The differences between European cities are even larger than between countries – depending on political colours, cities within the same country might have totally different answers to the same challenges.

Here is a short overview of positive examples, i.e. cases where cities achieved success to mitigate or prevent the problems on the housing market – either through subtracting land out of the property market (i.e. limiting speculation) or through creating additional resources to make housing affordable. The sources of the information are international meetings and the very informative book of Patti-Polyák (2017).

Community-led housing models

According to Patti-Polyák a diversity of community-led housing (CLH) models have emerged across Europe including the Danish co-housing model focuses on shared spaces and environmental sustainability and the traditional cooperative housing model in Germany, Switzerland and France - which are undergoing a renewal with a focus on democratic governance and anti-speculation. Meanwhile, the Anglophone Community Land Trust model that aims to pull land out of the property market, is progressively gaining a foothold in continental Europe.

Community-Led Housing projects are costly and require investments exceeding the financial capacity of most inhabitants, particularly low-income households. To be viable and to leverage sufficient economic resources, community-driven housing initiatives need to organise a wide range of actors around their project and attract external funders. For example, the organisations Stiftung Trias and Edith Maryon Stiftung are acquiring land for non-profit purposes and providing long-term leaseholds to civic actors with the aim of enabling non-speculative housing developments. Community-Led Housing projects usually start by aggregating their economic capacities and financial means in the form of savings. Resources that were put in common are then used to leverage further public and private funding. In fact, the success and adaptability of Community-Led Housing models depend largely on the capacity of inhabitants to negotiate external funding at favourable conditions (at low interest rates, for instance) and to advocate for public support mechanisms, such as public guarantees or enabling public policies.

Since 2015 Barcelona (ES) introduced new models for affordable housing. One form of this is based on giving public land to cooperatives. Javier Buron Cuadrado, Housing Manager of Barcelona city council described this model in the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona (November 2018), starting from the point that in Spain cities do not have power in housing policy, as this is regulated on regional level. Even so, Barcelona has set up the Right to Housing Plan 2016-2025 with the aim to create more than 18 000 affordable housing units, mainly on rental basis. New ideas are used, such as building temporary places and using rooftops. Barcelona also tries to negotiate with the settlements of the metropolitan area, where at least 75 000 affordable units are missing. All types of financial and technological ideas are discussed, especially how to build faster and cheaper. Barcelona is open to all solutions existing in other cities, coming from residents and the academia, to find answers to the affordable housing challenge.

The Community Land Trust (Patti-Polyák) is an interesting Anglophone model. This is an organisational form in which communities come together to address housing issues. Perceiving a need, a group starts to look for land. This can be in the form of raising capital from an ethical lender for buying land, asking for municipally owned land or through private negotiations with a farmer. The next step is building new houses or redeveloping existing houses into affordable homes. When the community achieves ownership of the land, they can make housing on it affordable. They can sell homes or properties, at about half the market rate. It can be a shared ownership model, or be a socially rented model.

In the book, the case of the Granby Four street Community Land Trust is described in details. In a poor area of Liverpool (UK), a former residents association was re-created as Community Land Trust in 2011. They met up with a few partners and began to draw plans together for an urban regeneration process with very small incremental stages. In 2012, the association won a small urban garden competition, the result of which got noticed by the Steinbeck Studio social investment organisation. They saw what was happening in the neighbourhood, liked the idea of citizens being active in the community and offered a £ 500 000 loan. From that moment, Liverpool City Council also began to take notice and started discussions with the Community Land Trust, finally deciding to transfer 10 properties over to the Granby 4 Streets Community Land Trust. The Community Land Trust holds the land in trust, separating its value from the building on it, and it fixes the price the buildings can be sold for later. Any value increase is locked in by the Community Land Trust for community benefit, so the profit motive has been cut out.

Using public land in new way

Berlin (DE) is well known as a city of pioneering attempts to change the usual market oriented models. During a long period of experimentation with temporary use projects, and initiatives mobilising protests against large-scale development projects like the Media Spree, the idea emerged to develop economically sound and secure models of tenancy, based on long-term rental contracts or cooperative ownership arrangements. An example for that is the StadtNeuDenken initiative with a new concept for privatisation (Patti-Polyák). The basic idea is to change the privatisation mechanisms from the highest bid to fixed prices and the best concept.

This idea was soon adopted by the municipality of Paris (FR) and shortly after the victory of Anne Hidalgo in 2014 their own top-down version of concept-based privatisation was launched in a series of competitions. Besides defining affordable housing goals, Hidalgo and deputy mayor Missika launched the urban development competition: Reinventing Paris. 23 municipally owned sites were selected in Paris – some in quite deprived and remote areas to sell public land, linking sales price to its future use. In an attempt to foster innovation in real estate and extending the scope of urban commons only multi-disciplinary teams could win, and the final users had to be included from the beginning. The competition was very successful and since then two new rounds were launched, on a similar basis.

Municipal regulation against housing speculation

Vienna (AT) is known worldwide for sustainable and inclusive urban development, of which housing policy is one of the corner-stones. The city is probably the biggest public landlord in the world with 220 000 public rental units. A particular challenge recently was the quick growth of the city, having in the last years 12-20 000 people moving yearly to Vienna. This means a need for building at least an additional 6 000 housing units yearly. There is, thus, a growing interest for land, suitable for new housing.

