City of Casoria (Naples Metropolitan area)

The city of Casoria is a medium size Italian municipality - 77.000 inhabitants in 12kmq – placed closely the city of Naples suburban.

After the second world war, the city developed rapidly, thanks to the joint effect of public aid as “Mashall Plan” and the proximity to Naples and its mobility infrastructures (port, railway, airport, motorways).

Between the 1950s and 1960s, the rural centre of Casoria was transformed into an industrial hub, and the population increased from 20.000 inhabitants in 1951 to over 80.000 in 2001.

The urban growth has not been supported by adequate public policies, as consequence both manufacturing and residential districts have disorderly developed outside a general framework, in absence of urban planning rules.

In the long run this uncontrolled increase was not helpful for the economic development and since the early 1980s industrial activities start to dismitted.

Today Casoria is characterised by low quality of life, and congested public space, and the large private industrial areas contiguous to the city centre, are abandoned and colonised by a sort of natural “third landscape”.

Additionally, tertiary sector as office complexes and shopping centers located along major mobility infrastructures, have gone bankrupt because of the last financial crises.

As social consequences the unemployment rates around 30% (65% youth unemployment), crime is on the rise, and the most educated and whealthy young people migrate elsewhere.

 

 

Main areas of interest

The city of Casoria is engaged in the implementation of and articulated urban regeneration programme aimed at improving urban liveability and overcoming these problems.

The integrated urban regeneration programme is based on the Local Action Plan elaborated during the involvement in URBACT III network “Sub>urban. Reinventing the fringe” (2015-2018) with city of Antwerp (Belgium), Baia Mare (Romania), Barcelona (Spain), Brno (Czech Republic), Wien (Austria), Dusseldorf (Germany), Oslo (Norway), Solìn (Croatia).

Recently (dicember 2022), the city approved the Municipal Urban Plan, which provides a general urban planning framework for the ongoing projects.

In the last years in order to increasing citizens’ trust in public actions and test from experience, some interventions have been carried out as preview of the urban municipality plan strategies.

Respecting the principles of environmental sustainability and social inclusion, the objectives pursued by the ongoing interventions are:

• Increase natural areas ;

• Increase public spaces ;

• Create new job opportunities ;

• Regenerate brownfields ;

• Regenerate existing settlements ;

• Enhance the historic centre;

• Reconnect the urban region ;

• Draw up co-management and civic use regulations.

An important focus of the plan is on environmental sustainability especially on the circularity of resources in the peri-urban sphere (water, energy, waste), and on the relationship between periphery and city centre to promote a trigger transformation effect between the two.  At least the city is debate on different forms of co-management of public facilities undergoing transformation as

• Consolidation and restoration of the complex of Carmine’ Church in Piazza Cirillo for the creation of the Religious Tourism Centre;

• Construction of a socio-educational structure for children in the confiscated building in the neighbourhood of Stella;

• Redevelopment of the former court building to house social and health services;

• Redevelopment and energy efficiency of the former municipal building in Piazza Cirillo to create a centre for youth creativity;

• Centre for biodiversity in the building of the Former Air Force Park in Via Michelangelo;

• Art and theatre workshops to support youth creativity - adaptation of existing facilities - M.L. King Contemporary Art Museum CAM Theatre.

 

Casoria sbs_lab

Dear URBACT Enthusiasts!

The city of Bielsko-Biała (Poland), represented by the Strategy and Economic Development Department of Bielsko-Biała City Hall, is looking to become a project partner within a network concentrated on topics related to: 

- economic development,

- urban regeneration, 

-  challenges of unfavorable demographic trends and depopulation of cities.

We are also open to consider other project ideas if they meet our future challenges.

We have experience with URBACT projects as we participated in Welcoming International Talent as a project partner as well as ULG member in 2 other projects (AS Transfer and InFocus).

