is how can games be used to
communicate trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation in the urban context? In order to answer
this research question, this paper presents a social strategy game, Broken Cities, that was used to explore the opportunities of using gaming in an educational environment.
The paper is structured in the following manner. First the authors discuss the details of the game
mechanics and the methodology used to gather data from the game sessions. Second, a review of the
literature on the relationship between adaptation and mitigation in the urban context is presented.
Third, the paper discusses the role that social strategy games can play in dealing with climate change,
and in urban planning in particular. The final section reviews the results of the participant observation. The conclusions highlight two main points. First, social games hold significant promise as a
means to increase understanding of complex and wicked planning problems. Second, games are suitable for more than just communicative purposes; they are also a potential data collection and analysis
method that can be integrated into the social and natural science research toolbox.
2. Material and methods
In climate change planning, there are multiple decisions that need to be made in relation to the
principal climate policy objectives of mitigating greenhouse gases at the municipal level and reducing
the risks of actual and projected impacts of climate change. These need to be integrated into the normal planning concerns, such as housing availability, transport, education, parks and recreation. The
Broken Cities game is structured in a way that requires the participants to construct their urban
development strategies in terms of trade-offs between competing policy objectives, against a backdrop of unpredictable climatic events such as droughts, heat waves, and floods.
In order to see how games can be used to facilitate learning in the context of climate-smart urban
planning, four instances of game play were organized as a pilot study to assess the validity of using
social gaming in an educational environment. The game was played on four separate occasions, twice
Please cite this article in press as: Juhola, S., et al. Social strategy games in communicating trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation in cities. Urban Climate (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2013.04.003
S. Juhola et al. / Urban Climate xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
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Figure 1. Game pieces.
in Helsinki, Finland and once each in Aalborg, Denmark; and Boston, Massachusetts during 2011–
2012. The players, approximately 100 in total, were primarily Master’s level engineering and planning
students, but also included practicing planners during some of the gaming sessions.
The original data collection protocol consisted of participant observation, video of the game play
(total 5 h), and a questionnaire as the primary sources of empirical data. This paper is built upon participant observation data collected during the games.1 After each game play was completed, the
researchers documented their observations through field notes. This data arising from the field notes
was further thematically analyzed according to four themes that emerged from the empirical material.
1
Due to the low survey response rates and lack of comparable video sources during the four gaming sessions, these data have
been left out of this analysis.
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Table 1
Broken Cities game structure.
Players per team
Development
opportunities
Markers
Event cards
Legislation or incentives
4 Developers
1. Low cost
housing (Cost = 6,
Emissions = 5,
Rent = 3)
2. Conventional
housing
(Cost = 11,
Emissions = 3,
Rent = 4)
3. Green housing
(Cost = 16,
Emissions = 1,
Rent = 5)
4. Retro-fit
(Cost = 9,
Emissions = !2,
Rent = 1)
5. Shopping
center (Cost = 24,
Emissions = 10,
Rent = 10)
6. Greenspace
(Cost = 6,
Emissions = !3,
Rent = 1/building
7. Eco-park
(Cost = 10,
Emissions = !5,
Rent = 1/building
1. Residents
2. Income
3. CO2
emissions
4
.Atmospheric
damage
1. Flooding (all low-cost buildings are
eliminated, conventional housing is
down-graded to low-cost, and green
buildings are unaffected)
2. Drought (players lose all green
spaces and eco-parks are down-graded
to green spaces)
3. Torrential rain (any buildings
adjacent to forest land is lost)
4. Vector disease (each player loses
three renters due to local epidemic)
5. Hurricane (each players loses all
low-cost buildings)
6. News (no event, but warnings of
possible disasters
Up to the players, but
consensus is required in
order for legislation or
regulatory incentives to be
put into effect
2.1. Game play
Broken Cities2 is a turn-based, strategy board game where players (up to four per board) compete or
cooperate with each other to maximize rents from developing ‘‘their’’ district of the city, while the local
government representative has the responsibility to collect and distribute rents while also keeping carbon emissions under specified limits, see Fig. 1 and Table 1 for details on the game pieces.