Vienna recognised quickly, that in the case of open competition the interest of international investors would lead to the increase of prices of the scarce land reserves for housing. One of the leading principles of urban development in Vienna is the inclusivity of the city, avoiding changes in the housing market that would push certain strata out. In order to avoid price increases as consequence of speculative capital investments, making housing in the longer term unaffordable, Vienna reacted quickly. A new regulation is about to be introduced, limiting access of investors to real estate that is potentially suitable for affordable housing. The regulation aims to maximize the purchase price for the land, introducing a rule so flats cannot be sold for 40 years to maximise the rent of new units. Moreover, another new decision requires that half (later 2/3) of any new housing projects should qualify for the affordable housing model, determined by the city. These are important initiatives by the public sector to regulate the market, to avoid price increases - as a consequence of financialisation of housing.

Need for cross-country agreement on the social understanding of housing

For the moment, the efforts to handle the negative consequences of the financialisation of housing lead only to limited results on a national level and the local attempts face even more challenges.
For example, Sorcha Edwards from Housing Europe reported on a Dublin (IE) case, where a local group was bidding for an empty standing building to turn it into social housing, but their position was hopeless as their competitor was the largest US pension fund.

It is clear that international cooperation and joint efforts are needed to strengthen the social aspect of housing, as opposed to the market commodity understanding of it.

In the Vienna Housing for All conference a range of ideas were raised on how such an international effort could be initiated.

EU or national government intervention

Barbara Steenbergen, International Union of Tenants, emphasized that mergers between real estate funds are going on in order to avoid national taxation. The EU and national governments should find out ways to keep housing affordable: real estate investors should be limited or stopped at all to buy up the existing affordable housing stock.

A European housing forum

Kieran McCarthy, Member of the EU Committee of the Regions, Councillor of the City of Cork (IE), suggested organizing a European Housing Forum. In the Committee of the Regions housing, it should be taken more seriously, it cannot remain one of the last priorities.

A set rate of income share, a basic right and the end of VAT

Evelyn Regner, Member of the European Parliament (S&D), pointed to the European Semester as one of the possibilities, where housing could be included without making huge changes in the basic documents of the EU. She suggested including the principle that people should not spend more than a given share of their incomes for housing costs. Housing should be acknowledged as a basic right. The EU should take steps to achieve housing-related expenses without or with little VAT, which would bring a real decrease of housing costs to normal people.

The European Semester

Jörg Wojahn, Representative of the European Commission in Austria, also mentioned the importance of the European Semester, turning soft law into a harder tool. Already today large sums of EU money, some EUR 1,5 billion is invested into housing. Also, loans from EIB and some parts of the Juncker fund (for the energy efficiency in buildings), should be taken into account. However it is clear, that e.g. energy efficiency investments make housing more expensive, thus such investments have to be acknowledged as long term financial commitments, and should be made exempt from the deficit rules. The European elections are a good moment to vote for candidates who agree in the importance of urban and housing issues against the dominance of agriculture and other investment goals.

EU and municipal responsibility

Lea Ortiz, deputy mayor Barcelona complained about dozens of evictions weekly in the city (against all efforts of the municipality), and about the fact that investors are buying up growing parts of the city. She also suggested turning to Europe, influencing the upcoming EP elections. The view that “housing is not responsibility of the EU” should be changed. Sustainable and just cities cannot be achieved without a growing public influence on the housing markets and the EU has a large responsibility to achieve that. The movement of cities - the emerging municipal cooperation - should push housing to become part of the discussions in Europe.

Banning private equity fund investments and airtime at the G20   

Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing suggested putting the financialisation of housing on the agenda of G20, as the finance ministers of this group are of crucial importance. After food security, housing should be on their agenda. Private equity funds should be banned from investing into residential housing just as investments into harmful environmental investments is already prohibited.

A basic human right

In her passionate speech at the Housing for All conference Leilani Farha emphasized that gold is a commodity, but housing not – it is a human right. Seizmic, paradigmatic shift is needed, as the present problems are not only market failures, but so is the lack of viewing housing as a human right. All levels of government have to show up and adopt comprehensive, human rights based housing policies. Housing must be based on laws protecting basic rights, and strategies must be based on the rights of people. She announced the establishment of a new movement: SHIFT, which already has 25 signatory cities, including Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam (NL), Seoul (KR).

Housing is a human right which should not be sold to the highest bidder.

Progress in the EU on housing

On the other hand, according to reports of the Corporate Europe Observatory, there are discussions going on between the lobby groups of the sharing economy sectors (including Airbnb, Uber, etc.) and the Commission departments responsible for competition and free market regulation. The outcome of these negotiations is not yet known, but the EU approach may unilaterally support the forms of collaborative economy against the will of national and local governments to constrain the platforms in order to protect affordable housing. In practice, the regulations on Airbnb introduced in Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon (PT), etc. might be annulled by the Commission as hurting the competition law.

Housing is one of the sectors where the fight between the competition and solidarity aspects is the sharpest. There seems to be a long way to go to achieve socially justified limitations on international capital investors, i.e. regulating the financialisation of housing – without limiting private actors in their will to invest along non-speculative principles into social/affordable housing.

