Temperatures are hitting record highs across Europe. In Western France, meteorologists talk about a ‘heat apocalypse’ as more than 25 000 people flee their homes to escape forest fires. Spain, Portugal and Italy have all been on an emergency footing with fires and recorded deaths due to heatstroke. Northern Europe has also experienced temperatures normally associated with the Middle East, and a recent German Environment Ministry report estimated that the financial impact of drought, floods and extreme heat in the country had been EUR 145bn since 2000.

The Climate Emergency is a real and present danger. To combat this, the EU has committed to be climate neutral by 2050 - a central objective of the European Green Deal. Cities are in the front line of this transition, being the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide (more than 60% according to UN Habitat), consuming 78% of the world’s energy and being home to 65% of the EU’s population. Recognising this, the URBACT IV programme has Green Cities as one of its strategic priorities. But what will the transition to climate neutrality mean for jobs and skills as our economy makes this huge green shift in less than a generation?

What are green jobs?

The twin megatrends of green and digital will affect every industry sector, and every occupational skill level. The EU forecasts that a handful of carbon-intensive industries will disappear altogether by 2050. These include coal and lignite mining, together with their support services, as well as oil and gas extraction. The decline of these sectors is expected to remove 338 000 jobs, heavily clustered in specific regions. Although this pathway is now slightly less clear, as Member States stall on decommissioning these sectors in response to the energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, the overarching European Green Deal policy goal of climate neutrality remains intact.

Four other industry sectors - chemical manufacturing, non-metallic-mineral manufacturing, basic metal manufacture, and the automotive sector - are expected to be totally transformed, as their use of energy and materials is revolutionised. However, every industry sector is likely to be affected by the shift that’s already taking place. A very narrow definition of the ‘Green Economy’ suggests a relatively modest workforce of 4.5 million workers in the EU. But EU data shows that low carbon sectors - the fastest growing in the economy - already employ more than 70% of workers. As the concept of circularity is embedded across key, high-energy industry sectors like construction, which currently accounts for one third of all EU energy related emissions and over 35% of waste, this trend will continue, as will the demand for properly skilled workers at all skill levels.

What does this mean for skills in the city?

As Ed Glaeser, Harvard Economics professor and expert on cities, consistently points out, skills are a valuable commodity for every city. Successful cities are those that nurture, retain and attract talent. Organisations need skilled people, while workers need to refresh their skills continually to remain in demand in a competitive job market. Linked to this, the pace of change - driven by digital innovation and the need to reduce carbon emissions - is accelerating. At the same time, the OECD estimates that the declining demand for lower level skills will continue, driven by automation and other digital developments. All of this means that frequent upskilling will be required for workers to VILAWATT URBACT Network during a site visit to Viladecans. 
stay in touch with labour market developments.

That is potentially a growing problem for urban economies. For many, the profile is one of rising vacancies with residual pools of unemployment and economic inactivity. The recently refreshed EU Skills Agenda noted that 70 million EU adults lack basic numeracy, reading and digital skills. At the same time there is a wide - and potentially growing - skills gap as employers struggle to find staff with the right skillset.

However, recent research shows that higher skilled people are those most likely to participate in further training. Only one in five low skilled workers participates in upskilling, often through lack of funds, knowledge or time. So a major shift is required if we are to avoid a widening skills gap, with the risk of increased social polarisation.

Who’s most at risk of being left behind - and what are cities doing about it?

Just transition, a concept initially developed by trade unions in North America, means achieving climate neutrality without leaving any person or place behind. It is a central part of the European Green Deal. A recent report by Urban Innovative Actions (UIA), Skills for a Green Future, focused on the employment and skills dimension to the Just Transition, setting out the challenges cities face as well as the innovative approaches being developed in response. This identifies five specific groups at risk of being left behind as the economy transitions to climate neutrality:

• Vulnerable people already marginalised in the labour market
• The low-skilled
• Women, older people and youth
• Micro-businesses and the self-employed
• Workers in energy intensive and high-carbon emitting industries

At the recent URBACT City Festival 2022, Maarten van Kooij, Strategic Adviser to the City of Rotterdam, showed that Rotterdam (NL) workers already in precarious jobs and sectors face increasing risk as the economy transitions. The pandemic had exposed their situation, evidenced by the fact that 15 000 of the city's 43 000 self-employed workers required temporary income support during the crisis. With limited resources and minimal access to careers guidance and training, they remain poorly informed and ill-equipped for the shift that’s already happening. Rotterdam is designing new approaches to address this, including its innovative Work Learning Agreements.

Anamaria Vrabie, Director of the Urban Innovation Unit, echoed these points from the perspective of Cluj Napoca (RO). Although the city’s economy has been a big success story in the past decade, their work has identified significant risks due to high levels of automation, with implications for the lower-skilled in particular. Supported by its strong higher education offer, the growth of the creative and cultural industry sector has been part of the Cluj success story. However, the pandemic underlined the vulnerability of many workers in this sector, which is characterised by micro-businesses and the self-employed. The development of their so-called culturepreneur programme, designed to enhance the resilience of cultural and creative industries, has been a key innovation. Through its UIA project ‘Cluj Future of Work’, the city is also piloting innovative approaches to preparing one of Europe’s most vulnerable communities - the Roma - to improve their employability, through potential links to the circular economy.

