Public Map: helping to realise a Wellbeing Economy

Imagine.

Go on, take a minute.

Close your eyes.

Breathe…

…and imagine a world where people feel secure in their basic comforts and can use their creative energies to support the flourishing of all life on this planet. Where we are thriving in a restored, safe, and vibrant natural environment because we have learned to give back as much as we are given. Where we have a voice over our collective destiny and find belonging, meaning and purpose through genuine connection to the people and planet that sustain us.

Imagine.

What does it look like?

What does it sound like?

What does feel like?

Today’s economic model, based on extraction, overconsumption and profit-driven growth, is driving the very crises we are facing - climate breakdown, inequality, social fragmentation, and poor health. I believe that we need to unhook from this outdated economic paradigm and reimagine a system that serves people and planet – a wellbeing economy.

According to the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, a Wellbeing Economy is an economy designed to serve people and the planet, not the other way around. Rather than treating economic growth as an end in and of itself and pursuing it at all costs, a Wellbeing Economy puts our human and planetary needs at the centre of its activities, ensuring that these needs are all equally met, by default.

I’ve long been for a shift to a Wellbeing Economy. It’s one thing espousing this. How do we make it a reality?

Of course, changing any system requires a systemic approach… there isn’t one thing that will do it. If there was, perhaps we would have done it by now. We all have a part to play.

I’m proud to be a Co-investigator on a wonderful research project, Public Map. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and part of the Design Museum’s Future Observatory for green transition, its aim is to show that a transparent and trustworthy planning system based on maps made by and for communities is really possible.

For me, Public Map speaks to the Wellbeing Economy agenda and is a tangible tool and set of practices that contribute to shifting the system.

In what ways?

Well, Public Map is both a platform and a method.

Using open-source mapping technologies, we have built a platform that displays administrative and community-created data in a series of turn-on and off-able map layers. Children and young people have designed the symbology – their ways of best representing how they see, think or feel about things. Data displayed with meaning.

The platform is the visual repository of spatial data. Whilst this is a really important facet of Public Map, our work engaging communities and involving them in generating community data enables the platform to be rich in insights.

The richness comes in the variety and nature of the data and methods we’ve been employing. We’ve been engaging with schools, communities, and organisations in fun, creative, and inclusive ways. Tapping into people’s imagination through art, poetry, performance, photography, multi-sensory engagement, oral histories, playful activities, outdoor learning and expression… you name it!

Spaces for people to share their experiences, enabling deep understandings, and equipping them with the tools and methods to collect data and create maps that reflect their own context and supports them in navigating and understanding things holistically.

Both the platform and the methods enable agency to act.

For me, Public Map has Wellbeing Economy all over it!

Looking at the five dimensions of a Wellbeing Economy – fairness, purpose, participation, dignity, and nature, Public Map in both its approach and as a tool can help us all to think and act in this way.

Fairness. Our inclusive methods and use of open-source technologies democratise data collection and analysis. It enables everyone (not just the few) to have a voice and ensure that decisions are based on a holistic understanding of communities in all their richness.

Purpose. Similarly, our inclusive methods enable both a holistic understanding of communities and from this, an understanding of their shared sense of belonging. This helps our institutions to serve the common good.

Participation. Public Map is founded on the principle of citizens being actively engaged in their communities and the decisions that affect them. Mapping – in all its diversity – enables this to happen.

Dignity. By everyone having a holistic understanding of communities, it is hoped that decisions and action ensure that everyone has enough to live in comfort, safety, and happiness. Our social and cultural mapping helps with this.

Nature. As part of the Design Museum’s Future Observatory for green transition, nature and green transition behaviours are central to Public Map. Many of our activities are nature-based and nature-informed, and we have a stream of work around environmental mapping.

We have made a deliberate decision for Public Map to be designed to support the implementation of the Well-being of Future Generations Act. In so doing, it also speaks to the Act’s synergistic economic paradigm, a Wellbeing Economy.

I believe we need to make different economic choices – where we shift to a Wellbeing Economy. Why? Because things are interconnected. Our wellbeing is determined by how safe we feel, the quality of our housing, fair work, our health, our relationship with nature, whether we have a voice in our destiny. Public Map can help with this.

So, who wants to be a caretaker and creator of a flourishing world?

Yes?

Let’s get mapping!