Networks and cities' news

Play and Placemaking – a perfect match for great public spaces

This article addresses two questions:

How can we work together in communities to make better public spaces?

How can play be used to create the momentum and focus for placemaking?

The article follows on from an online transnational meeting held on 11 February 2022 where play and placemaking were explored by partners in the Playful Paradigm Second Wave Project.

By Wessel Badenhorst

URBACT Ad Hoc Expert

April 2022

Minibus of Joy in Grosuplje

On Saturday, 12th of March Minibus of Joy visited the Municipality of Grosuplje for the first time.

Accommodating and integrating refugees in the city of Thessaloniki: the multi-stakeholder programme REACT

Thessaloniki has been at the forefront of the management crisis of refugee flows. The city launched its emergency response in 2015, just before the closure of the Balkan Route and the EU-Turkey common statement of March 2016. In 2016, three times more people applied for asylum in Greece than the year before, with 51,092 asylum applications, compared with 13,195 in 2015. And as the ‘temporariness’ of the transit refugee population has evolved to become semi-temporary to potentially permanent, a strategic urban response has been all the more essential. With this in mind, the Municipality of Thessaloniki, with support from the URBACT network Arrival Cities, is drafting an Integrated Action Plan (IAP) to provide a holistic inclusion and integration strategy coordinating key state and non-state actors. As a partner in Arrival Cities, Thessaloniki formed an URBACT Local Group, which helped to create a multi-stakeholder consortium for the REACT programme. This type of consortium for managing refugee integration is a first in Greece, and has been considered as best practice by the UN refugee agency UNHCR.

REACT programme and the role of the URBACT local group

France’s ÉcoQuartier label, an initiative to support communities for sustainable city planning

The concept of “écoquartier” - the term is a contraction of the two French words “quartier” and “écologique” (ecological neighbourhood) - was inspired by Northern European countries experiences of eco-districts.

By creating a Label, delivered in four stages and according to urban sustainable development criteria, the French State wanted to push the approach one step further. The approach was successful in France, now also opened to other neighbourhoods and cities throughout the world.

Eco-districts: historical background of the concept and first projects in Europe

Cities and digitalisation: “Adapt or die”

How can cities benefit from digitalisation?  With dramatic headlines about jobs being destroyed by digitalisation, and many policy makers resisting change, Alison Partridge argues that the 4th industrial revolution, and industry 4.0, are best seen as an opportunity, not a threat, for Europe's towns and cities.

First, some definitions…

For many this is a complex, unfamiliar and somewhat bewildering landscape. So here are a few explanations of key terms before delving deeper.

Social enterprise might just be the Robin Hood we need right now

By Alicia Clyde and Ann Hyde

The legend of Robin Hood is world-renowned and has been at the centre of many Hollywood films.  The romantic idea that he stole from the rich to give to the poor has remained a consistent part of his story.  However, history books have always struggled to pin the truth of this legend down to one man doing good for the poor.