Game play was organized with upwards of 50 participants at once, creating several tables of four
players that resemble an urban metropolitan region. Players can choose between four housing types –
low-cost, conventional, green, and retrofit – each with trade-offs between cost, rents, and emission
profiles. The purpose of the game is threefold: to (1) maximize rents; (2) minimizing CO2 emissions,
and (3) avoid climate impacts.
The main playing board is divided into four quadrants, some adjacent to water and some adjacent
to green space. Players are also given an emissions and rent tracking board, along with a small cheat
sheet listing the various costs, rents, and emissions of the different development opportunities (see
Fig. 2 below). There are also six event cards comprised of various adaptation challenges, see Fig. 3
for four of them. Players randomly draw the events cards if cumulative emissions surpass certain
thresholds.
Game play is turn-based, with each player first receiving rental income and then deciding what
investments, if any, to make in each round. After each player’s turn, rental income and CO2 emissions
are calculated. Players must also keep track of cumulative atmospheric damage, roughly simulating
2
Broken Cities was co-developed by Ben Norskov, Mohini Dutta and Ida C. Benedetto with Janot Mendler de Suarez and Pablo
Suarezand is available at http://www.nord-star.info/index.php/graduate-training/game-pack.
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Figure 2. Price Cheat Sheet.
the relationship between individual choices and global GHG concentrations, see Fig. 4. Players’ decisions have spillover effects as well. For example, players can choose to buy green space or eco-parks,
thereby lowering their individual emissions footprint and raising the rents on adjacent properties by
making them more attractive and valuable. The placement of the green space or eco-parks may thus
create positive externalities for other players, who may thereby wish to share the costs and benefits
accordingly. The game ends when one or more players attain fifty units of rental income.
Players can adopt any number of different strategies, none of which are pre-determined by the
game mechanics. Since the overall research aim is to investigate how strategy games can facilitate
learning, the designers intentionally created space for players to devise their own unique strategies
in dialogue with the local and regional government representatives who are responsible for maintainPlease cite this article in press as: Juhola, S., et al. Social strategy games in communicating trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation in cities. Urban Climate (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2013.04.003
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Figure 3. Examples of Event Cards.
ing the emissions cap. Since it is not possible to arrive at a theoretical optimal mix between mitigation,
adaptation, and sustainable development goals, the players must, through a combination of individual
profit-seeking and collective decision-making, arrive at a set of strategies that lower overall carbon
emissions, ensure the resiliency of the built environment, and address the needs of the ‘‘population’’
of their city.
3. Theory
3.1 Mitigation and adaptation as a societal response to climate change
As defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), mitigation aims to reduce future emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (Parry et al., 2007). Adaptation, on the other
Please cite this article in press as: Juhola, S., et al. Social strategy games in communicating trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation in cities. Urban Climate (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2013.04.003
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Figure 4. Cumulative atmospheric damage.
hand, is defined as the societal responses that reduce the vulnerability to and risks stemming from climate impacts (Parry et al., 2007). Although both are considered to be societal responses, mitigation is
understood as activities to protect nature from society, while adaptation represents activities understood as protecting society from nature (Stehr and von Storch, 2005). The Fourth Assessment Report of
the IPCC identifies four types of inter-relationships between adaptation and mitigation: (1) adaptation
actions have consequences for mitigation actions; (2) mitigation actions have consequences for
adaptation actions; (3) there are trade-offs or positive synergies between the two; (4) there are processes that have consequences for adaptation and mitigation (Klein et al., 2007).
Of these two, adaptation has emerged more recently into the policy-making arena (Anguelovski
and Carmin, 2011). Adaptation and mitigation have had a complex relationship in both research
and policy fields (Moser, 2011), not to mention the additional difficulties of mainstreaming climate
change planning into a sustainable development agenda (UN-Habitat, 2011; Klein et al., 2007; Swart
and Raes, 2007; Bizikova et al., 2007). While much of the academic literature has emphasized the need
to mainstream climate change concerns into a broader planning framework, more extensive empirical
research has shown that cities around the world are still primarily treating climate change issues as
voluntary tasks outside of the legal and regulatory planning frameworks (Carmin et al., 2012; Carbon
Disclosure Project , 2012; The World Bank, 2011; Juhola and Westerhoff, 2011).