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"The housing paradox: more financing - less affordability?" - previous part of this article by Ivan Tosics can be read here.

Two decades ago, housing problems seemed to be solved once for ever in many developed countries. Then something unusual happened: capital investments into the housing sector grew sharply, and – within a few years– so did housing problems.

Economists call this phenomenon the "financialisation of housing". Indeed, as housing increasingly became a financial asset, a tool to keep the value of savings, it lost its social meaning. Moreover, new investments led to sharp price increases crowding out families from the opportunity to acquire new units, and at times even from their existing housing.

In this article we analyse first the process itself, then give an overview of national and local government reactions, and how investments into housing (which are generally welcome) could be influenced towards minimising their unwanted negative consequences.

1. The financialisation of housing

New investments don’t always cause problems, so we have to raise the question: what proves that the financialisation of housing increases housing problems, rather than solving them?

Saskia Sassen, at the Urban Future conference in Vienna (AT) in February 2018, highlighted the uneven territorial spread of these foreign investments: the top 100 cities with 10% of population concentrate 70% of financialised assets. Housing prices in so-called "hedge cities" like Hong Kong (HK), London (UK), Munich (DE), Stockholm (SE), Sydney (AU) and Vancouver (CA) have increased more than 50% since 2011, creating vast amounts of assets for the wealthy, while making housing unaffordable for most households who had not already invested in the market. Moderate and low-income households are pushed to peri-urban areas with scant employment and services.

Besides directly financing new investments, financialisation also means expanded credit opportunities, leading to increasing debt for individual households. This might make people vulnerable to predatory lending practices and the volatility of markets, leading to unprecedented housing precarity. Financialised housing markets have caused displacement and evictions on an unparalleled scale: in the United States of America over the course of 5 years, over 13 million foreclosures resulted in more than 9 million households being evicted. In Spain, more than half a million foreclosures between 2008 and 2013 resulted in over 300 000 evictions. (Plan Limited, 2017).

Of course not all publications are so negative about the financialisation of housing. According to Gerritsen Leilani (2018) financialisation is not inherently bad or good, and financial innovation can have both positive and negative effects. However, the existence of negative outcomes and the need for additional regulation to counteract the negative effects of financial innovation are acknowledged.

In a thorough analysis Fernandez and Aalbers (2016) show that the dangers of financialisation are the lowest in countries where privately-owned housing stock dominates, mostly free of mortgage debt – this is the sign that the housing market has not been financialized yet. However, the case of Spain, once following this trajectory, but having been transformed radically in the brief period from the late 1990s till the collapse of the bubble, shows that not even these conditions give a guarantee to keep out the global forces of financialisation from entering the national system of housing finance.

A special case: Airbnb

Airbnb is one of the leading examples of the innovative and recently very popular sharing economy. However, as Juliet Schor (Professor of Sociology at Boston College) has shown in a presentation at the Smart Cities Expo World Congress in Barcelona (ES) in November 2018, almost all hopes that the sharing economy can decrease inequalities and can contribute to sustainability, proved to be wrong. It is clear that there are such potentials but these are not at all automatic: cities have to intervene with conventional policies (taxation, incentives) as well as novel arrangements (big data sharing and use, social aspects, etc.) to make the promises to become true.

Viennese investigations about Airbnb units have shown that these are located in the same districts as the hotels – thus the promise "you will live as the locals" is not at all true. Vienna (AUT) contacted 16 platforms, but only 10 of them agreed to collect the freshly introduced tourist tax, the others rejected to give the data, referring to EU data protection laws. The efforts of Vienna to influence the Airbnb market are (for the moment) constrained as many aspects can only be handled by national laws (e.g. income tax), while some aspects would need EU regulation (e.g. related to the privacy law).

In the Housing for All conference in Vienna in December 2018 Rui Franco reported on the Lisbon (PT) situation. In countries like Portugal, Airbnb contributed to escalating prices of housing and gentrification of neighbourhoods, without creating affordable housing or other benefits for the local population (Plan Limited, 2017). A prime example is the centrally located Alfama neighbourhood, which was once a dangerous area – now the danger and the original residents are gone, the area fully changed, taken over and dominated by accomodations for tourists. Lisbon municipality did the opposite to what the financial actors suggested, i.e. tried to avoid an austerity policy. The challenge is that local salaries do not match levels from which local rents could be paid. Since last year Lisbon introduced a charge on tourism platforms, such as Airbnb and Booking.com and on global real-estate investors. However, the leaders of the municipality understand that to achieve significant impact of these new tools, strong cooperation between cities and also EU regulation would be needed.

2. How to handle the negative consequences of the financialisation of housing with national regulations?

The Plan Limited (2017) publication lists a series of examples on national or regional level policies to handle the negative consequences of the financialisation of housing.

• In response to the mortgage crisis in Spain, the autonomous regions of Andalusia and Catalonia introduced progressive laws explicitly affirming the social function of housing and facilitating temporary expropriation of vacant housing. Catalonian legislation also prohibited foreclosures and evictions that would result in homelessness. Both of those regional initiatives were struck down by the Spanish Constitutional Court as encroaching on the jurisdiction of the national government and opposing the general economic interests of the country. In response, at least in the case of Catalonia, the legislation was reintroduced with amendments and was passed again by the Catalonian parliament.
   