Some general information about the city:

Location: southern Poland (southern part of the Silesian Voivodeship) - less developed region:

• city population: approx. 169,000 inhabitants;
• an area of about 125 km2;
• strategic location at a crossroads of international transportation routes;
• proximity to the border with the Czech Republic and Slovakia;
• proximity to three airports: Kraków Balice, Katowice Pyrzowice, and Ostrawa Mošnov;
• a compact city surrounded by mountain ranges;
• a dynamically developing economic center of the Silesian Voivodeship (main sectors: automotive, IT, and the business services sector)

Please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Contact person: 

Piotr Oślak 

Chief specialist 

Strategy and Economic Development Department 

tel. + 48 33 4971485

e-mail: piotr.oslak@um.bielsko-biala.pl

MS Teams: piotr.oslak@um.bielsko-biala.pl

Piotr Oślak

Dobrinka Aleksova

The town of Bram, in the Aude department of the south of France, has set up the “Bram by bike” project, in order to develop active mobility through new infrastructures, to raise awareness for all ages, namely the young.

For example, the town has set up new equipment designed to teach bike-riding and road safety to our young citizens. This fun and secure area stretches over 500m2, allowing users to follow a route while sharing public space!

This biking project also includes other measures, such as:

• A free bike for all children in their 10th year.
• The construction of bike routes connecting the town’s different hubs of activity and the speed limit reduced to 30km/h throughout the whole town.
• Bike repair points and workshops.
• The rollout of biking etiquette and back-in-the-saddle workshops.
• Setting up rental of electric bikes for senior citizens.

Virginie CROCHARD

Cultural heritage possesses and represents a great historical and social value of a society and a nation. First of all, it can be said that cultural heritage represents the identity of every nation, society and region-continent.

The whole of Europe is extremely rich in cultural heritage consisting of monasteries, cathedrals, churches (religious buildings), castles, fortresses, remains of ancient cultures (Romans, Greeks, Celts, etc.), monuments, memorial complexes, as well as intangible cultural heritage, which make up history, customs, stories…

The general objective of the project is to raise the visibility of cultural heritage and transparency in order to raise awareness of the importance of preserving cultural heritage and improving tourism potential.

As a part of Europe and the history that happened on the European continent, we want to network and connect states, cities, towns, municipalities and others, with the goal of digitalizing cultural heritage. Where through the digitalization process we will preserve the cultural heritage, provide it with greater transparency, but also network with other partners.

Through the process of digitizing cultural heritage, medieval historical stories that follow certain cities, dynasties, castles, cultures, as well as marriages and love stories of that time, which led to the merging of different cultures, would be presented.

Digitization will lead to greater visibility of cultural heritage, through the revival of history, but also through the promotion of the tourist potential of all partners as well as the whole of Europe. The project and its partnership is focusing on the following objective and tasks – defining: mapping cultural heritage in partner's regions, greater accessibility of cultural heritage throught the digitization proces. The Project takes placethrought 4 phases. They include exchange and learning, events to identify ideas, quarterly reporting, site development, promotion and prezentation. 

The total budget of project is estimated from 600.000-850.000 euros, with possibility of changing it by 20%. The duration of the project is up to 31 months.

According to the Programme, the consortium must consist of 8-10 partners. Therefore, if you know someone willing to participate in this project, please suggest it.

Please confirm your interest in participating in the URBACT project by Friday, March 17. 2023. by email office@kv-rda.org

 

Vladimir Eric

The city of Almería (Spain) is committed to foster affordable housing. With a local inmigrant rate of more than 12% of the total population, a local Agency for housing was created in 2005, and has promoted more than 1.000 social housing units since then. But one of the main challenges is the existence of more than 14.800 empty private dwellings. The municipality of Almeria wants to try to activate some of them to provide affordable rental houses.

 Inspired by good practices in other cities, one of the methodologies could be to develop an intermediation program between property and tenant, but in our case it is necessary an additional public management effort to adapt the abandoned houses and manage the renting temporary, especially to achieve the strategic revitalization of the Historic Center

We need a Local Action Group to develop an attractive plan for the local society: landlords and citizens. A cooperation network can help us to consider other alternatives and solutions, share knowledge and learn from others to develop specific techniques  for managing attractive social housing.

Beatriz Mira

The project will tackle the specific challenge raised by the thematic partnership Culture & Cultural Heritage (CCH) of the Urban Agenda for the European Union within the Action 10 “Integrated approach to Dissonant Heritage” (DH). This common EU heritage has been defined by historians, architects and heritage specialists as a “dissonant” one, as it intrinsically conveys the link between the physical elements (buildings, streets, squares, neighbourhoods etc) and the political, historical context and values that produced them in the past. The DH is linked to more or less known and recognized historical events, in some cases linked to a complex and controversial past, which often generates conflicts or claims by different social groups.

