Dynamic decision trees for building resilience into future eco-cities

Intensifying global urbanization and environmental changes bring about the imperative of sustainable urban development and decisions upon inescapable pressures and risks, but knowledge integration between disciplines is a limiting contextual challenge. This paper proposes a reformulation, in terms of urban risk management, of an earlier developed ontological scenario generation method. The procedure consists of several steps: (i) identification-and-prioritization of main pressures, (ii) paired discussion of pressures using four-cell matrices, (iii) re-visit of the pressures' priority order, (iv) articulation of short-listed pressures as decision-making questions, and (v) generation of scenarios via “yes/no” responses to each question, in their order of priority. In this article, the method feeds upon the general context described in recent multi-disciplinary urban studies and public strategic plans in the city of Iasi (Romania), to propose a formal procedure for enabling the acceleration of productive decision making towards city sustainability. Answering three top priority questions, namely “Implement a business-friendly and efficient governance system?”, “Develop a resource management system?”, and “Carry out a human capital accelerator strategy?” results in a 4-scenario set: Receding City, Wanting City, Promising City, Inspiring City. The scenarios are discussed in terms of systemic risks at the end of post-communist transition and beginning of the socio-economic convergence with Western Europe.