• A number of countries, including Austria, China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, have instituted restrictions on foreign purchasers of residential real estate. The province of British Columbia in Canada has introduced a 15% foreign homeowner tax. Net revenue from those taxes is to be invested in affordable housing initiatives. Singapore imposes an 18% property sales tax and an additional buyer stamp duty on wealthy property owners and investors, with revenues used to subsidize homeownership of low-income individuals. A number of jurisdictions, including China, Germany and Malaysia, have introduced a property speculation tax.
   
• 
  Some governments have chosen to encourage a more inclusive approach to private investment in housing via financial incentives to encourage the development of affordable units. The Government of Algeria, for example, finances the development of rental housing for households earning less than 1.5 times the minimum wage, on free government land. It also provides a lease-to-own programme for households with little down-payment capacity. Other governments require that developers include a proportion of affordable units. The Mayor of London recently announced that builders will be required to ensure that 35% of new homes that are built are genuinely affordable. Such prescription exist since long time in some other countries, e.g. France, Germany.

Although similar examples could be brought up from many other countries, the best that can be said is that the reactions of the most affected countries are sporadic and mostly reactive. On the other hand, there are some countries which are relatively protected from the problems, having well regulated credit markets and strong national governance of the housing system (e.g. Germany). All in all, the large varieties in the national situations shows that without international cooperation the goal of ensuring access to adequate housing for all by 2030 is impossible to reach – partly due to the negative effects of the financialisation of housing.

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Our in depth article by Ivan Tosics continues here with what municipalities can do.

The fringe is the post war urban area in between the inner city and the suburbs. Besides being an unsustainable fragmented belt of often sub-optimal and mono-functional land usage cut by big infrastructure with pockets of social deprivation, the fringe also holds the promise of combining the best of both worlds. It has more amenities and is closer to the city centre than the low density suburbs, but also offers more space and green space than the city centre. To both face its challenges and to fulfil its promises, the renewal of the fringe demands a new approach to urban planning. Because most of the property in the fringe is privately owned and administrations have limited powers there, a new approach to urban renewal is needed.

1. DUSSELDORF (DE) IS TRANSFORMING FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION

Located in the southern part of Düsseldorf’s fringe, Garath is a typical housing project district of the 1960s and ’70s. Garath faces specific challenges: the district is home to 18,730 inhabitants, of whom 11% are unemployed, a higher proportion compared to Düsseldorf as a whole. Rents are below the city average and the living space is often not adequate for today’s demands, which sometimes leads to a concentration of social problems. In addition, there are other urban deficits such as a patchy retail supply and a lack of attractive green and open spaces.

To develop a strategy for Garath, process management has been implemented focu¬sing on participation of different stakeholders, especially the residents. The process has been developed within a year: Defining the roles of expert skills and knowledge:
- a high level steering committee (mayor, aldermen, head of offices)
- a working team (offices, external expertise),
- a local team (offices, stakeholders)
- and an advisory board (members of local council, stakeholders).

A special feature of the Garath 2.0 project is the comprehensive participation of citizens, with different formats integrated into each planning step. Managing the transformation is only possible if the inhabitants are involved and support the change. Therefore, the residents have been included in the planning process right from the start. The participation formats aim at gaining the active cooperation of different sections of the population and different age groups and to involve them in the

Neighbourhood Branding

Particularly noteworthy is Neighbourhood Branding, a project aimed at mapping a shared perception of the future of the neighbourhood. The residents specified what they saw as needs for action and development. To gain this information different kinds of participation tools were used: a kick-off meeting, a community festival, neighbourhood talks, interviews with the mayor, aldermen, administration and stakeholders, a branding session, workshops and a future conference. Children and young people were also invited and involved. Based on this input 50 measures have been planned in total. Some are already being put into action, while others are still being planned.

RECOMMENDATION 1: EMBRACE EXISTING QUALITIES

Start with a careful analysis of what is already there. Know your fringe: the buildings and the people. What are the characteristics of the present fringe?
How does it function at the moment?
What are its assets?
Who is living and working there?
Who are the owners of the land and buildings?
Who should be involved (participation)?
What exactly should be done for whom?
These are questions that all cities must reflect on when planning for the fringe. It is not only about analysis, it is about recognizing and reinforcing these qualities. Go from tabula rasa to tabula scripta.

2. SOLIN (HR) IS TRANSFORMING FOR INTENSIFIED USE

Because of Solin’s rapid growth, the public domain is fragmented and is generally underused. In the past few years, citizens have noticed this and expressed the need to reconnect with the waterfront. Large physical infrastructural barriers are not easily removed, however, especially not for a small municipality in Croatia. Building a large tunnel or reducing the number of lanes or the speed limit is not possible at this moment. Instead of being paralysed by these problems, Solin focused on making the mental barriers smaller. By making small, inexpensive and innovative interventions in the segregated urban space, the barriers themselves

The first project is a pedestrian underpass beneath a street with heavy traffic, which children use daily on their way to and from school. To avoid the danger of making it an unattractive and dark space that ends up underused, the walls were painted with site-specific graffiti. The underpass area is larger than its primary function requires, making it more of a space and less of a passageway. There is even scope for small-scale sporting activities. Thus, the underpass has become a new public space and a new tourist attraction because the artists are internationally known.

