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Who is the remote worker?

This Playbook entry is part of the Remote-IT Playbook series, developed within the URBACT Remote-IT Action Planning Network (Entry 1 of 16).

Remote work is no longer a niche privilege for a small group of professionals. It has become a structural feature of European labour markets and of how people choose where to live, work, and raise families. For cities, this shift is not only about broadband and coworking spaces; it is fundamentally about people, a growing and increasingly diverse population of residents, commuters, visitors and temporary locals who work remotely.

We drew on European data and research, but as well on the experience of the eight cities in the Remote-IT network - Dubrovnik, Brindisi, Bucharest District 6, Câmara de Lobos, Heraklion, Murcia, Tartu and Tirana - which have spent the last 2.5 years experimenting with policies and pilot actions around remote and hybrid work.

Surfing the Wave of Digitalisation

How to tackle digital exclusion at local level

It is well known that water and electronics don’t mix. So why are we talking about surfing and digital in the same sentence? Surely that sounds like a bad idea..?!

Ride the wave with me for a few minutes and I will explain…

Over the last 2.5 years, the Digi-inclusion network, a group of nine cities and other authorities and agencies, have been working to answer the question of how we tackle the digital divide at local level. One of the most important things to come from this network, was a new way of looking at the digital divide at local level. This starts with the concept of “The Wave of Digitalisation”. 

“What is that and how does it help the digital divide?” you might ask. It’s a good question. 

Please don’t stop the music! How Cities After Dark is keeping the lights on the night

Pula: Turning a Closed Place into an Open Future

C4TALENT concludes in Pula.

Alytus: From Concept to Commitment

C4TALENT concludes in Alytus.

One Health 4 Cities turned a concept into a city-making transformation approach

“When you see the city through the One Health lens, it is difficult to unsee it.”

When the One Health 4 Cities network was established, the concept of One Health for cities held different meanings across Europe.

In Lyon, the Lead Partner, the vision was already clear: cities needed to move beyond reacting to health and environmental crises and start planning preventively, using One Health as a framework that connects human health, animal health, plant health and environmental health. What Lyon lacked were concrete urban case studies, tools and tested ways to embed One Health into strategies, policies, and projects.

Across the rest of the network, Munich, the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, Benissa, Loulé, Kuopio, Lahti, Suceava, and Elefsina, the starting points varied widely. Some cities were already working on health, nature, or climate, but far from combining all the One Health domains. Others were encountering One Health for the first time, trying to understand how a concept often used in global health or veterinary science could apply to urban development, urban planning, school programmes, active ageing and other city priorities.

Departments were siloed. Languages differed. Expectations were uneven. And progress, at first, was slow. Now, almost three years later, One Health is no longer an abstract idea for these cities. It has become a shared planning lens, a common language, and most importantly, a practical way to design healthier, more resilient cities.