Larger capital projects in poor neighbourhoods often do not lead to an improvement in the socio-economic situation of the local population. The USE-IT! project tested an approach that directly links the realisation of larger capital projects - here construction of a new hospital - with the improvement of the socio-economic situation of the population based on the existing local community skills, talents and ideas. 

Despite larger investments, urban regeneration programmes and neighbourhood management the socio-economic situation of those citizens, living in deprived neighbourhoods in Birmingham, could not significantly be improved. Thus, USE-IT! pioneered innovative approaches to inclusive urban development combating poverty in areas of persistent deprivation. The objective was to use physical interventions directly to combat poverty by improving the socio-economic situation of the inhabitants; this was achieved by linking larger, physical interventions with skills and potentials of the inhabitants. The main solutions implemented  are: matching people with overseas medical qualifications with job opportunities in the hospital to support employment and better health outcomes in the community, creating a community of social enterprises to support employment and boost social value, as well as  developing community research in the local communities to identify and enable better local connections, unlock local skills and insights and link them with opportunities emerging from capital investment.

Large and diverse partnership of larger public, private and civic organisations working together with local embedded neighbourhood organisations. The partnership was built to complement each other’s specialist skills, knowledge and services, so that no organisation had to reinvent its own work for the purpose of the project and synergies could be achieved.  The main target group are the local communities in the ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The governance/participation structure: Work Packages for each “solution” were set up. Each WP consisted of key partners who collaborated with local community organisations. Each WP was coordinated by WP lead who coordinated activities of their relevant delivery partners. 

Due to the large and complex partnership, the communication and information flow between the partners has been a challenge. The Partnership needed time to build trust between the larger and the locally based third sector organisations to enable equitable working relationship.  This also demanded a “cultural change” in the larger organisations and a change of the way they worked (change in institutional processes).  So far, the main results are 250 migrants with medical skills that are connected with job opportunities in the new hospital, five  new consortia of social enterprises, 1 new network of social entrepreneurs, 36 new and 39 established enterprises supported, £240,000 brought into the locality by supporting local organisations to access grants and new contracts,  as well as 85 individuals completing ‘Community Research Training’, implementing 24 community research projects and more than £ 300k secured for future work.

Urban poverty is one of the main topics of the Urban Agenda for the EU. USE-IT! created a unique model of economic development that is inclusive and results in lasting urban regeneration, by raising aspirations, building community resilience, and connecting people to local resources. It draws on and contributes to the theory of community wealth building. 
USE-IT! has demonstrated that creating the links between micro and macro assets is crucial to effective community wealth building, in effect ‘unlocking’ the potential of these assets. To transfer the USE-IT! approach, relevant partners have to learn to identify these assets and support individuals and groups to build on them to link them to the larger capital infrastructure/ investment projects. This demands an existence of a partnership of organisations responsible for the implementation of the larger capital infrastructure with locally based organisations that work with the local communities. All cities and neighbourhoods contain a range of assets. This include physical assets in the form of buildings and green spaces; financial assets in the form of businesses and investments; the financial assets of public, social and private institutions; community assets in the form of voluntary sector groups and social enterprises; and human assets. 

CO-CITY addresses the challenge of poverty in distressed neighbourhoods through the regeneration of under-utilised public spaces and assets, turned into places able to trigger a process of sustainable development. The regeneration projects are co-designed by the City and residents. Co-City counteracts social-spatial polarisation through spaces/assets’ regeneration, creating public-community partnerships, mutual trust, cooperation at the neighbourhood level.

CO-CITY implements “pacts of collaboration” according to the Regulation for the Governance of urban commons, co-designed with city inhabitants’ organisations. They stimulate organisation and define co-governance schemes for the regeneration of spaces hosting activities varying from community gardens; creative placemaking; capacity building processes; community hubs. These pacts are one of the most important co-governance tools increasingly adopted by Italian cities since 2014 to promote and enable the urban commons.

