Is legal certainty outmoded? 'Adaptive law' as a 'resilient' legal technique to cope with the complex societal problems of future metropoles.

In 2012 Hurricane Sandy hit New York and New Jersey hard. The Rockefeller Foundation and the Hurricane Sandy Rebuild Task Force (US Departement of Housing and Urban Development) issued a design competition named 'Rebuild by Design' (RBD). The objective of RBD is to develop resilient cities prepared for future challenges through collaborative processes between a variety of stakeholders - architects, urban planners, scientists, engineers, biologists, policy makers and citizens. In order to address this design challenge and to create resilient, innovative and sustainable cities for the future, knowledge sharing and collaboration between all those different stakeholders is required in order to succeed. Unfortunately the legal system may act as a barrier to this type of processes. Inflexible, complex, front end, descriptive legislation hinders smart and resilient urban development. The legal concept 'Adaptive Law' meaning a resilient legal technique, developed in the US, is relevant here. The American problems concerning urban development and societal challenges are analogue to the 'wicked problems' that Belgian and European cities of the future are dealing with, i.e. mobility, climate change, housing, innovation and digitalization ('smart cities'). Experts also observe that our legal system does not facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration in the urban development process. There is a lack of legal research concerning the opportunities of introducing Adaptive Law in continental legal systems to support the development of resilient and smart future cities. Therefore, this topic is proposed as a new line of research in the context of the collaboration called 'Metropolitan Legal Lab' (Faculty of Design Sciences and Faculty of Law) that will contribute to both fundamental legal research and applied research concerning urban design. The city of Antwerp, as a future proof metropole, can take the lead in this topic.

Keywords:LEGAL CERTAINTY, URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Disciplines:Law, Other law and legal studies