Sonia Dominguez, Head of EU funds at  Viladecans (ES) showed how supporting micro-businesses has also been a priority, after the city identified them as being at risk. Public procurement has been a key driver in changing mindsets here, as has the city’s establishment of spaces, both digital and physical, to promote cross-sectoral collaboration. This has been particularly effective at facilitating dialogue between businesses in ‘old’ and ‘new’ sectors.

As the UIA report notes, the energy transition will also have implications for gender balance in the workforce, creating more jobs traditionally associated with men according to the International Labour Organisation. For example, in the renewable energy sector, where the number of jobs is forecast to jump from 10.3 million in 2017 to almost 29 million in 2050, only 32% of the current workforce are women. In response, Viladecans has targeted interventions towards women to raise their awareness of the employment shift that is taking place, and the opportunities and threats it brings. 

The link between the gender equality mission and the transition to climate neutrality is clear. So too is the need to combine the climate and social justice agendas effectively if cities are to achieve just transition, as Mathew Bach of ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability noted in the URBACT Festival session. This means informed investment and a drive to promote cross-departmental collaboration within administrations, as well as effective partnerships across the public, private and NGO sectors.

Where do we go from here?

The challenges ahead cannot be overstated. As the slogan says, “there is no planet B”, and cities must lead in implementing the transition to a climate neutral Europe. The front-runners are already showing the way, and initiatives like the EU’s Climate Neutral Cities Mission and Scalable Cities are setting the pace. But a mass movement is required to reach the goal of climate neutrality, with small and medium sized cities fully on board. Supporting all cities to make a successful transition requires everyone to raise their game.

A just, green transition also requires smart cooperation across traditional silos, informed by smart strategic investment. The URBACT IV programme, with its pillars of green, digital and gender-equal cities, anticipates these needs in cities, and will provide space for collaboration, peer-learning and capacity building. URBACT will also offer a platform to transfer experience and techniques in effective urban interventions, both through its own good practices and its ongoing cooperation with UIA and the future European Urban Initiative.

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The URBACT IV Programme (2021 -2027) will retain the principle that cities will be free to select their own network themes according to their needs and priorities. Nevertheless, it will also explicitly aim to build the awareness and capacity of all programme actors “to better include cross-cutting considerations such as digital, environment and gender equality” in their work and activities both at programme and network-level.

The New Leipzig Charter highlights three forms of the transformative city which can be harnessed in Europe to enhance people’s quality of life: the Just City, the Green City and the Productive City.

URBACT’s latest publication is packed with sustainable solutions to address these three dimensions – all tried, tested and transferred between EU cities, with adaptations for each local context.

To give a taste of the stories told in ‘Good Practice Transfer: Why not in my City?’, here are nine examples of local actions for Productive Cities. We hope towns and cities of all sizes will be inspired to ‘Understand, Adapt and Re-use’ participative solutions like this – from education and entrepreneurship to efficient governance and better use of urban spaces – improving everyday life for residents, and supporting a just transition to a green economy.

1. Give citizens a card for local services

2. Put residents’ wellbeing at the heart of urban regeneration

In a project to bring an old playing field back into use, Birmingham (UK) gave local people the power to drive improvements themselves, thanks to a Community Economic Development Planning model, mirroring successful approaches already used in Łódź (PL). Building on this positive start, residents went on to co-produce an alternative Community-Led Master Plan for the wider area — where all council plans had previously been opposed. Council-appointed community ‘ambassadors’ now work with local residents, businesses, service providers and volunteers with a direct stake in the area’s economic health. And the approach is being rolled out across other areas of the city. Birmingham is one of six cities to learn from Łódź’ collaborative model as part of the URBAN REGENERATION MIX network.

3. Create a digital business hub with a local twist 

The Greek city of Piraeus founded a new ‘Blue Lab’ near its harbour — the first Blue Economy Innovation Centre in Greece. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, Blue Lab welcomes students and entrepreneurs, providing business mentoring, tech and entrepreneurship training. It has boosted cooperation with businesses and schools, and sparked an array of prototype technology solutions. Piraeus’ further plans now include a new larger co-working space, training facilities to upskill the workforce, and investment in more advanced technologies. Piraeus is one of six URBACT Tech Revolution network partner cities to set up their own start-up support schemes based on the Digital Media Centre in Barnsley (UK), an URBACT-listed Good Practice that has become a successful hub for local creative and digital business.

4. Build local partnerships around education

5. Open a ‘living room’ for local clubs and residents

Idrija (SI) transformed an empty shop into a ‘living room’ for the town, with free activities run by, and for, local associations and inhabitants. City administrators, social services and economic departments, local clubs and active citizens, are all involved in the project, as well as the regional development agency, library and retirement home. As a result, the site has become a meeting place open to all, with events focusing on topics as diverse as housing refurbishment, chess, and knitting. It also hosts a municipality-supported free transport service for elderly people and a book corner run by the local library. Idrija’s solution was modelled on the ‘Stellwerk’ NGO platform launched in Altena (DE) as a solution to help manage the town’s long-term decline.