The Action Planning Network will face the specific challenge of moving from a research and cultural approach to a concrete approach by building a co-governance process with the local community, addressing the new challenges of EU society related, first of all, to the construction mechanisms of collective memory of the 20th century. Sustainable management of DH in Europe is above all an opportunity to activate urban community labs around the theme of EU identity and common values, using history as a tool for orienting people in the present and imagining the future. An innovative and creative approach to DH will develop processes of, for example, formal and informal education, democracy building and sustainable cultural tourism.

AR.C.H.ETHICS will use a multiperspective approach to make the DH open and accessible to all people. For example, in order to plan a cultural project of adaptive reuse of DH, it can be used either the gaze of a woman, a young migrant, an elderly person, or a tourist. EU cities will become living labs for co-designing, interpreting, managing and exploiting this complexity within urban development policies

AR.C.H.ETHICS is looking for ONE city partner to close the APN composition, from IN TRANSITION or LESS DEVELOPED REGION, small or medium-sized city, better from Portugal, Spain or France (for reasons of geographical balance of the project). Please send urgently your expression of interest!

The town of Jeseník https://www.nasjesenik.cz/ or https://jesenik.cz/cz/ is located in the heart of the Jeseník Mountains in the northeast of the Czech Republic, in a landscape full of natural wealth, greenery and silence, in a landscape of healing water springs and clean air. Jeseník became famous for its spas, named after the famous native and founder of modern hydrotherapy Vincenz Priessnitz. Our city has a long, rich and interesting history of more than 750 years. At the same time, we are a modern city that supports a system of clean and sustainable mobility, uses innovative and SMART solutions, and protecting the environment and promoting a healthy lifestyle is a high priority for us. When planning projects, we involve citizens in the discussion. We continue to expand the opportunities for our citizens to participate in the development of the city and participate in international projects with this theme, where we can learn something. Our big issue is stopping the outflow (especially of young residents) from our city. We are looking for ways to increase the city's attractiveness and promote the values we can offer.

 

Our topics:

1. Clean and Sustainable Mobility System

We are currently developing a SUMP https://www.nasjesenik.cz/stranky/mobilita and are looking for answers to the questions of reducing the use of cars, building a smart parking system, calming the city centre, etc. The basic task is to change the mindset of our residents, focusing on a quality environment and the possibility of creating public spaces for people to meet. A city for people, not for cars.

 

2.   Participation of our citizens in the development of the city

Our priority is to increase the level of citizen involvement in the city's decision-making processes. We are currently using participatory budgeting, regular meetings of the Student Council, Senior Council, meetings with citizens, social networks, etc. We are also happy to learn to use new tools to help us involve the still silent part of our citizens. We are interested in introducing a local currency system to increase the level of participation of citizens in the development of the city and to deepen regional patriotism (the relationship of citizens to the place).

 

3.   Stopping the outflow (especially of young people) from our city

Like many other cities, we are facing an outflow of young people in particular. We therefore place emphasis on local patriotism and deepening the ties of the existing inhabitants of Jeseník to the region in which they live. We also want to capitalise on the outcomes of the covid period and promote the benefits of living in a city of our type to those who would like to move here. That is, a quiet, healthy and safe life with the opportunity to work and communicate in a modern way ("remotely" with a good data connection) with all the necessary infrastructure in place or within easy reach.

 

4.  Digitalization of processes in the city

Our benefits for joining the partner network are:

• Willingness to explore new paths
• Long experience in preparing and implementing EU projects in accordance with EU rules.
• Respect for the principles of partnership;

We look forward to working with future partners!

Martina Pavlátková

The town Chomutov has 49 thousands inhabitants. In some parts of town, especially these parts with lots of houses of blocks of flats, where live many people, are social problems. We would like to see good practice in another towns, how they solve these problems, how they handle with it to keep neighborhood cohesion and community solutions.

Tereza Rödlingová

European diversity in administration standarts and languages doesn't facilitate a cross continental approach for innovation on sustainable solutions.

Our intention is to develop a practical approach to share a universal framework to measure effectiveness of sustainable solutions.

Because we must accelerate the transition, find the best tools and replicate

DELATTE SYLVIE