Networks and cities' news

Lessons from Tallin on spatial planning

Tartu aims at completing an Integrated Action Plan that will set very certain next steps for their newest department at Tartu City Government – the Spatial Planning Department. Tallinn, our capital, has recently established a very similar new department and in order to initiate good future cooperation we decided to give them a visit.

Looking for just societies through volunteering!

Cities that face currently emerging multidimensional social needs such as elderly and children care, social isolation and depression, unemployment and poverty, just to name some, need to develop innovative policies through the creation of collective learning processes based on exchange and peer-to-peer learning. This is the policy change Volunteering Cities+ network is developing supported by the URBACT methodology!

USE-IT: a new and innovative approach to regeneration

Over the course of the last 30 years, cities across Europe have adopted a relatively orthodox approach to regeneration. By developing their city centres physically and by seeking to attract inward investment, cities have assumed that the benefit of such activities will ‘trickle-down’ to neighbourhoods and communities and will contribute towards addressing local economic, social and environmental challenges. However, this approach has not always worked – whilst city economies have continued to grow in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) terms, levels of inequality within cities have increased, and poverty has also continued to grow. This is not what regeneration should be about.

In 2016, the City of Birmingham (UK) started to think differently to the orthodox approach outlined above and inspired by a desire to change Birmingham’s approach to regeneration and make it more innovative, a small number of individuals came together to develop a successful bid for Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) funding, through a project called USE-IT!. To understand more about USE-IT! and its aims, activities, and impacts, I spoke to some of these key individuals. I also wanted to understand the scope for transfer of USE-IT! to 3 other cities over the coming 18 months as part of the URBACT/UIA USE-IT! Transfer Mechanism (USE-IT! UTM).

In Swedish: Gävle is developing urban sustainability

Nätverket Global Goals for Cities arbetar med Agenda 2030 och de globala målen. Gävle kommun ska tillsammans med 18 andra städer i nätverket under kommande två år skapa och dela kunskap för att utveckla den urbana hållbarheten.

Public participation plan in Santa Pola

Santa Pola Town Council is part of the URBACT Health & GreenSpace initiative and manages to initiate the Public Participation Plan on the landscape study of the future Municipal Natural Park of the Mountain Chain and Cape of Santa Pola.

Suceava news and lessons from Sibiu

Fall news from Suceava