CUMIANA15 pact foresees the transformation of a former car-manufacturing factory requiring significant physical renovation into a hybrid indoor-outdoor space functioning as a cultural-creative activities community hub. The implementation of a new administrative model rooted in the “pacts of collaboration” and the “Regulation for the Governance of Urban Commons” aiming at empowering inhabitants in the care of urban spaces fostering reciprocal commitment to urban justice.

CO-CITY addresses urban poverty turning dismissed infrastructures and public land into hubs of neighbourhoods inhabitants’ collective action. It turns them into “urban commons”, contributing to the establishment of civic and entrepreneurial activities leveraging inhabitants’ participation stimulated by the City and facilitated by the Neighbourhood Houses acting as local co-governance units.

Main solutions implemented include: co-design and co-governance innovative process. The city created an integrated administrative structure to ensure an integrated approach; building and management of the pact of collaboration to accelerate inhabitants’ organisations empowerment in turning public spaces into engines of neighbourhood revitalisation; diversified tools, no one size fits all solution. Resources allocated through a call for proposal foreseeing three measures: a) peripheries and urban cultures; b) under-utilised infrastructure, with a focus on schools; c) civic care of public spaces. 
 

The project partnership is composed by: the network of Neighbourhood Houses, local community hubs that took care of community building activities; the University of Turin, contributing to the project’s research and theoretical framework; the National Association of Italian Municipalities, in charge of communication and networking.

50 pacts of collaboration between the City Administration and citizens’ organisations have been signed. The pacts regulate caring for public spaces and many socio-cultural activities. The participative process is focused on two moments:

1. Co-design. All the feasibility issues are fine tuned and finalised.
2. Co-management. The City and the involved organisations share decision-making and responsibilities. 

The most important project challenge has been the use of a totally new juridical tool (the pact of collaboration) that resulted in a collective learning effort by all the stakeholders involved. This relied on a solid local background and tradition of community engagement which is mainly represented by the local network of Neighbourhood Houses. 
The project’s implementation has contributed to the development of mutual trust and social inclusion.

Both public officers (24 city departments, 90 officers) and active citizens (more than 214 organisations) involved in the project implementation consider positively the enabling role of CO-CITY as a way to innovate policies and practices, unlocking the potential of urban development.
Among the different pacts, the one of CUMIANA15 can be mentioned - a hybrid space (half renewed industrial building, half covered square), now co-managed to become a new socio-cultural hub. 

Cities and citizens play a pivotal role in the EU policy framework tackling climate change and mission-oriented innovation. The European Green Deal and the linked H2020 EGD call both stress the importance of public-community cooperation. The Horizon Europe cities mission foresees a climate neutral city contract. The JRC City Science Initiative considers public-community partnerships a cross-cutting policy tool.

CO-CITY pacts enable inhabitants’ organisations to work closely together and with City officials, reinforcing trust in institutions, social cohesion, long-term commitment of the entire administrative machine. They were critical in keeping urban spaces safe and alive during the pandemic. Social bonds created by the pacts helped preserve the social interaction. 
CO-CITY pacts are able to bring together city communities, governments, knowledge institutions, social and private operators. The so-called quintuple helix urban co-governance approach aims at stimulating neighbourhood cooperation. CO-CITY is a good guidance for policymakers and social actors wishing to build public-community cooperation.
Each civic deal sanctioned in the CO-CITY pacts could be implemented in every neighbourhood. Several EU cities are already building on similar institutional design principles and co-design methodologies their own urban co-governance policy. Regenerated spaces like CUMIANA15 show how these forms of self-organisation could be self-sustainable.

The more complex life course of socially disconnected people, with longer periods of homelessness and insecurity, with addictions and other psychiatric problems, require new types of response.
The main objective of the project is to develop solutions based on 5 bridges: employment, housing and health, living together and empowerment towards inclusion of people in a situation of exclusion.
5Bridges is creating a social urban equipment included in a sustainable, multifunctionnal and liveable area, for: jobs (neighbourhood-restaurant, urban farm, solidarity-shop); housing (temporarily housing as well as social housing); health (low-threshold care, self-esteem activities, gardening); inclusion (active participation alongside solidarity-based involvement of neighbours), empowerment through involvement.
A key element of the project is that before the delivery of the building, 5Bridges has implement small scale labs to test and develop new services, methodologies and approaches that will be integrated in this first social urban equipment of this kind in Europe.

