The Anthropocene epoch represents a unique moment in history where human quality of life and the livability of the planet are shaped by increasingly complex human-environment interactions and highly uncertain social, technological, and environmental futures. In modern societies, an unprecedented convergence of disruptive forces are exposing critical vulnerabilities in engineered infrastructure systems responsible for regulating metabolic flows of food, energy, water, and waste; guarding against physical and biological hazards; facilitating exchange of information and knowledge generation; and supporting community health, vitality, and adaptability. Engineered to be “fail safe,” gray infrastructures designed for relatively static operating conditions now appear brittle, unresponsive, and increasingly susceptible to catastrophic failure in the face of rapid and unpredictable change. Preparing human society to adapt to and through complex and uncertain futures requires a paradigm shift in how infrastructure is designed, built, and managed to reposition built environments as multifunctional spaces of social and ecological regeneration, and transition existing infrastructure systems towards regenerative, living systems-of-systems.
This research describes a participatory agent-based modeling framework to simulate the role of individual and organizational behavior, decision-making, and agency in driving these transitions through urban infrastructure co-creation, adaptive management, and social learning. The model applies a bottom-up, multidimensional model of agency to simulate causal processes and social mechanisms behind emergence and diffusion of niche-level innovations associated with more socially and ecologically resilient and regenerative cities. By modulating characteristics of individual and collective actors and their interactions with built and natural environments, the model is intended to support cooperative planning of community urban infrastructure, and allow researchers’ and participants’ to explore different scenarios for co-creating common spaces, cultures of practice, and networks for knowledge- and resource-sharing to support shared social values and priorities for infrastructure services in the face of challenging and uncertain futures.
