Over the last decade, the concept of persuasive cities has gained increasing attention as a way to transform cities into more sustainable and livable places. The concept was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab out of the City Science (formerly Changing Places) research in urban planning, design and persuasive urban mobility called Persuasive Cities for Sustainable Wellbeing: Quantified Communities1.
Properly designed cities can expand human potential and facilitate organisational success. A smart combination of urban planning, design, well-being, and technology will take cities to higher levels of hyper-performance. By 2030, most people will live in cities and the well-being of these cities will have an outsized impact on society and the environment. Cities of the future will employ technological innovations that are interactive, unobtrusive, intelligent, replicable, sustainable and transformative. They will also need to address mood, emotion and psychological state in the moment, as well as assess well-being over time.
Persuasive cities successfully blend technological innovation with human nature to enable positive change at scale. The design of public spaces can be enhanced in many ways, for example, supermarkets can project a portion of how many healthy products were purchased that day, week or month. Responsive environments can use ambient lighting to provide feedback on crowd behaviour patterns. For example, streetlights can change colour based on how many bicyclists or joggers were on the street that morning. The window frames of residential buildings can be illuminated for those apartments that have switched from incandescent to energy-efficient light bulbs and so on.
The perspective of designing persuasive cities helps practitioners and activists improve societal well-being by applying socio-psychological theories and their integration with conceptually new urban designs. It outlines an ecosystem of future cities, describes three generic groups of people according to their susceptibility to persuasive technology, explains the process of defining behaviour change and provides tools for the social engineering of persuasive cities towards hyper-performance.
Mindsets behind behaving “well”
People fall into one of three general categories based on their susceptibility to persuasive technology and behaviour-change design: “self-contained,” “self-directed,” and “January 1st.” The self-contained category of people are most unlikely to be open to changing anything about themselves. They are completely satisfied with who they are and what they do, so behavioural interventions may fail when attempting to influence this group of individuals. Self-directed people typically have comparatively high motivation and can achieve anything they set their minds to. As such, they are less likely to seek additional sources of encouragement and persuasive technologies may not be necessary for this group.
And there is the third group of people who often want to change their routines but rarely do. This is reminiscent of New Year's resolutions, which often fade away around February. Therefore, this group is referred to as “January 1st” and seems most receptive to technology-based behavioural interventions designed to help achieve their targets.
Each resident and visitor to a persuasive city will inevitably behave differently, depending on the circle they are in. For example, let's look at a persuasive city that wants to promote cycling as a healthy and environmentally-friendly alternative for getting around town. The self-driven people already ride their bikes whenever possible. The self-contained people don't and won't. While the January 1st people say it is a good idea, they rarely or never choose a bike for city trips.
Knowing this, what can the city do next? It can put bike counters on the streets to calculate and communicate the number of active riders in the city in real-time. How will that affect the attitudes of the three categories of people? The self-driven people will get a confirmation of how many they are. The self-contained people will most likely ignore or question the accuracy of the counts. The January 1st people, on the other hand, will learn that their assumptions about daily active cyclists were quite inaccurate. This realisation will help many of them experience a change in attitude that will lead to a change in behaviour toward more frequent cycling. This formula is powerful because it takes advantage of the social nature of human societies.
Organising for well-being
While technology can be a game-changer in persuasion, people are still at the heart of behaving in context—including in organisations. Human factors, such as decision-making and behavioural choices, continuously influence and determine the level of success and results for most organisations and societies.
People often express a desire to live better and achieve greater well-being. However, it is also often said that people "know what they should do, but they don't do it", which is an example of a human mindset residing in the January 1st category. This may be due to several factors, including lack of motivation, procrastination, fear of failure and conflicting priorities. Additionally, people may not always have the necessary resources or support to act on their knowledge. It can also be a case of cognitive dissonance—the mental discomfort experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas or values. As a result, organisational change initiatives and public health campaigns often fail or produce unsustainable results2.
As gamification largely emerges from the same roots of social influence, it is also a potent approach for behaviour design in organisations, and practitioners can use it to encourage positive conduct in a variety of contexts. In the context of persuasive cities, gamification might involve creating technology-supported challenges, competitions or rewards to encourage sustainable actions. For example, a mobile app might offer rewards or recognition for individuals who use public transport, reduce their energy use or participate in community clean-up efforts.
Artificial intelligence is already helping organisations manage the increasing burden of exponentially growing volumes of data, enabling rapid recognition of behavioural patterns. This helps narrow down and locate groups of people with distinct behavioural deviations, highlighting the possibility of a common attitudinal barrier behind their underperformance. Creatively designing ways for people to observe instant feedback is fundamental to sustaining any true organisational transformation.
