Finding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability game
Abstract The adverse effects of unsustainable behaviors on human society are leading to an increasingly urgent and critical need to change policies and practices worldwide. This requires that citizens become informed and engaged in participatory governance and measures leading to sustainable futures...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nature Portfolio
2021-08-01
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| Series: | Scientific Reports |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95199-w |
| _version_ | 1819202731892539392 |
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| author | Bernardo Monechi Enrico Ubaldi Pietro Gravino Ilan Chabay Vittorio Loreto |
| author_facet | Bernardo Monechi Enrico Ubaldi Pietro Gravino Ilan Chabay Vittorio Loreto |
| author_sort | Bernardo Monechi |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The adverse effects of unsustainable behaviors on human society are leading to an increasingly urgent and critical need to change policies and practices worldwide. This requires that citizens become informed and engaged in participatory governance and measures leading to sustainable futures. Citizens’ understanding of the inherent complexity of sustainable systems is a necessary (though generally not sufficient) ingredient for them to understand controversial public policies and maintain the core principles of democratic societies. In this work, we present a novel, open-ended experiment where individuals had the opportunity to solve model urban sustainability problems in a purposeful game. Participants were challenged to interact with familiar LEGO blocks representing elements in a complex generative urban economic indicators model. Players seeks to find a specific urban configuration satisfying particular sustainability requirements. We show that, despite the intrinsic complexity and non-linearity of the problems, participants’ ability to make counter-intuitive actions helps them find suitable solutions. Moreover, we show that through successive iterations of the experiment, participants can overcome the difficulties linked to non-linearity and increase the probability of finding the correct solution to the problem. We contend that this kind of what-if platforms could have a crucial role in future approaches to sustainable developments goals. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-23T04:08:41Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e3fa05aae7e44b8385542d0c190e176c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2045-2322 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-23T04:08:41Z |
| publishDate | 2021-08-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Scientific Reports |
| spelling | doaj.art-e3fa05aae7e44b8385542d0c190e176c2022-12-21T18:00:33ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222021-08-0111111110.1038/s41598-021-95199-wFinding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability gameBernardo Monechi0Enrico Ubaldi1Pietro Gravino2Ilan Chabay3Vittorio Loreto4Sony Computer Science LaboratoriesSony Computer Science LaboratoriesSony Computer Science LaboratoriesInstitute for Advanced Sustainability StudiesSony Computer Science LaboratoriesAbstract The adverse effects of unsustainable behaviors on human society are leading to an increasingly urgent and critical need to change policies and practices worldwide. This requires that citizens become informed and engaged in participatory governance and measures leading to sustainable futures. Citizens’ understanding of the inherent complexity of sustainable systems is a necessary (though generally not sufficient) ingredient for them to understand controversial public policies and maintain the core principles of democratic societies. In this work, we present a novel, open-ended experiment where individuals had the opportunity to solve model urban sustainability problems in a purposeful game. Participants were challenged to interact with familiar LEGO blocks representing elements in a complex generative urban economic indicators model. Players seeks to find a specific urban configuration satisfying particular sustainability requirements. We show that, despite the intrinsic complexity and non-linearity of the problems, participants’ ability to make counter-intuitive actions helps them find suitable solutions. Moreover, we show that through successive iterations of the experiment, participants can overcome the difficulties linked to non-linearity and increase the probability of finding the correct solution to the problem. We contend that this kind of what-if platforms could have a crucial role in future approaches to sustainable developments goals.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95199-w |
| spellingShingle | Bernardo Monechi Enrico Ubaldi Pietro Gravino Ilan Chabay Vittorio Loreto Finding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability game Scientific Reports |
| title | Finding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability game |
| title_full | Finding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability game |
| title_fullStr | Finding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability game |
| title_full_unstemmed | Finding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability game |
| title_short | Finding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability game |
| title_sort | finding successful strategies in a complex urban sustainability game |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-95199-w |
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