A second project concerns the refurbishment of the beach. This beach had been used for generations, but because of industrial expansion during the 20th century and regional infrastructural networks, it had become isolated and abandoned. The city decided to adopt a participatory approach to activate its underused areas, involving the local citizens in the design process. Together they have started with a clean-up of the beach and seabed. Currently, they are in the process of site-development and landscape works. Even with these small improvements, citizens have started to use the beach again, reclaiming the public space.

For this site, nearby industrial companies and the County were persuaded to provide funding as a sponsorship of the public space.

RECOMMENDATION 2: ADAPT PARTS WITH LESSER QUALITIES

Many parts of the fringe have been neglected for too long.
The buildings and public space in the fringe need to be upgraded.
Increase the sustainability of existing buildings.
Stimulate more sustainable, less car-based, mobility.
Improve conditions for existing communities.
Make better use of underused areas and buildings.
Diversify mono-functional areas.
Open up fenced-off areas.
Find new, interesting typologies for housing.
Integrate social infrastructure, jobs and production.
Turn this unloved outcast into a loved part of the city.

3. ANTWERP (BE) IS TRANSFORMING PRIVATE SPACE

The Lageweg area is locked in a status quo. It is a hybrid building block, where different zoning areas (indus¬try and housing) are touching each other. Almost all the land is privately owned, there is almost no public land position. There is no real social connection between inhabitants and users of the place. It is in need of transformation lest it continue to deteriorate or be developed plot-wise without added public value. It was paramount that the city should break through this local status quo. The aim for the city is to create an integrated development. Therefore, the city planned 5 discussion moments around a table with the landowners:
- Mind Opening Dialogues & Ambition Levels - A kick-off based on possibilities
- Design Table & Interactive Scale Model - To create trust in the collectivity 
- Safari on Site & Brochure with future prospect - Linking imagination to the experience of the group
- Declaration of Engagement & Personal Assistance - From best content to best possible content. - From receptive involvement to active involvement
- Spatial & Financial Calculation Model - From a linear to an iterative process

Starting with mind-opening dialogues and an exploratory kick-off discussion, collective ambitions for the area were defined. The first idea of a multi-plot development was born. Each owner started looking beyond his/her own plot, enlarging the spatial opportunities. Another instrument was a safari tour of the site in the form of a guided walk with all the stakeholders. The brochure made for the walk showed the soil contamination and possible future development scenarios in one, five and twenty years’ time. On the one hand, this information made the owners aware that the current land use plan needed to be changed in order to realize the long-term plan. On the other hand, it became clear that soil decontamination was an issue for more than one owner. One of the owners demanded that the land use plan (RUP) be altered or he would withdraw from the co-creation project on this site. At this point, the role of the

A second step was co-creating a design plan for the area and making it more visual by using an interactive scale model. This prompted one of the private partners to ask: “What is my financial gain?” In a classic process, providing the answer to that question would delay the entire process. In the Lageweg process, however, we started to work simultaneously on the financial aspect of the multi-plot development. Working on parallel tracks speeds up the process instead of blocking and delaying it. The financial question demonstrated the benefits of the collective process used in Lageweg.

The Lageweg pilot project is a learning process, both for the city and for the owners concerned. The government has to assume the role of facilitator to get all stakeholders to support a co-creative vision and ensure that the owners make it happen. At the same time, it is necessary to guard the common interest. This balance is a continuous challenge.

RECOMMENDATION 3: INTRODUCE A COLLECTIVE LAYER

The fringe is the manifestation of individualism and consumerism.
To have any impact here it is necessary to create incentives that make it appealing to go beyond individual interests.
Link people and projects to one another.
Deploy temporary use and place-making as tools to create stronger communities.
Stimulate private owners to work together in their own interest.
Make collective spaces more attractive. Encourage multifunctional use of spaces and interaction.

4. VIENNA (AT) IS TRANSFORMING THE RELATION WITH THE REGION
 

The Viennese municipality boundaries are very tight around the historical city, leaving Vienna no choice but to work together with neighbouring communities to provide houses, amenities and jobs for its growing population. Vösendorf, a small neighbouring community of 7,000 habitants in the south-west, built large retail and shopping centres on the boundary with Vienna during the 1960s and ’80s, which proved to be very profitable but has put strain on its relationship with Vienna. Today, however, both municipalities need each other. A large part of the retail area in Vösendorf is decaying and in need of transformation while Vienna is actively looking for new neighbourhoods to absorb their growth in a connected and sustainable way. The two municipalities decided to work together in the URBACT network to imagine a future for a part of Vösendorf and Liesing, bordering the 23rd district of Vienna.

According to Austrian constitutional law, the municipality – the lowest administrative entity – is responsible for land use planning. Each of the nine Austrian provinces has its own planning law, and the municipalities are obliged to apply it in their own spatial plans. Vienna is a province and a municipality at the same time. While our neighbouring municipality Vösendorf applies the Lower Austrian Planning law, Vienna uses its own. Thus, there is no formal authority that coordinates and regulates planning across provincial borders in a formally binding way.