The experimentation of short term contracts is a real success, the first results are the following: out of 16 people affected, 14 people emerged positively to another type of contract. These positive exits took place after an average of 110 hours on the system.
The modern and innovative architecture is designed to allow everyone to feel confortable on the site and thus promote the mix of uses and public. 
 

Homelessness is one of the key challenges for cities in their fight against urban poverty. Nantes’ global aim is to be a green, innovative and liveable city FOR ALL. Social cohesion is at the heart of all its public policies. Today, the more complex way of living of socially disconnected people - including longer periods of homelessness and insecurity - requires new types of answers. Meanwhile, socially excluded groups feel socially stigmatised due to their difference. 
5Bridges project experiment innovative solutions to tackle urban poverty: building an innovative urban equipment, a one-stop shop for different social groups where they can meet : a restaurant, an urban farm, a solidarity store, as well as solidarity-based housing, low threshold health care, and social services opened 24/24 and 7/7; developing an innovative approach: placing the user at the heart of the project's choices and including neighbours to facilitate the integration

The partnership is composed of 6 partners, each of them intervening in their own field of expertise. This partnership between public, private and associative actors has made it possible to carry out this innovative project (Ville de Nantes, Nantes Metropole - Organised Agglomeration, Association Les Eaux Vives – NGO, CDC Habitat - Public/Private Company, Société d’Aménagement de la metropole ouest atlantique (Samoa) - Public/Private Company, Association Emmaus 44 - NGO)
The project is planning to impact 2000 persons per year : homeless, badly housed or disconnected people, in Nantes and surroundings. During the years of experimentation, the target groups have been involved in the choices concerning the equipment. 
The equipment now called “5Bridges solidarity village” will be managed by a NGO created by the occupants of the site. 

The implementation phase of the project was characterised by two main activities:  the construction of the equipment; and setting up small-scale labs to test and optimise the different designed answers that will be integrated in this social urban equipment. 
The project had to face many hazards, particularly related to the construction of the building. The partnership's human resources and tools made it possible to meet the challenges related to financial or scheduling risks, sometimes by imagining more interesting solutions than the original proposal.
Results have been achieved regarding: empowerment and social inclusion through sustained active involvement of users; economic inclusion of users in small scale working labs, providing a work experience and short working contracts; sustainable housing solutions and satisfactory appropriation of mixed social housing; increased expertise of staff and users about support, based on the peer interventions of social workers, volunteers and users.

The European Observatory on Homelessness reported in 2014, that homelessness is a growing issue in Europe. FEANTSEA (2010) stressed that the predominant model is that local authorities have the main responsibility for enabling and steering such services and NGOs are the main service providers, financed to a large extent by municipalities.”
Here are some targeted local issues:

• 2337 persons have never been accommodated in 2014 in Nantes 
• Lack of coordinated social support services 24/24 and 7/7 
• Existing structures do not always properly match social/healthcare/housing offers with the users' needs, and their geographic dispersal creates an “organised wandering” throughout the city.

5Bridges project can be duplicated by other European cities as:

• It provides a solution to a situation they also face: mismatch between the offer (outdated accommodation, dispatched social services, lack of integrated answers) and the growing and changing needs, which require a integrated and comprehensive answer to homelessness.
• It relies on a mix of competences and expertise (social work, health care, citizen participation, urban planning) and a portfolio of local stakeholders (NGOs, health services, social housing promoters…) that can be activated by all European cities.

Many documents and reports have been produced during the implementation of the 5Bridges project and can be provide to other cities willing to duplicate the project. 

The B-MINCOME, combining a minimum guaranteed income with active social policies in deprived urban areas of Barcelona, is a pilot project that aims to fight poverty and social exclusion.  The project covers  an area north east called Eix Besos one of the most vulnerable of the city. The districts targeted in this project are: Ciutat Meridiana, Vallbona, Torre Baró, Roquetes and Trinitat Nova in the Nou Barris district, Trinitat Vella, Baró de Viver and Bon Pastor in the Sant Andreu district, and Verneda i La Pau, and Besòs i el Maresme in the Sant Martí district. After a selection of 5000 potential candidate identified among inhabitants in the EIx Besos, a random selection of 1000 households joined the pilot of BMINCOME.  Between 2017-2019 BMINCOME benefitted 952 families in the ten neighbourhoods. 