Correspondingly, there are also multiple points of view as to what extent they should be treated
separately. Hasson et al. point out that mitigation of GHG emissions is largely a public good while
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adaptation to impacts is in fact a private good (Hasson et al., 2010). Additionally, Tol argues that there
are a number of difficulties in combining adaptation and mitigation efforts (Tol, 2005). First, there are
differences in the scale at which decisions are made. Mitigation is mostly a matter for national governments in the context of international negotiations, while adaptation concerns particular localities
and their respective vulnerabilities to climate change impacts. Second, the stakeholders involved are
different, with mitigation mainly related to energy and adaptation predominantly to water management at the local level. Finally, there are mismatches in timescales whereby mitigation is mainly future oriented actions while adaptation focuses on shorter time periods.
It is increasingly clear that there is a need to address these mismatches since policymakers will
have to decide how many resources to devote to either mitigation or adaptation or both, highlighting
the relative payoffs and trade-offs in both policies (Willbanks, 2005). Furthermore, creating positive
synergies between the two objectives can increase the cost-effectiveness of actions and increase their
attractiveness to stakeholders, particularly in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, and buildings and
urban infrastructure (Klein et al., 2007). As a result, integrated assessments have emerged in order
to deal with both global (van Vuuren et al., 2011) and/or local levels (Willbanks, 2005).
The broad outlines of the emerging policy framework in both Europe and North America for climate
change planning at the national and supra-national levels reveal a strong focus on sectoral planning to
the detriment of spatial and urban planning (European Commission, 2009; Swart et al., 2009; Greiving
and Fleischhauer, 2012; Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, 2012). Swart et al. note that ‘‘[i]n the
existing NAS [National Adaptation Strategies] spatial planning is considered to be an essential lever of
adaptation policy and most of the NAS included in the survey do refer to spatial and sectoral plans as
levers of adaptation. . . However, the references made to planning instruments widely remain very
generic and vague. None of the NAS contains any specific suggestion as to whether and how planning
instruments could be actively used and converted into effective tools for development, integration,
evaluation and revision of adaptation policies and measures’’ (Swart et al., 2009). Spatial and urban
planning has stepped into this policy gap, but many of planners lack the tools and the knowledge
to navigate their way through the thicket of conflicting strategies, plans, programs, and policies. Thus,
it is in the urban context that mitigation and adaptation efforts are taking place and where the positive
synergies in particular should be exploited (Pizarro, 2009; Larsen and Gunnarsson-Östling, 2009).
3.2. Combining adaptation and mitigation in the urban context
Some authors argue that the separation between adaptation and mitigation is the result of an intellectual dichotomy based on the differences in which spatial planners and climate scientists treat the
climate change problem (Biesbroek et al., 2009). Climate science primarily approaches it from a reductionist, quantitative perspective, while spatial and urban planners typically approach it from a more
qualitative perspective, including socio-economic concerns into the analysis. Biesbroek et al. further
argue that this division is being addressed through more trans-disciplinary research and they also recognize the three factors that contribute to the dichotomy: different spatial scales, different temporal
scales, and separate groups of stakeholders, as discussed above.
McEvoy et al. identify numerous trade-offs and positive synergies to be found in the urban context
(McEvoy et al., 2006). For example, in the built environment, mitigation actions mainly concentrate on
two strategic aims, increasing energy efficiency and increasing the use of alternative energy sources,
while adaptation measures are mainly related to increased temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and the increased frequency of extreme events.
A more compact city structure has been advocated as a solution to lower greenhouse gas emissions
by reducing the need for transport (Dulal et al., 2011), as well as providing the potential for community heating systems. This compact city structure may conflict with adaptation strategies to protect
against urban heat island affects (Oliveira et al., 2012; Shaw et al., 2007; Laukkonen et al., 2009)
and storm water run-off (Rosenzweig et al., 2011). Additionally, all other things being equal, increased
reliance on air conditioning in order to maintain tolerable indoor comfort levels can add to GHG emissions through increased energy consumption (Dulal and Akbar, 2013).