6. Turn unused buildings into homes

Chemnitz’s (DE) ‘Housing Agency for Shrinking Cities’ helps transform empty buildings into valuable housing while reducing speculation, channeling grant money, and cutting future costs for both the owners of decaying buildings and the municipality. Initiated and funded by the city authorities, the project is carried out in the public interest by a long-standing private partner. This model inspired Vilafranca del Penedès (ES), partner in the URBACT ALT/BAU network, to review its housing policies and look for private partners with the technical capacity and financial solvency to help the city recover abandoned housing units. As a result, Vilafranca has signed an agreement with a social foundation whose main objective is to identify, obtain and rehabilitate low-priced rental housing in collaboration with job agencies.

7. Launch a blue entrepreneurship competition (for cities near water!) 

8. Help city employees become innovators

9. Harness the power of public spending 

Koszalin (PL) analysed the city’s procurement spending and is using the resulting evidence to shape public procurement practices in order to benefit the local economy, while taking into account social and environmental factors. To do so, they used a spend analysis tool that was originally developed by Preston (UK) and transferred to six EU cities via the URBACT Making Spend Matter network. Koszalin also started working more closely with key ‘anchor institutions’ in the city, such as the hospital and university, exploring how much they spend, and where that money goes geographically. Meanwhile, they improved support for local SME participation in public procurement.

Find out more about these and many more sustainable city solutions – in the new URBACT publication ‘Good Practice Transfer: Why not in my City?’.

Visit the Good Practice database for more inspiration.

Last week, on the 9 March, URBACT's Monitoring Committee have approved five pilot networks to transfer innovative solutions. In 2020, the UIA first call projects came to a close and a proposal was made to test a new URBACT tool which aimed to support the transfer of innovation. The UIA Transfer Mechanism experiment will support a group of EU cities to understand, adapt and prepare to re-use the UIA practice through the co-creation of an investment plan. The 18-month journey of these networks builds on the success of the URBACT Transfer Networks model.

Following a competitive call, 7 pilot projects were submitted for approval. When considering all the 28 potential city partners, 6 candidates were URBACT newcomer cities from 5 different countries, while 16 cities were also newcomers to UIA. This shows what a unique opportunity this networks represented for cities discovering the universe of EU cooperation! As foreseen by the Terms of Reference, eligible proposals have been assessed by a two assesors from URBACT and UIA. Scroll down to find out more about the five newly approved networks.  

The URBACT Programme acknowledges and thanks every city that has submitted proposals and used the URBACT Marketplace for this call. URBACT also warmly welcomes the new UIA Transfer Mechanism partners, who will take their first steps in the kick-off meeting on 23 March.

*Bold letters used for UIA cities who will act as Lead Partner

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Interested in the findings of the URBACT Transfer Networks?
Check all related activities here!

Cities have been using agility, creativity and community spirit to respond to the challenges of Covid-19. Here, we share stories from some of URBACT’s smaller municipalities, where helping residents and businesses through the crisis goes hand-in-hand with sustainable integrated urban development.

With most of Europe’s urban population living in communities of under 100,000 inhabitants, these towns and cities are strongly represented in URBACT networks, some working alongside major metropolises. “If we want small cities to be resilient, they’re going to have to develop confidence and capacity – and that’s where URBACT comes in,” says Wessel Badenhorst, Lead Expert for the URBACT iPlace network. And what a year to put that resilience to the test.

Covid-19 challenges for small cities

Although small cities generally record lower infection rates than their bigger neighbours, the pandemic has exacerbated the economic challenges they were already facing. The burdens of empty town centres, lack of economic mobility, and isolated, ageing populations have worsened, while trading conditions for small and medium enterprises have also been hit by public health measures. Smaller cities whose economies rely predominantly on one activity such as tourism, hospitality, transport or logistics are particularly vulnerable.

To find out how smaller URBACT cities have been surviving Covid-19, we contacted council staff, elected representatives, local group leaders and urban experts in eight EU countries. We discovered significant variations in the impacts of the pandemic – and city reactions – not just due to infection rates, public health measures or budgets, but to a multitude of factors, from economic diversity and main industry to local politics, demographics and geographical location. Levels of digitalisation and integration of local services also affect how each city copes with the crisis.

Despite these differences, four key URBACT principles shine through cities’ Coronavirus responses.

1. Stakeholder and community engagement

Positive relations with citizens and stakeholders have been helping smaller municipalities coordinate responses – a factor strengthened by URBACT Local Groups (ULG). “On one side smaller cities have fewer resources to face this situation. But on the other side, since the community is not as big, it’s easier to get in touch with the stakeholders,” said Daniel Castejón Llorach, from Igualada (ES), whose pandemic experiences we share here.

Community actions have grown in 2020, boosting the “feeling of belonging to our town,” says Alicia Valle, City Council Manager, Viladecans (ES), a change she hopes will last. “Citizens’ solidarity was awakened and we showed the capacity to help and find solidarity with others in situations where we really needed each other.” Initiatives include volunteers supporting older residents, businesses donating equipment, and employment schemes for disinfecting playgrounds. In Fundão (PT), for example, the Professional School joined the Centre for Migration and 30 volunteers to produce masks using donated material.

Smaller councils say good relations with local businesses help provide information, connections and communications support. In the coastal university town of Halmstad (SE), Chief of Staff Anna Wallefors says this has supported “very agile” smaller manufacturers shifting to products such as PPE, hand gel – even Covid-themed t-shirts. Despite this, she says “we’ve been hit hard – it impacts everyone”; unemployment rose from 4-5% to 8-10%. In industrial Gabrovo (BG), where a strong manufacturing base means the economy is not slowing, the city tracked the health of 55 local companies in an online survey, anticipating future employment.

