Networks and cities' news

Real People, Real Connections: What Makes Cities Welcoming

Four years ago, when Shaïsta arrived in Fundão from Afghanistan, she found a welcoming and supportive environment at her local school—one that allowed her to continue the education the Taliban had taken away from her. Her dream was to become a doctor. Sharing her story in a vidcast produced by Fundão in cooperation with a local radio brought her one step closer: a medical school contacted her and offered support to help her overcome a key obstacle—a professional language exam.

Shaïsta in her vidcast-interview

A shared roadmap for inclusive mobility: S.M.ALL cities publish their Action Plans

As the URBACT network S.M.ALL – Sustainable Mobility for All reaches the final stage of its journey, partner cities are publishing their Integrated Action Plans (IAPs), translating years of learning, experimentation, and collaboration into concrete, locally grounded strategies for inclusive and sustainable mobility.

These plans represent one of the most important legacies of the network. They are not simply lists of projects, but shared roadmaps developed through participatory processes, testing actions and cross-sectoral cooperation, with a clear focus on people, everyday life and equity.
 

Sustainable Mobility for All: lessons from a people-centred urban journey

As European cities accelerate the transition towards sustainable mobility, one question remains central: who truly benefits from this change? The URBACT network S.M.ALL – Sustainable Mobility for All was created to address this question, starting from a simple but powerful assumption: mobility cannot be considered sustainable if it is not inclusive.

Youth Work Goes Digital: European Cities Unite to Tackle Online Engagement Gap

As young Europeans spend more time online, a groundbreaking initiative is helping cities adapt their youth engagement strategies. NextGen YouthWork (NGYW), a network of ten European cities, is pioneering a hybrid approach to bridge the digital divide and ensure youth workers can connect with young people where they are: online.

Shaping rural and urban mobility together: how community action drives practical change

On a chilly morning in Bram in southern France, families gather as the community-run Vélobus sets off. Children cycle together instead of adding to traffic at the school gate. Meanwhile, in Treviso in northern Italy, residents step into Piazza Duomo during a temporary car-free trial and experience their historic centre differently. And in Szabolcs 05 in Hungary, a small painted crossing near a village school has become one of the most valued improvements of the year.

Across Europe, these modest scenes show how small and community-led experiments can influence the way rural and semi-urban places approach mobility. They reveal that a shift in everyday travel patterns does not always require major projects. It often begins with simple actions that respond to local routines.

Final product (video): A shared journey of learning, testing and planning a new kind of urban–rural mobility