Accessible and Inclusive Public Spaces: Foundations for Thriving Communities
Public spaces are the core of urban community life, offering people a place to observe each other, connect, and share goals, needs, and stories. When designed with human diversity in mind, these spaces have the transformative potential to foster social cohesion, enhance quality of life, and support sustainable urban living. They serve as platforms for community interaction, cultural exchange, and recreation, contributing in the long term to healthier, more equitable cities. Public spaces should be accessible to all citizens and not create discrimination caused by the built environment. However, although accessibility and inclusion are recurring topics in numerous EU documents and reports, they are still too often treated as add-ons rather than integral components of urban planning. This leaves many spaces inaccessible or unfriendly to diverse user groups and leads to missed opportunities for building an equitable society.
To build on this, GreenPlace, one of Urbact’s networks that aims to develop a set of activities for "recycling" unused urban areas using social participation tools having a strong focus on diversity and inclusion, recently held a workshop titled “Equitable Cities—An Inclusive Approach” in Nitra, Slovakia. The participants examined how the built environment can contribute to social segregation and generate disabilities even where there are no permanent ones. They discussed the importance of shifting accessibility from being viewed as a "special case" 1 to becoming a core priority in public space development.