Halmstad is a port city on the Swedish coast with around 100,000 inhabitants – and member of OnBoard network.

Examples of sustainable community responses also include creative outdoor events and active travel in Mantua (IT). Meanwhile, a host of city-run websites linking consumers and producers look set to continue promoting local business while reducing carbon footprints. Medina del Campo’s (ES) eCommerce site ‘Medina Shopping’ has boomed during the pandemic. Viana do Castelo’s (PT) centralised platform ‘Viana Market’ features over 100 retailers, one of many Covid-19 initiatives developed with the agricultural cooperative, local business and digital economy groups.

UBRACT provides a structure and methodology for such stakeholder involvement. For example, in Viladecans, after initial lockdowns in the spring of 2020 the URBACT Local Group met online to plan a response to new education needs. As a result, ULG members – from schools, families, companies, universities and the city’s Educational Innovation Network – started to define an initiative to provide ICT training and support to teachers and families. Viladecans has inspired other cities in the URBACT OnBoard network to explore similar participative approaches. Schools in Halmstad now involve parents, businesses, sports clubs, something the city’s OnBoard coordinator Jonas Åberg says “normally wouldn’t happen at all”.

2. Cooperation across sectors and levels of government

The sort of close links that URBACT encourages between sectors and municipal departments, and with other bodies at local, regional and national levels, are vital to small city resilience. Anna Wallefors says strong cooperation is central to Halmstad’s response, with neighbouring municipalities, the healthcare system, and many local bodies. With just six municipalities in the region, and 10 000 municipal staff, “it’s easier to work together”. 

The regional hospital city of Viladecans relies on “good coordination with the sanitary facilities responsible for managing the pandemic,” says Alicia Valle. The council coordinated a transversal work group including a Viladecans City Council steering group and representatives from the hospital and five geriatric centres. “The evolution of the pandemic was monitored and solutions were sought in addition to sharing protocols and what messages should be spread among citizens.” A similar joint working group for school safety includes people from primary health care centres, the council’s Education department and school educational teams. 

Viladecans is a service-based town of around 67,000 residents located 15 km from Barcelona and is Lead Partner of OnBoard.

Meanwhile, in the agricultural Jelgava Local Municipality (LV), Deputy Head of Development Anita Škutāne says: “We use a cross-sectoral approach in our everyday life in the municipality as it proves that you can achieve the result easier and faster when many interested parties or stakeholders come together and look for solutions.” This has underpinned their response to the pandemic, with actions ranging from increased social support, food-package deliveries, and re-employment of cultural workers, to renovating public buildings and spaces while access is restricted.

3. Learning from other cities – URBACT transnational exchanges

“There’s one place where small European cities feel comfortable and where they can learn from each other – and that’s URBACT,” says URBACT Lead Expert Mireia Sanabria. “There are very few other programmes where they can be on a par with bigger cities.”

Most cities in URBACT networks have been able to stay connected during the pandemic, moving their meetings online. Spanning six countries, the URBACT Card4All network’s smart city project promoting digital ‘citizen cards’, is particularly timely. Caterina Fresu, Municipality of Sassari (Sardinia, IT) says her city’s online services are improving as a result: “Through the URBACT programme we had the opportunity to confront our colleagues in partner cities almost every week, sharing problems and solutions and finding common ground. Without this frequent sharing we would certainly have felt more alone in facing an unknown and unpredictable challenge.” Jurmala (LV), for example, shared how their municipality’s citizen card enabled a valuable analysis of public transport use during Covid-19. “Although still in an initial study phase, thanks to Card4all, during the lockdown important steps have been made in activating digital services for citizens in Sassari,” concludes Catarina Fresu.

“The most powerful thing is for people to stay together and overcome challenges together,” says Gabrovo municipality’s Desislava Koleva. With iPlace city partners, Gabrovo explored how to support vitality and re-open economies post-Covid. In Amarante (PT), iPlace project manager and InvestAmarante director Tiago Ferreira says: “Those discussions enriched all the participants. We felt lucky to have this opportunity to share ideas and access a network of support.” Amarante’s small size was “a big advantage” in terms of health. Tourists came back “very fast” in the summer and economic clusters such as metalwork, woodwork and construction remained open.

Amarante is a historic city of around 56,000 inhabitants in northern Portugal - and Lead Partner of iPlace.

URBACT’s transnational exchanges are also boosting resilience in Medina del Campo (ES). “Not only thanks to the experience and knowledge of partner cities – which is always helpful,” says ULG coordinator Juan González Pariente, “but thanks to networks with some of these cities which can help Medina to find new employment niches and resources.” For instance, URBACT CityCentreDoctor network led to synergies between Medina del Campo and Amarante’s wine industry, creating new economic opportunities and lasting support.

OnBoard partners agree. In Viladecans, Sara Cerezo, OnBoard project support, says: “Sharing experiences with URBACT partner cities has been truly useful and interesting. Each city had a different approach and different actions.” And for Jonas Åberg of Halmstad, “staying regularly in touch with the URBACT partners, sharing experiences and tips, in online meetings has been really helpful throughout the crisis.”

