Networks and cities' news

The ON BOARD celebrates its last Transnational Meeting

The last 16th, 18th and 25th of February, the ON BOARD project celebrated the 6th Transnational Meeting. The meeting, which was online, was hosted this time by the city of Nantes.

KAIRÓS Thematic Workshop on Economy – Heritage as a driver for innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation

The second out of four thematic KAIRÓS workshops took place on 19 and 20 May and centred around the concept of ‘Heritage as a driver for innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation’. The event was hosted by our partner, the Municipality of Šibenik in Croatia, and moderated by the ad-hoc expert Wessel Badenhorst (Director at Urban Mode Ltd), Anke van Wijck (KAIRÓS project coordinator at Mula City Council) and Miguel Rivas (KAIRÓS URBACT lead expert).

Barcelona Metropolitan Area

The Barcelona Metropolitan Area, Lead Partner of the RiConnect network, is developing a forward-thinking vision for a more equal and sustainable metropolis. To do so, acting in mobility infrastructure is key, and RiConnect is part of such efforts.

Transport for Greater Manchester

Our partner Transport for Greater Manchester is preparing a set of specific strategies to rethink mobility and street space, and RiConnect will be a valuable forum to enrich the discussion

Breda is becoming a city in the park by 2030: this is how!

Breda (NL) wants to be the first European city in 2030 to be a city in a park. However, in order to realize this ambition, concrete measures will have to be taken. These can be read in the new ‘Groenkompas’ (Green Compass). It explains, among other things, how streets must always be ten percent greener when renovating, how at least 20 percent of the new neighborhood must be public green in the case of new construction and which new parks Breda will become richer in the coming years.

Quality Brands and Sustainable Food Systems

In April 1957, the BBC broadcasted a short report showing a Swiss family harvesting their spaghetti crop from the family tree. Numerous viewers called the station after the coverage, interested in acquiring their trees. This anecdote, recounted by Carolyn Steel in her revealing essay "Hungry City," reflects the tremendous disconnect that was already beginning to develop between consumers and food production.

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BBC, Panorama (1957)

In recent decades, different individual and collective, public and private, urban and rural initiatives have been promoting the recovery of this lost relationship and re-localizing production under integrated sustainability criteria. Cities and rural territories in the EU are an active part of this process, often around quality brands, considered instruments capable of generating added value and gaining a position in the global market.

In practice, we sometimes find an oversaturated environment of brands that coexist with hardly any articulation between them or any net generation of positive impacts. A reflection on their performance and evaluation seems timely to contribute to the effective development of sustainable food systems.