In cities that experience more frequent or intense storm events or are exposed to sea level rise, denser urban development may lead to a loss of green space that would otherwise serve recreational, natPlease cite this article in press as: Juhola, S., et al. Social strategy games in communicating trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation in cities. Urban Climate (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2013.04.003
S. Juhola et al. / Urban Climate xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
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ural, and adaptive uses and will likely increase overall system vulnerability and exposure to large
losses. Moreover, poorly planned dense cities can lead to higher levels of environmental pollution
(particularly noise, air, and water pollution), higher housing costs, and lower quality of life (Cifuentes
et al., 2001). Additionally, negative effects can occur if large quantities of storm water infiltrate polluted aquifers, or if neighboring municipalities and regions re-direct their run-off to lower elevation
cities.
In terms of positive synergies, many cities and regions are pursuing adaptation strategies to deal
with increases in frequency and intensity of storm water events, for example, using a combination
of the following: green infrastructure measures, including local rainwater/storm water retention
and diversion schemes, green roofs, green streets, combined recreation/flood control basins, and the
use of existing riparian areas as extensions of the engineered waste water systems (Gill et al., 2007;
Smith and Levermore, 2008) Many of these measures create positive synergies by reducing future
GHG emission profiles through lower energy usage, as well as providing more natural space in the city
and better air- and water quality (Solecki et al., 2005). See Table 2 for a summary of negative and positive synergies between adaptation and mitigation, as well as concerns over social justice.
3.3. Gaming and learning in urban planning
As Table 2 illustrates in a simplified format, planners and citizens face a number of challenges
when addressing the complexities of planning for climate change. One of the more intractable problems for planners, decision makers, researchers, and citizens is to be able to understand and communicate the complex nature of the synergies, conflicts, and trade-offs that exist between mitigation and
Table 2
Negative and positive synergies between adaptation, mitigation and social justice.
Adaptation
Mitigation
Social justice
Adaptation
N/A
Positive:
Energy efficiency in
buildings can reduce indoor
temperature
Use of green spaces in cities
can help to create carbon
sinks
Negative:
Less dense urban structure
can increase GHG emissions
by increasing transport
Positive:
Green spaces increase the quality of living
Negative:
Climate proof houses are more expensive and
can increase the vulnerability of poorer
groups in society who cannot afford them
Mitigation
Positive:
Adaptation measures,
such as green roofs can
improve energy efficiency
Negative:
Dense urban structure can
increase the risk of the
heat island effect
Dense urban structure can
increase the risk of flash
flooding
N/A
Positive:
Energy efficiency measures can lower livings
costs
Densely built cities can increase lower travel
costs access to cities
Negative:
Densely built environment can lead lower
quality of life
Dense urban structures can cause health
impacts (pollution, etc.)
Social justice
Positive:
Urban structures can be
used as adaptation
measures (flood walls,
etc.)
Negative:
Expanding cities can build
on vulnerable areas
Positive:
Reduction of energy poverty
Negative:
Increased housing consumes
more energy during the
building process
Cheap housing stock can
lead to increased emissions
N/A
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adaptation strategies. The day-to-day decision space for most planners working with climate change is
constrained by insufficient resources, political limitations, and legal/regulatory impediments (Carmin
et al., 2012; Wheeler, 2008). Moreover, the information that is necessary in order to make these decisions is often incomplete, inaccurate, or in a format that is difficult to access and understand (e.g., scientific journals, specialized geo-information databases, and mathematical models). Typical
communication tools employed by planners, such as public participation workshops, newsletters,
seminars, conferences, or online distribution of information have a role to play, but the delivery of dynamic, complex information in near-real time is not easily accomplished with these modes.
