Networks and cities' news

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.

A Million Food Stories , by CIM Região de Coimbra

Food and its entire cycle - from breeding, to cultivation, to production, to cooking, to the table - reflect the cultural experiences and food heritage of a people and its territory. The Coimbra Region is characterised by natural and landscape diversity, the result of physical, biological and historical-cultural influences that have interacted and still interact here, designing the identity of the territory in its various aspects

One of the basic objectives of the Coimbra Region Intermunicipal Community is to optimise the sustainable development of tourism and the economic activities related to this sector by strengthening and integrating the existing resources and structures in a more organised and integrated way, encouraging and acting towards integrated planning, the creation and promotion of inter-municipal projects which unify the offer and image of the region as a quality destination to live or visit.

Basically, in the Coimbra Region we see gastronomy not just as a culinary art, but as an area of knowledge, with the potential to bring together the local dynamic, involving producers, consumers, professionals, students, amateurs and ... tourists!

Financing the Urban Commons. Part I

How can urban commons be financed? The Civic eState team explores social impact finance and financial investment with Eutropian, the European Investment Bank and the Trias Foundation

Think Globally, Act Locally

Pilot Action Programmes were commissioned for the first time by URBACT to engage citizens in the project theme. The pilot action programme aim for C-Change was to support understanding and action on climate change in the arts and culture sector in our city. Here we hear from one of Manchester's projects that benefitted from the funding - the People's History Museum.