Urban Public Services Innovation: Exploring the 3P and 4P Models

Cities are facing the challenge to maintain and upgrade urban infrastructures and establish effective, open and participative innovation processes to develop public services able to respond to citizens' needs. This research considers public services in urban environments fundamental for value creation and for the experimentation of governance models that might have considerable implications for planning research and practice, policy development and societal well-being. While public services are innovated, different governance models in service provision are experimented, aiming to answer to new challenges, demands and priorities. Starting from these premises, the major aim of this work is to analyse the interdependence between public services innovation processes and the related governance models. The main research question of this research is: how are public services innovating in relation to their governance models? Operationally, the purposes of the research are to: i. Identify a framework to analyse innovation in public services by observing the governance models related to service provision. ii. Discussing two of the governance models related to service provision, public-private partnership (3P) and public-private-people partnership (4P) model, by identifying strengths and weaknesses of both. iii. Explore governance models related to service provision by the analysis of three case studies –Milan (IT), Athens (EL) and Rotterdam (NL) - where particular environments and changes are causing governance shifts in the management of some specific urban services. In the first part this work presents the definition of services and the existing interrelations and connections elapsing between public services innovation and governance. The second chapter analyses existing listing of public service innovation through a literature analysis, aiming to compose an analytical framework of critical elements lying between innovation processes and service governance. The third chapter presents the analysis of two governance models: the Public-Private Partnership (3P model) and the Public-Private-People-Partnership (4P model) in the provision of public services. Chapter four analyses the management of green and abandoned areas in three European cities– Rotterdam (NL), Milan (IT) and Athens (EL)- using the analytical framework built in the second chapter. The fifth chapter presents the main results of the research through the analysis of the three case studies. This part explores: (i) how public services are changing and what are the dynamics of these changes; (ii) when, how and under what condition the 4P model works, presenting a critical review of the theoretical, methodological and empirical research developed. Finally, chapter five presents a session that describes the possible future research that may arise from this dissertation.