The earliest references to the use of games for planning date from the mid-1970s with Wärneryd,
arguing that the dissatisfaction with the normative methods developed within urban and regional
planning in the sixties had led to an increase in interest in games (Wärneryd, 1975). Presenting a case
study from the Värmland region in Sweden that investigated the planning of under-populated areas,
Wärneryd stated that gaming offered the potential for better understanding the interactions between
key actors, such as politicians, planners and representatives of industry and trade (Wärneryd, 1975).
More recently, Mayer et al. 2004 combined gaming with a scenario approach when exploring the
development planning of an urban network in the Netherlands (Mayer et al., 2004). Gaming can also
be used to enhance public participation, as in the case of identifying a new location for a university
campus in Hamburg (Poplin, 2012). Gaming has also been used to develop new types of land use models (Washington-Ottombre et al., 2010) and to explore the use of crop insurance (Patt et al., 2009) in
Africa. Such new developments have led some to suggest that a new breed of game-oriented multidisciplinary research teams focusing on land use and urban planning issues are about to emerge (Bishop,
2011). According to Bishop, rapid developments in technology provide new information for players,
researchers and decision makers, giving the opportunity to elicit preferences and judgments, and to
explore multidisciplinary decision-making processes (Bishop, 2011).
Games have also been used to expand the decision space within organizations (Meijer, 2010). The
Dutch rail system faces a number of wicked problems, including the need to expand capacity for both
passenger and freight by 50% before 2020 without sufficient financial and spatial resources. The games
that were built for ProRail included both strategic and operational levels as well as process innovations that involved managers and operations staff alike. One of the key findings from the research
was that while psychological reality mattered to a certain extent, particularly to the operational staff,
participants were quite willing to accept significant levels of abstracted reality within the gaming
space (Meijer, 2010). In other words, the ProRail games did not have to manifest complete psychological realism in order to yield useful learning insights and deeper understanding of complex problems.
Overall, there is a steadily growing body of empirical research that has shown that games, particularly social games, can also increase learning rates (Poplin, 2012; Rijcken et al., 2012) in comparison
to more traditional methods. The literature suggests that gaming approaches and methodologies enable participants to engage in collective action in a safe environment and pre-test strategic initiatives
(Geurts et al., 2007), as well as to generate new and critical insights in urban planning (Mayer et al.,
2004). In addition, games can build trust between actors (Patt et al., 2009) and offer surprising insights
into firm, household, and individual decision-making processes (Ruth et al., 2007). However, as with
any methodology, questions have been raised as to what extent gaming approaches do contribute to
learning. The results of a climate policy gaming exercise show that acquisition of both new information (cognitive learning) and the ability to co-operate and understand others (relational learning) took
place (Haug et al., 2011). The following section discusses in more detail the ways in which Broken Cities can be used to communicate new knowledge about the complexities of mitigation-adaptation
trade-offs.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Strategic insights
After conducting the game play with approximately 100 participants in both Europe and the US
during 2011–2012, the authors found that social games lead to increases in the ability of participants
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to understand the complex dynamics between mitigation and adaptation strategies within a simulated urban environment. On the basis of this relatively small sample, it appears as though the players
are able to develop a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the different components of
planning for climate change. During the general discussion after gameplay, the players often reflected
on being able to understand how adaptation and mitigation as policy goals relate to each other in the
urban context. The potential linkages had not always been clear to the players before gameplay. The
fact that the learning is taking place within a rich social setting, requiring near-constant communication and strategizing both for individual and collective gain, is also a likely contributory factor to the
overall learning of the players.
There were also some interesting insights that emerged concerning path dependencies and framing
effects. In the early rounds of game play, players experimented with different development strategies,
using a combination of trial-and-error and mimicry of other players’ successful strategies. However,
usually by the second or third round, almost all of the players fixed on a particular development strategy, of which there were various differences, and stuck with it until the end of the game.