Designing for participation
Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) are organisations that operate on a decentralised blockchain network, where decision-making is distributed among members using smart contracts. DAOs have gained attention in recent years due to their potential to create systems that are more transparent, secure and autonomous than traditional centralised systems.
In the context of behavioural design for future persuasive cities, DAOs will play an important role in enabling citisens to participate in decision-making processes that affect their daily lives. By using DAOs, persuasive cities will create decentralised decision-making systems that give citizens a more direct voice in shaping the policies and services that affect them.
DAOs can leverage behavioural design principles to create persuasive systems that encourage participation and engagement from citizens. For example, DAOs can use gamification techniques, such as reward systems or competition, to incentivise citizens to participate in decision-making processes. DAOs can also use social proof, where individuals are more likely to follow the actions of others, to encourage citizens to participate by highlighting the actions of their peers.
Furthermore, DAOs use nudges—subtle changes in the environment that influence behaviour—to encourage citizens to participate in decision-making processes. For example, DAOs can create user-friendly interfaces that make it easy for citizens to participate in decision-making processes or provide timely reminders to encourage participation.
The impact of DAOs on civic well-being
DAOs have the potential to support a wide range of initiatives aimed at promoting sustainable well-being and eco-friendly mindsets in future persuasive cities. By incentivising and empowering communities to take ownership of these initiatives, DAOs will play an important role in transforming cities into more sustainable and livable places. Here are some concrete and practical examples:
SoCity (socitydao.org) is a non-profit organisation that promotes pro-social and pro-environmental actions through decentralised policies. It is led by the previously featured City Science research group at MIT Media Lab and the City Science Lab Shanghai at Tongji University in China. It is the first platform to help urban citizens around the world make their communities more livable and their cities hyper-performing. It bridges citizens, governments and developers to minimise the gap between urban supply and demand, powered by big data and artificial intelligence. It addresses the ever-growing challenges of housing affordability, public urban spaces, traffic congestion, climate change, accessibility of amenities, data privacy and decision-making democracy.
In the future, DAOs will be used to create decentralised energy production systems, such as solar or wind power, that are owned and managed by communities. These systems can help reduce the carbon footprint of cities while promoting local economic development. They will support sustainable transport, such as bike-sharing or electric car-sharing schemes. These schemes can be run by communities or businesses with DAOs to encourage use and promote sustainability. DAOs will enable waste-management systems, such as community composting or recycling programs. These systems can help reduce the amount of waste cities generate while promoting sustainable practices.
DAOs will facilitate community gardening initiatives, which promote local food production and reduce the carbon footprint associated with food transportation. They will support conservation and restoration initiatives, such as reforestation programs or the preservation of green spaces. These initiatives can help mitigate the effects of climate change while promoting biodiversity and enhancing the quality of life in cities. DAOs will also support sustainable development projects that prioritise eco-friendly building practices and promote social and environmental sustainability. DAOs can encourage sustainable development practices and promote community engagement.
Co-creating prosperous, persuasive environments
By 2050, persuasive cities will have evolved and become more sophisticated in shaping and influencing human behaviour. As cities become more persuasive, there will be greater collaboration and sharing of best practices across municipalities. This could lead to the development of standardised approaches to persuasion or the creation of networks for sharing data and strategies, including digital twins. Collaborative governance between the government, citizens and other stakeholders will help ensure that interventions are effective, sustainable equitable and can help build trust between residents and the government. For example, future persuasive cities will use a collaborative governance approach to design a community garden project, involving residents in the planning, implementation and project maintenance.
Public engagement is critical for creating persuasive cities, as it ensures that interventions, especially based on instant digital feedback loops, are designed with the needs and preferences of residents in mind. The ultimate goal of persuasive cities will be to promote well-being and sustainability. Cities will use technology and design interventions to promote physical, mental and social well-being, by encouraging healthy behaviours, reducing stress and anxiety and fostering social connections. For example, cities will install public art or green spaces to promote mental health ands design public spaces that encourage social interaction and community.
Of course, there are also potential risks and concerns associated with persuasive cities. Privacy is a major issue, as using data to monitor and influence behaviour raises questions about individual autonomy and consent. There are also concerns about the potential for unintended consequences or misuse of these technologies and strategies. Ultimately, the success of persuasive cities will depend on their ability to balance the potential benefits with these risks and concerns. By engaging in open dialogue and collaboration with citizens and stakeholders, policymakers and urban planners can work to create a future in which persuasive cities promote well-being, healthy living, sustainable communities and green mobility for all.