The BMINCOME, combines a minimum guaranteed income ( Called Municipal Inclusion Support -SMI) with active social policies for mutual and solidarity-based economies, adopting  local digital currency ( REC) for boosting local trade.   The aim was to  reach up to 1,000 vulnerable households, with a steady income for the duration of the pilot, whose amount is based on several criteria and the composition of the household. 

Four active policies enables citizens to exit the condition of poverty through the development of social entrepreneurial skills into different areas of solidarity economy:

1.  Training programme and employment plans, implemented with an active involvement of NGO and associations located in the area.
2.  Social economy programme for the creation of cooperative, social, solidarity economy and community- interest projects
3.  Housing renovation programme, support to rent out rooms to improve income. Not implemented as expected. 
4.  Community participation programmes for common-interest projects.
    

The partners are Ajuntament de Barcelona ( leading the pilot), The Young Foundation - Think Thank, IVALUA. Catalan Institute of Public Policy Evaluation - Research Centr, Autonomous University of Barcelona. IGOP. Institute of Governance and Public Policies - Universit; UPC. Polytechnic University of Catalonia – University; NOVA. Centre for Social Innovation - NGO.
Under the leadership  of the Department of innovation, BMINCOME  led to innovation in the organisation of municipal social services and municipal policies deliveries counting on NGOs active in the target area. 
Locally, especially the policy 4, has been dedicated to animate beneficiaries in community building, peer learning. Greater collective involvement of females has been observed in community life. The approach o this policy has forged intercultural ties and local relations between individuals, who express quite a positive view of their neighbourhoods.
 

A total of 3,700 people benefitted from  B-MINCOME equal to 952 households in the ten neighborhoods of the Besòs axis. About 84% of SMI recipients are women, receiving about 480 euros on average per month during two years. Results show that  having a guaranteed minimum income  has reduced material deprivation, increased the level of well-being and encouraged participation in community activities. Hence, it has reduced financial uncertainty for the duration of the project,  and generated overall satisfaction. However, some beneficiaries, suffering of material and financial precariousness, persist in facing struggles. 
The implementation of the digital currency ( REC) experimented in BMINCOME proved to be efficient in boosting local economy As legacy with BMINCOME a campaign launched in November 2020  Le Toca el Barrio  gives continuity to the creation of the citizen currency REC in the same geographical area. 

The problems tackled by BMINCOME are of complex and multifaceted nature and the pilot did not and could not solve all of them. 
However, considering the evaluation of the outcome, the pilot showed benefits in improving the conditions of material deprivation, food insecurity and financial precariousness of beneficiaries. This example of municipal-led schemes for guaranteed minimum income could be adopted by other cities given that monetary support cannot solely be covered by local administration. Impacts are not generously rewarding in terms of employment, this data can be reconsidered because little time elapsed from the completion to the pilot. What is instead interesting for other cities , is that the Pilot provided a methodology for encouraging  employability and job creation through training and coaching  in the frame of solidarity and mutual support at community level, which can be replicated in other contexts.  Replicable is also the adoption of the Digital neighbourhood currency (REC) which is further supported in time of pandemic as legacy to BMINCOME to support local economies. The project is also a positive example for reaching out people facing severe deprivation  often invisible or inaccessible via traditional service provision, or cultural initiatives led by the municipality. The SMI benefitted mostly women out penalised by the job market, most of them with a migrant background and lacking basic educational and language skills.

CO-CITY addresses the challenge of poverty in distressed neighbourhoods through the regeneration of under-utilised public spaces and assets, turned into places able to trigger a process of sustainable development. The regeneration projects are co-designed by the City and residents. Co-City counteracts social-spatial polarisation through spaces/assets’ regeneration, creating public-community partnerships, mutual trust, cooperation at the neighbourhood level.

