ULE Framework — Codebook and Scoring Protocol

The method for applying the Urban Living Lab Legal Enablement (ULE) framework: condition definitions, scoring scale, decision rules and coding procedure. It contains no empirical scoring data. Scoring records for individual case sets are deposited as separate records and cite this one as their methodological source. This separation is deliberate: the protocol is reusable independently of any particular case, and can beapplied by other researchers to jurisdictions not covered here. Why the framework exists: Living lab scholarship documents extensively that ecology-oriented labs fail to become institutionally durable. It does not provide a way to identify which institutional condition is missing in a given case. Aggregate judgements do not support targeted intervention; condition-level diagnosis does. The five conditions: E1 Statutory Enactment E2 Governance Empowerment E3 Financial Endowment E4 Evidentiary Mandate E5 Epistemic Translation. Conditions are sequential: each is a precondition for the functional operation of those that follow. Two rules that matter most: **Scope restriction.** Conditions are assessed against provision specifically enabling ecology-oriented urban living labs, not against general environmental regulatory capacity. A low score is not a judgement about environmentalgovernance quality. **Level and form are separate.** The score records degree of enablement; `provision_form` records the type of provision relied upon. Two jurisdictions may score equally while relying on structurally different provisions. Cross-case learning potential derives from difference in form, not in level. Applying the protocol: Researchers extending the framework to new jurisdictions are invited to cite this codebook and to deposit their scoring records openly, so that cases accumulate into a comparable corpus. Contact: [e-mail] Related records - ULE Scoring Dataset: Netherlands and Türkiye — https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20811367- ULE Scoring Dataset: Istanbul and New York City — - ULE Scoring Dataset: Three US Metropolitan Regions — Funding: Prepared within the TUBITAK 2218 National Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Programme (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkiye). Revision: ULE Framework Scoring Dataset: Three US Metropolitan Regions This dataset contains the complete condition-level scoring record produced by applying the Urban Living Lab Legal Enablement (ULE) framework to three US metropolitan regions selected for their contrasting institutional architectures: New York City, Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon. The ULE framework diagnoses whether a governance system possesses the institutional conditions required for an ecology-oriented urban living lab to be established and to convert ecological knowledge into planning decisions. Five sequential conditions are assessed: statutory enactment (E1), governance empowerment (E2), financial endowment (E3), evidentiary mandate (E4) and epistemic translation (E5). SUMMARY OF RESULTS E1 Statutory Enactment — New York City: partial (1) · Philadelphia: partial (1) · Portland: partial, upper bound (1)E2 Governance Empowerment — New York City: partial (1) · Philadelphia: partial (1) · Portland: substantial (2)E3 Financial Endowment — New York City: substantial (2) · Philadelphia: substantial (2) · Portland: partial (1)E4 Evidentiary Mandate — New York City: partial (1) · Philadelphia: partial, upper bound (1) · Portland: partial, upper bound (1)E5 Epistemic Translation — New York City: partial, sectorally bounded (1) · Philadelphia: partial, sectorally bounded (1) · Portland: partial, procedurally scheduled (1)Total — New York City: 6/10 · Philadelphia: 6/10 · Portland: 6/10 HOW TO READ THESE TOTALS The three cities record identical totals through different institutional routes, and that is the analytically significant result rather than an artefact. New York City and Philadelphia reach substantial financial endowment through consent-order capital commitments while holding only partial governance empowerment; Portland reaches substantial governance empowerment through statutory agency authority and formally recognised watershed councils while holding only partial financial endowment. Numeric equivalence conceals structural difference, and the provision_form field is where that difference is recorded. No city reaches substantial on epistemic translation. Each holds a bounded version of it: two within a regulatory compliance domain, one within an agency watershed mandate. In no case does ecological evidence formally enter zoning, comprehensive plan revision or capital planning. CONTENTS ule_scores_three_us_metros.csv — 15 records (5 conditions x 3 cities) with score, provision relied upon, provision form, coding reasoning, source documents, the score recorded in the associated manuscript, and a revision note where the two differ.document_corpus_three_us_metros.csv — the primary document corpus by category (N=54), with the conditions each category informs and key primary sources.ULE_Scoring_Report_Three_US_Metros.pdf — human-readable data report generated from the CSV files, presenting the complete scoring record, coding reasoning and document corpus. The CSV files are the authoritative version of the data. Condition definitions, the scoring scale and the decision rules are not duplicated here; they are published separately with their own DOI so that a single authoritative version of the protocol governs every case set scored with it. RECORDED REVISIONS Two scores in this record differ from the associated manuscript. Both are recorded here with their reasoning rather than silently incorporated. New York City, E5 — revised from absent to partial (sectorally bounded) following re-examination of the 2025 MS4 Annual Report, which post-dates the original coding and documents a recurring, procedurally defined evidence-to-revision cycle within the Stormwater Management Program. Philadelphia, E3 — revised from partial to substantial following application of the symmetric evidentiary standard. The construction-versus-governance test used to withhold the higher score from Philadelphia had not been applied to New York City, whose comparable consent-order-anchored commitment is also construction-directed and was scored substantial. Neither revision alters the position of any city in the maturity model reported in the associated manuscript. METHOD The condition definitions, scoring scale and decision rules applied here are set out in a separate record: Celik Yilmaz, O. (2026). Urban Living Lab Legal Enablement (ULE) Framework: Codebook and Scoring Protocol. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21648617 ACCESS Files in this record are under embargo until the associated manuscript completes peer review, in order to preserve author anonymity during anonymous review. The DOI is citable from the date of deposit; files are released on expiry of the embargo. REUSE The scoring protocol is designed to be extended to further cities. Researchers applying it to new cases are invited to cite the framework paper and this dataset.