CRAFT CITIES: Reintegrating Craft and MicroProduction into Urban Life

- Craft and micro-production are redefined as distributed urban systems integrated into neighbourhoods and city centres rather than isolated economic activities. 

- Urban regeneration is driven by reusing vacant and underused spaces to host mixed-use environments where people can live, work, and produce locally. 

- Cities develop new regulatory and planning frameworks that allow and support small-scale production within urban areas. 

-  The project promotes knowledge transfer between generations while creating opportunities for youth employment and retaining local creative talent. 

- Local production systems strengthen urban economies by shortening value chains and reducing dependency on global supply networks. Supporting EU priorities on sustainability, social inclusion, and territorial cohesion, aligned with the New European Bauhaus. Context:  

Across Europe, many small -sized cities are experiencing a long-term structural shift away from productive activities, leading to the decline of local manufacturing, the loss of skilled jobs, and the increasing mono-functionality of urban centres focused on consumption, tourism, and services. This trend is particularly evident in historic centres and post-industrial urban areas, where economic functions have progressively been replaced by residential and commercial uses, weakening local resilience and reducing opportunities for local employment and intergenerational knowledge transfer. 

At the same time, European evidence shows that manufacturing—especially through SMEs and microenterprises—remains a fundamental pillar of territorial economies, representing the vast majority of firms in the sector and playing a key role in local stability, innovation, and employment. Emerging research also highlights the potential of decentralised and urban manufacturing to support circular economy goals, reduce environmental impacts, and strengthen resilience through more localised production systems. However, despite this potential, urban production continues to face significant spatial, regulatory, and economic constraints, particularly in dense urban fabrics and historic centres. 

Within this context, the Municipality of Faenza (Italy), internationally recognised for its long-standing ceramic tradition and recently designated as a UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art, aims to leverage its unique productive heritage as a living laboratory for rethinking the role of craft and microproduction in contemporary urban development. Building on its active ecosystem of artisans, workshops, and cultural institutions, Faenza seeks to explore how its traditional craft-based identity can evolve into a forward-looking model of urban innovation, connecting heritage, design, and contemporary production systems. 

This project proposes to build a European URBACT network to explore how craft and micro-production can be redefined as a new form of urban productive infrastructure, embedded in spatial planning, local economic systems, and governance frameworks. By integrating spatial regeneration, regulatory innovation, and intergenerational knowledge transfer, the network will test how cities can transition from consumption-based urban models towards more distributed productive ecosystems that strengthen resilience, inclusion, and sustainability. 

In this perspective, the approach aligns with the principles of the New European Bauhaus, while expanding them towards a more structural understanding of production as a core urban function— alongside housing, mobility, and public space.