4. The power of integrated sustainable planning

URBACT improves cities’ capacities to build sustainable Integrated Action Plans (IAPs) – boosting resilience to face unexpected challenges (see Igualada, for example). While some smaller cities have accelerated these plans to strengthen their Coronavirus response, others have been less lucky. Hoogeveen (NL) was reviving its town centre with local stakeholders, thanks to an Integrated Action Plan built with the URBACT RetaiLink network (2016-2018). Without the funds – or political support – to accelerate the plan during Covid-19, branding and public space improvements were cut, and about 15 central retailers shut: 50 shops now stand empty.

But there are many positive stories: Vic (ES) accelerated municipal measures to promote health and wellbeing while supporting the local economy. This included the "Vic city 30" programme to calm traffic, set a 30km/h speed limit and promote sustainable alternatives like walking, cycling and public transport. The city now restricts motorised weekend traffic on main streets. “This measure responds to the need to be able to guarantee social distance, but also to the desire to move towards a more sustainable and healthy city, which gives priority to active travel,” says Marta Rofin Serra, architect in urban planning for Vic municipality, and URBACT Healthy Cities Project Coordinator. Vic has also extended and improved cycle lanes, and expanded pavements.

Meanwhile, Gabrovo “is very optimistic,” says Desislava Koleva. With 29% of residents over 65, one long-term strategy has been to attract younger people to the city – a trend that has accelerated during the pandemic. “Young people in Bulgaria, mostly living in Sofia, have been coming back to their native cities. Young families have started to buy houses in the villages surrounding Gabrovo. So we will need to build new infrastructure and attractions.” New to URBACT, Gabrovo is finding the iPlace network a particularly useful source of learning and benchmarking with other cities.

Gabrovo is an industrial town of around 62,000 people located near the Balkan Mountains in central Bulgaria - and member of the iPlace network.

Future hopes 

For many smaller cities, though times are tough, Covid-19 has sparked lasting positive change. “The bad outcomes of the pandemic will force everyone to change the way we work or we worked so far,” says Juan González Pariente in Medina. Sassari’s council has recognised the importance of digitisation, training, and distance-working technology. Caterina Fresu hopes that “the emergency may turn into an opportunity to start the transformation of Sassari into a Smart City.”

Cities have also seen the value of clean air and healthy lifestyles. “If there’s one good thing that has come out of the Covid crisis, it’s the environmental improvements such as reduced traffic, cleaner air,” says Mantua Deputy Mayor Adriana Nepote. “We need to be resilient not as individuals but as European citizens. We need to implement the idea of community and being more generous, and then we need to learn – this could be considered a great opportunity for all of us to implement and develop new ways of living.”

Overall, says URBACT Expert Mireia Sanabria: “Although it’s still too soon to prove just how instrumental URBACT has been, those cities that have been involved in URBACT projects, and have used the methodology and incorporated this way of working, have probably reacted better during the pandemic. If the public administration has these capacitated teams, if it has the flexibility and the technology to react in these situations, it makes a big difference.”

URBACT will continue to support cities of all sizes, working closely with the programme’s 23 Action Planning Networks over the next two years. Does your city have experiences to share? Let us know!

Further reading

Other Coronavirus-related articles include a snapshot of URBACT cities’ early reactions, as well as how urban poverty, gender equality, climate – and the new Leipzig Charter – have been impacted. We’ve shone light on improving resilience in tourist towns, visited a hard-hit Catalan city, and explored Covid-19 responses that support food solidarity and mental and physical wellbeing.

Cities are intervening in novel ways to support frontline health services, food supplies, the local economy and people’s mental well-being. Several are building directly on capacity built during their experiences in URBACT networks, showing that the programme’s principles of local stakeholder engagement and transnational exchange can support cities to achieve their objectives, even in times of crisis.

Volunteers in action in Altea (ES)

We asked some of our URBACT experts what examples of city responses had caught their attention. Read their thoughts, then check out the interactive map of other great city examples that the URBACT Programme is collecting from across Europe. More in-depth analysis will follow in the next few weeks so stay tuned!

Cities supporting front-line health workers

Cities are finding novel ways to support hospitals and health workers. “Right now, cities are throwing everything at the short-term problem,” stresses Eddy Adams. “That means supporting the medics, like in Pireaus (EL), whose Blue Lab has repurposed 3D printers to make protective faceshields for health staff.” This initiative builds on the experience of the city in supporting local innovation through the ‘BlueGrowth’ competition, recognised by URBACT as a good practice in 2017 and currently the focus of the URBACT Transfer Network BluAct.

Meanwhile, in Hungary, Ivan Tosics highlights that “despite the increasing centralisation of government in recent years and severely restricted local budgets, the city of Budapest (HU) has reacted by ordering medical instruments from abroad and is distributing these to health institutions, homeless shelters and elderly homes. The city also signed agreements with private health institutions to test employees in key professions for the functioning of the capital.”

Cities supporting the local economy

Given the impact of lockdown policies on people’s economic activities, many urban authorities have swiftly introduced measures to freeze rents and business taxes, and are helping local companies to access support. Ivan Tosics flags that Budapest has “increased the wages of employees of municipality-owned enterprises and introduced a moratorium on rent payments for small and micro enterprises which rent space from the municipality. The local authority has also offered free signs to shops in the city to call attention to the right distance to maintain between customers.”