As there is not much likelihood of any change in the near future, Vienna is trying to work together in a more ‘informal’ way. The Stadt-Umland-Management acts as an intermediary to help us manage such processes. Generally, institutions act within their own competences and hierarchies. When elaborating the Integrated Action Plan, Vienna tried to overcome this hurdle and asked all relevant stakeholders to contribute to the discussion by thinking very freely about ideas for the cross-border project area.

The stakeholders were invited to a series of workshops, walks and bilateral talks and followed the principle that any event should take place on the spot, for example in a local discotheque. The various participants drafted a vision, which led to four scenarios: the so-called Stories from the fringe. They act as the basis for implementation projects we want to initiate. The structure provided by the URBACT sub>urban network allowed us to establish a more sustainable working routine. At the beginning of the project, we reached a formal agreement between Lower Austria, Vösendorf and Vienna on personnel and financial contributions. We got to know our neighbours, their perception and visions. We contributed to a better climate of trustfully working together. The project acted as a broker for cross-administrative relationships. We reached the most relevant institutions and players on an administrative and political level, and some of the landowners. As one outcome of the Integrated Action Plan we are going to tackle five implementation projects. As a second step – in line with the topic of each project – we would like to involve the people who work or live in the respective area. We are starting to notice an increase in awareness. Cooperation between all administrative bodies in a metropolitan region seems to be essential for prosperity and a sound settlement development.

RECOMMENDATION 4: WORKS ON DIFFERENT LEVELS

Planning for the fringe can’t be done from a fixed and single perspective.
Work on the level of the city´s urban strategy and test this strategy in one or more pilot projects at the same time.
Complement concrete findings on the local level with the ambitions of the strategic plan, and vice versa.
Integrate interaction and reflection on both levels.

5. CASORIA (IT) IS TRANSFORMING PLANNING

Today, the formerly booming industrial town Casoria, next to Naples, is in crisis. Several industries have relocated their factories, many shopping centres are struggling, and there are a lot of vacant office spaces while services have been cut back. In addition, the population is in decline, unemployment stands at 30%, and citizens are generally distrustful of public policies. The urban settlements were built in a dense and illogical way and there is a lack of public space. Too many challenges to tackle all at once, therefore Casoria has launched the step by step lab as its new urban plan, addressing short term, midterm and long term goals in an intelligent and interconnected way.

The first Operational Program focuses on the abandoned, underutilized and degraded areas – the so-called ‘wastescapes’ – flanking the major infrastructures that cross the territory. The strategy uses wastescapes to push the urban transformation. In this case a large open park (forest, playground, additional facilities) – whose extension in 2025 will amount to a quarter of the entire municipal territory – will change the urban structure of Casoria, especially the perception of inhabitants and stakeholders. The current brown-grey settlement will be progressively converted into a living green city.

Real and executed transformation projects are essential for the success of the planned activities. That is why the strategy starts with small-scale actions: temporary public uses of abandoned lands, massive planting of trees and hedges, and steady redesign of pedestrian, cycling and ecological paths. This first steps show direct results which builds the trust of citizens in the local government. At the same time it is a learning experience for the city offices, the politicians and the participating citizens. Gradually the step-by-step strategy moves forward to more complex transformations: the redevelopment of brownfields,

As a first step Casoria has transformed and opened a formerly fenced off Military base as a public park in this dense city lacking public space. During its first URBACT local Group meeting the stakeholders present were asked why public space in the city was taking care of so badly. This has lead to awareness that each citizen has a responsibility towards the public space and its maintenance and eventually to citizens the co-management of the park. ). A wide participation process has been facilitated by a massive information campaign, conducted on social media. Thus, many citizens and local stakeholders are now involved in the co-creation and co-construction of the public Michelangelo Park (about 3.5 ha, the largest in Casoria).

RECOMMENDATION 5: PLAN, IMPLEMENT AND ORGANIZES MANAGEMENT SIMULTANEOUSLY

Work with a flexible plan and integrate learning moments.
Work today on short, intermediate and long term plans.
Plan for the fringe based on the full life cycle of an area.
Work with the current context, learn from it and anticipate the new operational phase by organizing management.
Each step can feed the learning process and can help the strategic plan grow to achieve a more sustainable and inclusive fringe.

The meeting took place in the context of URBACT’s Gender Equal Cities Knowledge Hub initiative that aims to highlight ways in which cities are driving change through gender sensitive policy making. At the heart of this work is knowledge sharing, so in October the team travelled to Vienna for a 3-day workshop. We were joined by gender equality experts and practitioners from cities across Europe including Athens (GR), Umea (SE), Venice (IT), Paris (FR), London (UK), Villiers le Bel and Poznan (PO) as well as networks such as CEMR, ALDA, Genre et Ville, all willing to share a wealth of knowledge about driving this agenda at local level.

Learning from the best

We were fortunate to be hosted by the City and shown around by Eva Kail, Gender Planning Expert and Ursula Bauer, Head of Gender Mainstreaming.  Their detailed explanations enabled a deep understanding of the gendered nature of urban space and governance, within the concept of a fair-shared city.  We also heard about the structures and processes that Vienna has put in place, and adapted over time, to address the challenges.