Another observation that emerged from the game play is that even when players were physically
proximate to one another, there was little to no interaction between the different ‘‘cities’’. This is particularly striking since there was, from the outset, a clear understanding that it is the aggregate, not
the individual emissions that trigger both legislative action and climatic impacts. By and large, the
players tended to exclusively focus on ‘‘their’’ district of the city to the detriment of the collective efforts to bring down carbon emissions. This tends to reflect what goes on within larger metropolitan
areas around the world, where individual municipalities tend to focus on their own operations and
interests within the existing political and regulatory structures, foregoing a regional approach that
may yield more effective mitigation and adaptation strategies and measures.
4.2. Synergies, conflicts, and trade-offs
Despite the clear presence of climatic impacts in the form of drought, floods, or storm events, most
players tended to focus quite narrowly on the twin goals of increasing rents and decreasing emissions.
This tendency continued even after the first impacts were experienced that sometimes wiped out
large segments of the players’ real estate holdings. On the whole, climate impacts were seen as random events outside of the players’ control. Remarkably, there were few if any calls by the players,
either during the game or after, for more information about the frequency and/or severity of the climate impacts. While the academic literature suggests that mitigation is far more diffused temporally
and spatially and adaptation tends to favor local interests, the players, by and large, tended to have a
much clearer grasp of the relationship between development choices and CO2 emissions than they did
between aggregate CO2 emissions and the consequent climate impacts.
Regarding the oft-discussed relationship between risk and uncertainty, the authors found that the
players’ attitudes towards the risk of climate impacts tended to change on the basis of whether the
impacts were ‘‘real’’ or not. That is to say that the players tended to pay attention to the possible risks
and impacts of climatic changes after the first event, not before. An example was attitudes toward
building close to water. Prior to any flooding from sea level rise occurring in the game, almost all
the players tended to cluster their more expensive developments close to the water in order to maximize their rental return, despite the clear exposure of these buildings to flooding. In the aftermath of a
storm or sea level rise event, a sizeable minority still chose to re-build (if allowed to do so) close to the
water again, possibly wagering that the flood card would not show up again during the rest of the
game play.
4.3. Legislation versus voluntary initiatives
There were remarkable differences in the manner in which ‘‘cities’’ approached legislation and regulation. Some players began immediately with mandatory green building requirements in order to
keep CO2 emissions low, while other players pursued a strategy of maximizing their rental income
early, then using the proceeds to win the game despite the increase in CO2 emissions. Furthermore,
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most players did not undertake voluntary collaborative strategies to reduce emissions compared to
legislation.
Another finding was a strong focus on the relative (as opposed to absolute) fairness of any proposed
measure, whether voluntary or mandatory. Since consensus was necessary in order to achieve a given
policy or legislative aim, most players devoted significant time in order to arrive at decisions that
spread the financial burden as equally as possible. One example from the gaming session in Helsinki
is that there was a collective decision among the approximately twenty players to implement a mandatory retrofit law on cheap but polluting structures. In order to reach that agreement, though, it was
necessary to adopt a progressive approach where those with greater financial resources were required
to invest more than those with fewer. This may suggest that policy acceptance for both mitigation and
adaptation measures hinges to an extent upon the perceived level of fairness, burden sharing, and social equity concerns.
4.4. Use of games in research and data collection
Overall, social games, such as Broken Cities, have a potential for data collection and analysis. Many
of the more complicated questions and puzzles that social scientists grapple with today are intimately
linked to the complexities of human decision-making. Properly constructed and validated, games can
open up research space for theory building and testing, empirical data collection, and understanding of
causal mechanisms pertaining to a wide range of human actions.
There are, however, a number of unresolved questions and issues with the use of games in research,
of which four particularly pertinent ones will be detailed here. First, there is naturally the question to
what extent a game, a simplified version of a complex problem, actually reflects the reality in which
planners make decisions. The design of a game always includes choices which leave some aspects
unaccounted for. This is particularly relevant to emerging research fields, such as the interaction between adaptation and mitigation in the urban context where new research insights are published
frequently.
Second, the authors struggled with clarifying exactly what type of data was necessary to extract
from the game play. The original intention was to test whether or not games were more effective than
other forms of learning (lectures, workshops, seminars) when it came to the mitigation/adaptation/
sustainable urban development nexus. However, it quickly became apparent that in order to do so
with a sufficient level of scientific rigor would require a much larger and more comprehensive approach than resources allowed. For example, it would perhaps be possible to focus on the amounts
of greenhouse gases emitted and the rents collected and track these in order to examine player strategies through these outcomes.
