Session 6: Welcoming cities

Welcoming Cities: Rebuilding trust through civic participation

This session looks at how municipalities incorporate civic participation to address declining trust in democracy, drawing on the experiences of the cities of Genk and Timișoara. Genk presents a new model for living together in a superdiverse city developed through the URBACT network Agents of Co-Existence while Timișoara showcases the bottom-up vision for becoming a Welcoming City through the URBACT network WELDI, based on human rights-based migrant integration. Together, these cases highlight the capacities needed in municipalities to use civic participation to address contested issues and re-build civic trust.