During site visits we looked at:

1. Parks that have been redesigned to provide better lighting and access for women and girls, as well as more democratic seating arrangements to provide shared space for different park users including women, children, migrants, the elderly and the homeless;
2. Sidewalks that had been widened and street crossings that had been re-timed to allow for parents with buggies, the elderly and the mobility impaired to move around more comfortably.
3. New pedestrian paths that allow for the most direct routes between home/schools/ shops/ transportation.
4. Residential areas with improved safety features such as mirrors to see around bends on alleyways and planting to increase attractiveness
5. Housing designed by woman architects that provides personal space for single mothers and encourages community support networks.

This study visit around Vienna emphasised how gender-sensitive planning has many overlaps with other policy areas. For instance, more walk-able, greener cities that respect sustainable mobility principles benefit everyone.

In designing these measures to improve safety and mobility for parents, the city of Vienna is careful not to reinforce the idea that women can only be either mothers or victims. They are combining these hard measures that stay true to the everyday experiences of women, with soft measures that challenge stereotypes. Their gender equality actions are not just about women but about changing damaging notions that impact us all: by encouraging fresh thinking about men and women’s places in the city Vienna is combating gender-based exclusion at every level.

The intense thematic exchange covered many areas of opportunity for cities to make a change.

Follow the money

Vienna, like many European cities, faces distinct challenges from diminishing public spending.  The role of the Women’s Office is to advocate for gender sensitive policy even with limited resources, and also to make sure each neighbourhood and department publishes gender budgets, so that if services are cut there is a proper impact assessment of what that means for women and men.  The significance of EU funding was flagged here. When funders include assessment criteria on gender and diversity, it provides a helpful stimulus to embed equality measures. The answer from Vienna? Do more with less. Although there are no quick fixes to gender inequality, there are small inexpensive measures the city can put in place to improve representation, safety and access in public spaces: better street lighting, quotas for elected representatives and participatory processes that involve women is all examples of this work in action.

Engaging civil society

Gender sensitive participatory approaches mean recognising the particular expertise on equality that women’s networks and experts can bring to the table across policy areas. NGOs and associations in cities across the EU work closely with women from all backgrounds, socio economic groups and ages.  They are uniquely positioned to articulate their needs and feed into policy making that is more impactful. Likewise, there are many universities and research agencies that have gender departments or expertise that can contribute with supporting knowledge. The Vienna team acknowledged that often these partnership dynamics are not without tension, as agencies will rightly push for better services, for change and hold the city to account.

Calls to action: data, equal pay and representation

As in Lisbon earlier this year, gender disaggregated data and the significance of representation were high on the list of our experts’ priorities. We need data broken down by gender (amongst other indices) to best understand how women and men experience the city differently. In Vienna we learnt how both quantitative data and qualitative approaches such as social space analysis had underpinned their plans. Without this knowledge, attempts to solve the problem can be misguided. For example, qualitative data collected in London suggests that women and particularly women of colour do not feel represented by the advertising in their city. So, London’s mayor is featuring all women artists on the underground for 2018 and hosting a competition for representative advertising campaigns. The winner will receive free advertising on the underground for a year!

Representation and equal pay also continue to be problems in a Europe where just 15% of mayors are women and women earn on average 17% less than men. We need 50/50 representation at all levels of local governance: this isn’t just a democratic imperative and a human right, it also makes for better urban policy when all experiences of the city are factored in to decision-making. Participants in Vienna suggested quotas as a temporary solution to the problem, but only when combined with mentoring, training and incentives to get women into local office and high paying roles, and keep them there. Quotas alone won’t change traditional, male dominated cultures that haunt politics across Europe, so it is not just about getting women through the door but empowering them to be true to themselves, to feel confident in introducing new styles of leadership.

Plurality of voices

It is clear that women and men do not all experience the city in the same way based on their gender, and experts discussed how to better incorporate plural voices. Other identities including race, class, religion, sexuality and abilities also impact citizens’ everyday lives. As Linda Gustafsson, Gender Equality Officer for Umea put it “we have to always think about gender in the city, but we cannot only think about gender in the city.” Gender affects all citizens in one way or another but reacting to data while not reinforcing stereotypes is one of the hardest challenges faced by policy makers and planners working on equality.

URBACT networks: a unique opportunity

One thing was clear from the workshop in Vienna: when it comes to gender equality, supportive spaces to network, co-create and share are crucial. Ultimately, gender equality is about changing centuries of discrimination that in 2018 simply hold back cities and all their citizens.  It is complex and multi-faceted and transformation requires a long term, strategic approach. A key part of this process is capacity building about how gender impacts the city and the unique opportunity it has to change this. Our experts from across Europe testified to the success of structured learning programmes, unconscious bias training, webinars, role play and theatre to help the city lead by example in its approach to gender equality. Communication across European networks is also important to connect gender equality to different urban issues. URBACT has a unique platform for change thanks to its reach into 500 cities.

Finally, everyone can support change-makers in everyday life: lift women up, call out inappropriate behaviour and advocate for change. If you’re a man and offered an opportunity to speak on an all male panel, how about recommending your female colleague? The same for white women asked to speak on all white panels. These are small acts that can make a big difference.

What’s next for Gender Equal Cities?