Third, tracking changes in understanding within the gaming environment requires the use of an
array of data collection tools, including participant observation, surveys, interviews, and audio/video
recording. The game play is fast and in a few instances there were over 50 people playing at once. This
requires a high level of planning and coordination, not to mention staffing, in order to capture the richness of the interactions. In terms of using games as a method of collecting data, the authors would recommend using a combination of the following types of data collection in addition to participant
observation and survey questionnaires: (1) high-quality sound and video recording of the game sessions in order to capture the dynamic decision-making and negotiation space in real time; and (2)
semi-structured follow-up interviews with a sample of the players in order to help address the ex-post
rationalizations of the decision-making process as well as partially countering possible memory, cognitive, and social biases. Moreover, it may be beneficial to employ a ‘‘talk while doing’’ data collection
method where the players verbalize their choices and considerations while they are playing the game.
However, this type of data collection may interfere with the decision-making processes, potentially
skewing the results.
Fourth, and finally, it is unclear to what extent there is a convergence between actors’ decisions in a
gaming environment and those that are made in everyday life. It is not clear that humans cognitively
make such distinctions between a gaming environment and everyday life. Some of the previous empirical research indicates that a certain degree of psychological realism and fidelity is necessary for humans to accept a given simulated reality (Meijer, 2010). One of the next steps in the use of Broken
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S. Juhola et al. / Urban Climate xxx (2013) xxx–xxx
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Cities is to create an online version that will generate a database of individual and aggregate decisions
and could form the basis for follow-up interviews to gather more information about the underlying
rationale for individual players’ decisions.
5. Conclusion and next steps
Climate change poses new challenges to cities, in addition to the on-going demands of providing
safe housing and planning for infrastructure development, including coping with increasing volumes
of traffic and more generally ensuring economic growth. In addition to these traditional concerns, cities are increasingly expected to contribute to the solving of ‘‘wicked’’ problems characterized by the
uncertainty of unforeseen pernicious consequences, such as climate change impacts when mitigating
the emissions cities produce does not necessarily advance, and may even be at odds with increasingly
urgent necessities of adapting to the changing climate. It is widely agreed that new tools and methods
are necessary in order to address these challenges. This paper discusses how a social gaming approach
could be used to explore the trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation in the urban context. The
results of this research offer insights into how trade-offs between adaptation and mitigation are addressed through gameplay and on what criteria player decisions are based, and how regulation and
voluntary strategies to curb emissions are employed. From a wider perspective, the results also show
how games can be an effective means for communicating complex issues in the urban context. Furthermore, this case demonstrates the possibilities that exist in developing games for data collection.
If games are carefully developed and validated, they can further help to open up a research field, with
a focus on theory building and testing and empirical data collection with the aim of understanding the
causal mechanisms pertaining to a wide range of human actions.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Ben Norskov, Mohini Dutta and Ida C. Benedetto for co-developing the Broken
Cities game with Janot Mendler de Suarez and Pablo Suarez. The authors would also like to extend
the appreciation to all those who participated in the game sessions. For the lead author, the preparation of this paper has been supported by the Aalto Starting Grant from Aalto University and by the
Norden Top-level Research Initiative sub-programme ‘Effect Studies and Adaptation to Climate
Change’ through the Nordic Centre of Excellence for Strategic Adaptation Research (NORD-STAR).
The contribution of Pablo Suarez to this work was partly supported by a research grant to the Red
Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN Action Lab Innovation Fund). As such, it is an output from a project funded by the UK Department for
International Development (DFID) and the Netherlands Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) for the benefit of developing countries. However, the views expressed and information
contained in it are not necessarily those of or endorsed by DFID, DGIS or the entities managing the
delivery of the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, which can accept no responsibility
or liability for such views, completeness or accuracy of the information or for any reliance placed
on them.
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