Networks and cities' news

Modena and its ZCC participatory process

2021 represents an important year for the City of Modena when the EU project URBACT ZCC participatory process has come to its full implementation.

In fact, despite the Covid-19 emergency that has not allowed mostly in presence initiatives, the 2021 has been characterised by:

- 6 ULG local meetings (from February to December 2021), most of them held online, adding up to the 3 ULGs of the end of 2020 (from September to November 2020);

- the finalisation of the local pilot action, with the involvement of high school and university students which resulted in the Climate-KIC Climathon initiative “Smuoviamo I Torrazzi! / Let’s move Torrazzi”, a competition on sustainable mobility.

Experimenting with public space in the inner city – the Summer Street in Turku

Turku is home to 193,200 inhabitants and is Finland’s third largest city. It is located at the Baltic Sea and is well connected in the Baltic regions to the surrounding countries. Its inner city got rebuilt after the Great Fire of Turku in 1827 and is today structured in rectangular blocks with wide avenues as the central access routes. Central elements of the city centre are the river Aura running at the southern edge and seven hills, both forming the centre’s topography. Historically, green spaces have been concentrated on the hills resulting steep green parks and less green structures in the more level parts of the inner city. Public space alongside the river Aura got revamped to a kilometres long stretch of high quality pubic space including a national park in the last decades.

Turku works on further improving its city centre to an attractive location for living, working, shopping and leisure. One question is how to deal with the streetscape in the centre which it today holding sufficient space for pedestrians, but concentrates providing space for cars and other motorised vehicles. Turku used the opportunity Space4People holds to experiment with a different set of street use showcasing to residents, shopkeepers, gastronomy and visitors how their streets could look like.

Rethinking Milan’s approach to food waste

While designing its policy, the city of Milan has set up a comprehensive approach to reduce food waste while achieving multiple co-benefits. This article deepen the issue of food waste al local level analysing actors and practices.

Food Policies at EU level: sharing experiences and approaches

The setting up of food policies at European level is a very important process toward the achievement of sustainaibility goals at local and global level. There are some recent and effective experiences that are driving the changes in the food system. Let's see how they works and the cities involved.

Agricultural policy framework in Milan: the AQST example

The NextAgri project is starting from the Milan experience on UIA "Open Agri" project. Even though there are some important background conditions and frameworks that will help this new project to be innovative and deep rooted in the local context. 

Stara Zagora: new ideas to improve the local food system

Stara Zagora Municipality is trying to design new actions in the field of food and agriculture, in order to be more sustainable and to achieve important development goals. In this second next Agri meeting new partners and ideas have been presented and shared experiences and knowledge.