URBACT is very grateful to the city of Vienna for hosting the exchange as well as to all the experts for contributing with passion and honesty. The URBACT Programme is now reviewing how it can improve its own performance on gender equality in networks, capacity building and knowledge hubs. If you are interested in learning more about gender equality in the city please join the Gender Equal Cities LinkedIn group and keep your eyes peeled for our report to be published in early 2019 in partnership with Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR).

In its involvement with URBACT, Bologna has demonstrated a strong interest in helping its most fragile communities to get housing and jobs, and to feel fully part of the city.

Bologna has for instance been working hard, in partnership with its Roma communities, to improve their situation in the city. The Municipality of Bologna was a partner of the URBACT network Roma Net, which aimed at overcoming negative attitudes towards Roma, developing the City Local Action Plan as framework for policies and activities targeting the Roma community and improving consultation and engagement with them. Later, Bologna also took part in Roma Net II, which focused on improving access to education, health, housing and services and stimulating employment opportunities for working age Roma.

In addition, the Metropolitan City of Bologna is involved in Job Town 2 showing commitment to helping another fragile group, that of unemployed youth.

A continuous search for social innovation

Bologna is also seriously dedicated to social innovation. With the URBACT network Creative Spin it set tools and methods to trigger creativity and innovation in businesses and other kinds of public and private organisations, by encouraging artists, creative professionals (in advertising, design, architecture), cultural institutions and industries to engage with other sectors to share their competencies and skills.

This commitment to work with young creatives and to involve and retain them in the city continues today with the URBACT network Gen_Y City.

Bologna’s continuous search for innovative governance methods is also clear in the Procure Network, which explores how to bring about economic, social and environmental benefits through a better use of public spending.

Salus Space: An ambitious project to create a new type of space for housing, employment and culture, connecting local communities and newcomers

The project is to rehabilitate a big abandoned building - Salus Space - check also the website for pictures, which is just outside the city, but pretty close (500 meters from the first building of the city and 10 minutes walk from the closest bus stop). Salus Space will provide temporary housing for up to two years (and an average of 18 months) for about 40 refugees and other people who have a fragile housing situation. The building will include a restaurant and several cultural activities. By involving residents in the management of the building and its activities, the space will also act as a bridge with the city, with learning space to access new opportunities for culture and jobs.

Salus Space is a risky, challenging and difficult project, but one with a strong appeal, that of creating a new centre in the city, where people can come to live, learn, eat and have fun together.

Co-design: A strong principle developed in URBACT

Salus Space is based on two levels of participation: one horizontal, involving citizens and local stakeholders in “co-creation”; and one vertical, with main institutions (Region, Metropolitan City, Prefecture, Municipality and District authorities) providing provide feedback and ensuring links to urban policies.

In this way, the project has been co-designed from the beginning, using approaches Bologna picked up from URBACT. There are 17 partners at local level who are really working together and, from the beginning, the City has involved citizens as well as several other stakeholders. It has also developed a cross-departmental method of working within the municipality.

Right from the application stage the project was co-designed, and this is set to continue throughout the life of the project. At the start, the Municipality made a public call for suggestions on the regeneration and strategy for the building. Currently, in the first phase of the project’s implementation, stakeholders are involved in co-creating a shared vision of the building. An ongoing evaluation of the project realised by citizens and refugees has already started and will last until the end of the project. 

There are several ways for citizens to take part in the project. For example, a training scheme allows citizens to become online journalists for the blog and website of the space (saluspace.eu).

Manuela insists that her ways of thinking about participatory processes at all stages of the project comes from the experience developed within URBACT. “The municipality has learnt that there is nothing that can be done without the involvement of the target community” and that “we, as a municipality, can facilitate the process and not just drive it”.

Governance: a key learning from URBACT

Manuela also says that she learnt from URBACT how difficult it is to ensure the well functioning governance of a project, involving several – as many as possible – stakeholders.

In order to build good governance of the Salus Space project from the start, Manuela directly took the principles of the URBACT Local Stakeholders Group and applied them to create a new governance board, involving the right stakeholders.

She even applied those principles to the application process and to structuring the project. Notably Manuela mentions how the strong devolution of ‘work packages’ (i.e. the different aspects) of the project to partners results from her experience with URBACT. That is how she developed trust and learnt to work jointly with several partners.

Taking and giving back to other European cities

To build such innovative projects, Bologna takes inspiration from other European cities. In the case of Salus Space, one of the inspirations was the Madga Hotel in Vienna, in which hosts are welcomed by trained refugees. However, Bologna knows it has to adapt good ideas to its local situation. It is attempting – with Salus Space – a mix of activities it has never seen anywhere else, with modes of operations that are specific to this project. A real challenge!

Exchanging is at the core of Bologna’s approach, and on that point again Bologna applied principles learnt in URBACT to its UIA project.

The project also plans to invest strongly in communicating locally and further afield, sharing what they have learnt, so that others can benefit from Bologna’s Salus Space experiences.

For Bologna, there are strong thematic and methodological connections between URBACT and UIA.

Manuela simply and beautifully explains how one of the main lessons she learnt from URBACT is now applied to thinking and creating innovation in the city, as in the case of the UIA Salus Space project: “Innovation is not about huge changes in one go, but in many small changes and steps that make a big difference”.