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Check URBACT's latest stories, updates and events!

 

  • A group of people posing for a photo, waving and smiling

    It’s a wrap-up! GreenPlace cities are now on track to revitalising and green their forgotten and unused places!

    After 2.5 years of the URBACT GreenPlace network, the journey now comes to an end. Project partners got to learn from each other on practices that they implement locally covering the themes of circularity, culture and nature-based solutions. They also exchanged about their governance models the ways to engage local communities  activities. Throughout the URBACT methodology they learnt to identify their challenges, develop common visions, define an intervention logic, test some activities and publish an Integrated Action Plan (IAPs). This latter now forms the basis for the on-going and future work of the GreenPlace partner cities!
     
    What have been the main outcomes of the GreenPlace journey? Here is what they shared during a last in-person meeting in Limerick late September 2025.

     

    Marcelline Bonneau

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  • Opening the Door to Talent: What Ten Cities Decided to Do Differently

    Final Network Article by Lead Expert Béla Kézy


    Zoltán Szenes

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  • A Water Museum for Elche: a journey through the Memory of Water

    The City of Elche unveils a new cultural space dedicated to its valuable hydraulic heritage promoting citizen engagement with it.

    Christos Giovanopoulos

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  • Agents of CoExistence: final network report

    Across Europe, cities are searching for new ways to strengthen the relationship between public
    institutions and the citizens they serve. Local governments face growing expectations for
    transparency, inclusion, and responsiveness, while at the same time dealing with complex societal
    challenges, increasing polarization, and rapidly changing technologies. Many traditional approaches to
    citizen participation no longer meet the needs of contemporary urban societies.
    The Agents of Co-Existence (AoCE) Network was created in response to this changing democratic
    landscape. Supported by the URBACT IV program, the network brought together nine partner cities
    from across Europe to explore one central question:
    How can local governments organize themselves to work more effectively, creatively, and
    meaningfully with their citizens?

    Yasemin Yilmaz

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  • fieldtrip Genk

    Rebuilding Democracy from the Inside Out with the Agents of Co-Existence

    Picture this: On a Tuesday evening in Aarhus, a group of residents sit around a table with a
    local politician. There is no raised platform, no official speeches, no formal agenda handed
    down from city hall. The topics have been chosen by the citizens themselves. The discussion
    is guided not by a civil servant, but by a neighbour — trained together with municipal staff
    as a “Democracy Host”.

    Yasemin Yilmaz

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  • A conference participants posing for the picture in front of GreenPlace backdrop.

    GreenPlace in Wrocław: Two and a Half Years of Co-Creation

    Over the past two and a half years, the City of Wrocław, through the Division of Civic Participation, has been implementing the GreenPlace project within the URBACT programme, focusing on the transformation of the former Popowice tram depot into a vibrant, green and inclusive place for the city. A key element of this process was the work of the URBACT Local Group (ULG) GreenPlace in Wrocław, which brought together representatives of the municipality, municipal units, experts, NGOs, local activists, cultural operators and residents, united by a shared vision for the future of this unique site.

    Joanna Gańcza-Pawełczyk

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