Many cities are looking at opportunities to extend their digital service provision, including to local companies who cannot access traditional support in the current circumstances. Long before the Covid-19 pandemic, the URBACT network TechTown was stressing the importance of the digital economy and its Lead Partner Barnsley’s (UK) Digital Media Centre was identified as an URBACT Good Practice - going on to form the basis of the current URBACT Transfer Network TechRevolution.

Sally Kneeshaw has seen how the city has built on these experiences to step up its response to the current crisis: “Barnsley’s Digital Media Centre last week pivoted to virtual delivery to support businesses with chat and call centres, and made a commitment to bankroll the Government's grant scheme for those in the most impacted sectors of retail, leisure and hospitality.” The platform is also providing tips and guidance for more secure remote working.

Supporting the local economy also means supporting families most affected by job losses and loss of income. Whilst many national unemployment schemes are being adapted in response to the specific current challenges, Laura Colini highlights that exchanges within URBACT’s Volunteering Cities network have also included “brewing ideas and exchanging practices on the involvement of local companies or individuals in offering products or financial aid to families in need”.

Cities ensuring local food supplies

Many European citizens are concerned about ongoing supplies of food as production and distribution systems come under strain from threats to workers’ health and restrictions on movement. The URBACT network AGRI-URBAN was addressing ways of improving local food supply in urban areas back in 2016. The AGRI-URBAN partner city, Mouans-Sartoux (FR) saw its collective school catering recognised as an URBACT good practice in 2017 and became the Lead Partner of the Transfer Network BioCanteens in 2018.

Marcelline Bonneau has kept in touch with their response to the current crisis: “The municipal farm - initially producing organic fruit and vegetables for three school canteens providing a thousand lunches per day - has diversified its distribution channels to meet broader needs and protect jobs. A part still goes to the canteens providing food for the few dozen children of health workers and municipal agents who can still access school, a part is processed and frozen, and another part goes to the social grocery of the city.”

The municipal authorities are already thinking about how to respond to the ongoing food supply challenges. “Soon-to-come lettuces, which cannot be frozen, will probably be given to the neighbouring hospital in Grasse,” continues Ms Bonneau. Meanwhile; the city is exploring ways “to increase production in the next plantation schemes in order to anticipate potential issues in conventional food supply chains” in the near future.

Eddy Adams observes that ‘cities are throwing everything at their short-term problems’. In Vic (ES), this “means supporting communities.Lead Partner of the new URBACT network Healthy Cities is mobilising closed food-market vendors to feed isolated vulnerable individuals”. Such targeted approaches can be crucial for bridging the gap between supply and demand in the context of a lockdown.

Mouans-Sartoux’s municipal farm (FR)

Cities supporting education and mental well-being

National education systems are struggling to rapidly adapt to the situation of students' confinement. Mirella Sanabria, Lead Expert the URBACT Transfer Network On Board tells us: “This is keeping some of our partners - in particular in big cities - busy and stressed. On the positive side, however, some local initiatives are putting into practice innovation related to the use of digital tools in education projects, which is a central aspect of the Educational Innovation Network that On Board is working to transfer.”

For example, the On Board Lead Partner Viladecans (ES) has developed a dedicated School at Home! webpage which provides new creative and educational activities for children and families every day. Meanwhile, in the partner city of Halmstad (SE), a vocational school is now teaching cooking classes online. The municipality delivers grocery baskets to the students who prepare the meals, which are then supplied to people in particular need.

Beyond education, Sally Kneeshaw is keen to highlight that “We are all learning, if we didn’t already know, how much we need culture to sustain us. I love that the librarians of the Tallinn Central Library are reading books on request via Skype or phone for children at home. Meanwhile, Zaragoza (ES) has launched a photography competition #DesdeMiVentana (From my window) open to people aged between 12 and 30, targeting young people who find it the hardest to stay indoors.”

Marcelline Bonneau flags a different example from the city of Mollet del Vallès (ES) which “has created a Leisure at home programme proposing leisure activities to its citizens who are totally prevented from leaving their home without good reason. Launched on Friday 27 March, anyone interested can enjoy a selection of proposed activities alone or in the family. These range from physical classes to memory exercises and from cooking to robotics. The platform is updated and expanded regularly.”

Laura Colini also highlights the work that the URBACT Transfer Network ON STAGE - working on introducing new curricula in schools based on music and arts - is doing in “keeping people together through music. They recently shared a video performance of young students from the school #ZsOsmec from the partner city of Brno (CZ)”. Such initiatives are a reminder of the importance of keeping our spirits high in these challenging times.

Don’t forget to check out the interactive map of other great city examples that the URBACT Programme is collecting from across Europe.

Have you seen another city response that has inspired you? Help us to share it by tagging @URBACT in a tweet or sending it directly to communication@urbact.eu

From organic school gardens and innovative teaching methods, to community courses and better links with families, health specialists or local businesses, URBACT is improving kids’ chances with innovative approaches to education.

Education is central to sustainable urban futures. Whether it’s to fight inequality and social exclusion, boost a town’s attractiveness, or help young people protect the environment, its vital role in building better cities is reflected in many URBACT networks past and present.