CO-CITY implements “pacts of collaboration” according to the Regulation for the Governance of urban commons, co-designed with city inhabitants’ organisations. They stimulate organisation and define co-governance schemes for the regeneration of spaces hosting activities varying from community gardens; creative placemaking; capacity building processes; community hubs. These pacts are one of the most important co-governance tools increasingly adopted by Italian cities since 2014 to promote and enable the urban commons.

CUMIANA15 pact foresees the transformation of a former car-manufacturing factory requiring significant physical renovation into a hybrid indoor-outdoor space functioning as a cultural-creative activities community hub. The implementation of a new administrative model rooted in the “pacts of collaboration” and the “Regulation for the Governance of Urban Commons” aiming at empowering inhabitants in the care of urban spaces fostering reciprocal commitment to urban justice.

CO-CITY addresses urban poverty turning dismissed infrastructures and public land into hubs of neighbourhoods inhabitants’ collective action. It turns them into “urban commons”, contributing to the establishment of civic and entrepreneurial activities leveraging inhabitants’ participation stimulated by the City and facilitated by the Neighbourhood Houses acting as local co-governance units.

Main solutions implemented include: co-design and co-governance innovative process. The city created an integrated administrative structure to ensure an integrated approach; building and management of the pact of collaboration to accelerate inhabitants’ organisations empowerment in turning public spaces into engines of neighbourhood revitalisation; diversified tools, no one size fits all solution. Resources allocated through a call for proposal foreseeing three measures: a) peripheries and urban cultures; b) under-utilised infrastructure, with a focus on schools; c) civic care of public spaces. 
 

The project partnership is composed by: the network of Neighbourhood Houses, local community hubs that took care of community building activities; the University of Turin, contributing to the project’s research and theoretical framework; the National Association of Italian Municipalities, in charge of communication and networking.

50 pacts of collaboration between the City Administration and citizens’ organisations have been signed. The pacts regulate caring for public spaces and many socio-cultural activities. The participative process is focused on two moments:
1.    Co-design. All the feasibility issues are fine tuned and finalised.
2.    Co-management. The City and the involved organisations share decision-making and responsibilities. 
 

The most important project challenge has been the use of a totally new juridical tool (the pact of collaboration) that resulted in a collective learning effort by all the stakeholders involved. This relied on a solid local background and tradition of community engagement which is mainly represented by the local network of Neighbourhood Houses. 
The project’s implementation has contributed to the development of mutual trust and social inclusion.

Both public officers (24 city departments, 90 officers) and active citizens (more than 214 organisations) involved in the project implementation consider positively the enabling role of CO-CITY as a way to innovate policies and practices, unlocking the potential of urban development.
Among the different pacts, the one of CUMIANA15 can be mentioned - a hybrid space (half renewed industrial building, half covered square), now co-managed to become a new socio-cultural hub. 

Cities and citizens play a pivotal role in the EU policy framework tackling climate change and mission-oriented innovation. The European Green Deal and the linked H2020 EGD call both stress the importance of public-community cooperation. The Horizon Europe cities mission foresees a climate neutral city contract. The JRC City Science Initiative considers public-community partnerships a cross-cutting policy tool.

CO-CITY pacts enable inhabitants’ organisations to work closely together and with City officials, reinforcing trust in institutions, social cohesion, long-term commitment of the entire administrative machine. They were critical in keeping urban spaces safe and alive during the pandemic. Social bonds created by the pacts helped preserve the social interaction. 
CO-CITY pacts are able to bring together city communities, governments, knowledge institutions, social and private operators. The so-called quintuple helix urban co-governance approach aims at stimulating neighbourhood cooperation. CO-CITY is a good guidance for policymakers and social actors wishing to build public-community cooperation.
Each civic deal sanctioned in the CO-CITY pacts could be implemented in every neighbourhood. Several EU cities are already building on similar institutional design principles and co-design methodologies their own urban co-governance policy. Regenerated spaces like CUMIANA15 show how these forms of self-organisation could be self-sustainable.