Let’s take a look at what some of these cities are doing…

The city as an orchestrator

Why are city authorities well placed to improve education policy? “Because the municipality has proximity to the citizens,” says Mireia Sanabria, Lead Expert for the URBACT transfer network ON BOARD – Connecting cities through education. “They can directly understand, visit, dialogue with communities to know their specific needs. And they have a brokerage role.”

As well as providing technical or financial support, space and equipment, cities can coordinate groups of local education stakeholders – schools, families, companies, associations, researchers, municipal departments and higher government. One example is Viladecans (ES), whose Education Innovation Network (EIN) approach is being adopted by five ON BOARD partner cities. This partnership inspired Nantes (FR) and Albergaria-a-Velha (PT) to develop new student wellbeing initiatives to improve academic results through happy, engaged learning. “We can provide schools with help, resources, and protection so they can dare to do things differently,” adds Sanabria.

Social inclusion and children’s rights

Laura Colini, Programme Expert for URBACT, points out that while the European Pillar of Social Rights states that everyone has the right to affordable early childhood education and good quality care, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union recognises education as a right, opportunities for children vary enormously across the EU – and from one city neighbourhood to another.

“Recent estimates show under 17s to be the most vulnerable to risks of poverty, particularly children from ethnic minorities or with migrant backgrounds. In 2018, 20 000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum in Europe in 2018, 40% of them in Germany and Italy,” says Colini. “This is why, the way the education system handles inequalities in family backgrounds can have an enormous impact, due to the crucial years pupils spend in schools.”

“The question of children and education should be treated with a holistic perspective, involving families and schools,” Fintan Farrel, Director of the European Anti-Poverty Network, said in an interview for the EU Urban Agenda poverty partnership (Colini & Tosics 2017).

This is just the sort of integrated approach that URBACT champions. During the URBACT StayTuned network, for example, the Ampelokipi - Menemeni municipality in Thessaloniki (EL) formed a strong team that works closely with school directors and local Roma people, deepening the administration’s understanding of Early Leaving from Education and Training. This led the municipality to adapt its courses, information and support to the needs of Roma children and parents, both in schools and in a new easily-accessible Community Centre. “Through the collaboration and exchange of experience with partners, the way the municipality understands its problem and role, as well as the methodology for managing challenges in the field of education and training, has changed,” says Magdalini Rousseti, Ampelokipi – Menemeni’s Director of Social Policy, Education, Sports & Culture.

As for Groningen (NL), with an aging population and jobs to fill, the city teamed up with its universities, academic hospital, citizens, employers and cultural institutions, to help international students and professionals “come, stay and be active”. Six medium-sized cities are now learning from this experience in the URBACT Welcoming International Talent network, including Bielsko-Biala (PL) who were recently inspired to open their own “Centre for Integration of Foreigners” MyBB.

Macerata (IT), won an URBACT Good Practice label in 2017 for its co-regeneration of urban green spaces around inclusion and children’s education. The Pace neighborhood green space has since become a place for meeting, education and social inclusion for the whole community – grandparents, parents, teenagers and children. The Les Friches NGO behind the scheme says, “Our participatory action has given positive effects. There’s now a new and integrated community that lives in the common space.”

Of URBACT’s many networks set up to help cities fight exclusion, here are just three more examples linked with education: Prevent – “Involving parents in the prevention of early school leaving”; ONSTAGE – “Music schools for social change”; and Rumorless cities – “Prevent discrimination, strengthen cohesion”, led Amadora (PT), where cities work with art and theatre to prevent discrimination and rumours against children with migrant backgrounds.

Methodology and tools for better learning

URBACT not only helps cities solve urban problems by strengthening cross-sector participation locally while learning from peers across the EU – it also brings municipalities new skills and methodologies. For some networks this is the main focus. The URBACT Playful Paradigm network for example, seeks new ways to engage stakeholders better in urban development. The eight partner cities use games to promote “social inclusion, healthy lifestyles and energy awareness, intergenerational and cultural mediation, place-making and economic prosperity”. Klaipėda City Public Health Bureau (LT), wants to work with more schools to introduce more playful, physical activities for schoolchildren, adapting techniques from their EU partners. “The network is a good framework to generate new ideas, spread the good practice,” says Laura Kubiliutė, Head of Klaipėda’s public health monitoring and projects department. One such idea is a playful Wednesday afternoon for young and elderly people at the county library, with quizzes and board games, helping strengthen links between generations, tackle loneliness, and foster social inclusion.

Small-but-powerful responsible citizens

“Working with schools is fundamental to collectively learn about rights and values in social, environmental and economic terms, because through schools one can reach out not only children but parents, families, the wider community, also those that are not active in civil society,” says Laura Colini.

Torres Vedras (PT), is a good example here. They have a rapidly expanding sustainable food school programme with 11 school organic gardens growing tomatoes, beans, peppers and other fruit and veg. Children already learn about food production, seasonality – and identifying the organic food label in shops. Still, the URBACT BioCanteens network has brought new ideas, including “freshness” criteria to improve public procurement for suppliers, and Mouans-Sartoux’s (FR) food-waste reduction scheme that covers extra costs of healthy, organic school meals. “For us it was: ‘wow!’, a very great idea, because we’d never thought about this before!” says Paula Rodrigues, Responsible for managing biocanteens and school gardens for the municipality.

Torres Vedras launched a pilot project in a school whose vegetable patch is the size of 10 parking spaces, and World Food Day celebrations last a whole month. Here, having followed the food from planting to harvesting and delivery to the school kitchens, 150 six-to-ten year-olds are now learning to reduce food waste and weigh their leftovers so menus can be adapted. For Rodrigues, their new understanding of food waste is the “golden key to close the cycle”. The city will expand the scheme to nine more schools this year to reach a total of 1200 children.

Why are children good ambassadors for a sustainable future? “Because they are the future!” says Rodrigues.

There are many more stories of cities that have developed innovative, sustainable solutions involving education and children:

• Mouans-Sartoux (FR) and Fundao (PT) promote local organic food.
• Bielefeld (DE) launched school campaigns for walking and cycling.
• URBACT Tropa Verde network is all about reuse and recycling, with some educational workshops and links with schools 
• URBACT BeePathNet network partners, believing that “to green your city, start by educating the children”, run children’s workshops and outdoor activities as part of their holistic approach to urban beekeeping. Read all about it in their “bees and education” themed newsletter.
• Ghent (BE): we don’t want a separate Children’s City
• Opening up the streets to play
• Child Friendly City – A city for all

Read more on URBACT and Education : https://urbact.eu/education

The second URBACT City Lab took place in Brussels (BE) on 2nd and 3rd July 2019: “How are cities putting sustainable urban development into practice?” wa

1. Sustainability is polysemic

Angeliki Stogia, Councilor at the City of Manchester (UK) asked us: “what do you, what do we, actually mean by sustainability?”. Although its official definition from the 1992 Brundtland Report is unambiguous, but, what does it mean and how should cities approach it? The realm of participants showed a variety of understandings. For example, for Filipa Pimentel from the Transition network it is for society to become more resilient, which in turn would make our ecosystems more resilient. From a people-based approach, to a planning-based one, focusing on regeneration (or the inclusion of environment in local policies) can only bring in consensus and a chance for all stakeholders to adjust their visions and priorities.

2. Sustainability should be tackled at all levels

Our discussions started with Thomas Béthune from DG REGIO, European Commission, stating his needs to be in touch with cities themselves to feed sustainability into European policies. They were wrapped up by Filipa Pimental who expressed the leadership of citizens who become actors of change. In between the two, the Leipzig Charter is focusing on neighbourhoods and Alicja Pawlowska, Head of EU projects and mobility management at the City of Gdynia (PL) stressed the importance of this in their daily work. Cities are where changes take place and these considerations stress the need for territorial and contextual approaches. This would be impossible without the collaboration and inputs from member states, as Olli Maijala, Adviser at Finnish Ministry of the Environment suggested.

3. Sustainability requires a new mindset

Experimenting in cities is not new, yet they need to keep on being innovative, combining social and technological innovation (e.g. Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) Vilawatt project in Viladecans (ES), developing market-based instruments (e.g. Stockholm’s successful congestion charges), in addition to nature-based solutions (e.g. Chinese sponge cities, which mainstream urban water management into the urban planning policies and designs), and consumption-based approaches (e.g. URBACT BioCanteens network) and to focus on processes.

Increasingly, cities need to change their vision, and to think out of the box and take risks. The inner change needs to look beyond traditional city-makers, including other profiles such as psychologists (as strongly supported by the Transition network and already tested in Gdansk (PL).

4. Sustainability applies to all

Sustainability applies to jobs and skills creation such as a Food Innovation Hub in Milan (IT) within the UIA OpenAgri project, as well as to the city of Gdynia seeking to make freight transport more effective in cities within URBACT FreightTails. Not to mention the H2020 Ruggedised where Rotterdam (NL) experiments smart city developments.

Mobility. Energy. Food. Air quality. Digitalisation. Health and well-being. Urban planning. Sustainability should be a transversal approach, and “business as usual” as Angeliki Stogia phrased it. In order to support this process, city governance should be rethought to be bold and to be participatory, with citizen scrutiny.

New forms of involvement and partnerships should be promoted as with the engagement of citizens in air quality control within Helsinki’s (FI) UIA Hope project; the public-private-citizen partnership for energy production in Viladecans’ UIA Vilawatt project; or the use of culture and arts to mobilise citizens to address climate change in the URBACT C-Change network.

Sustainability also requires cross-departmental collaboration such as in the City of Schaerbeek (BE) cross-cutting solutions which tackle social environmental and neighborhood issues within an action-research project on organic waste transformation, Phosphore.

5. Sustainability requires strong leadership

Leadership for sustainability can happen at all levels of cities. Angeliki Stogia from Manchester, Gilles Perole from Mouans-Sartoux (FR) (lead partner of BioCanteens) and Laura Rodrigues from Torres Verdas (PT) (2015 Green Leaf Capital City) are the elected representatives who took part in this second URBACT City Lab, confirming their city’s commitment to this challenge. This is just the beginning of a global movement of awareness and action towards more sustainability in cities.

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Read on the first City Lab: URBACT’s City Labs on Participation: Refreshing Europe’s urban policy principles

The key principles of the original Leipzig Charter provided the focus for each URBACT City Lab.

Explore the related outputs on Participation, Sustainability, Integration and Balanced Territorial Development.