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    Digital Uber Alles

    Hands up those of you who have used Uber. Or Airbnb? I thought so. Increasingly, if you ask that question to a group of people, a forest of hands shoots up. When I asked it at a German Marshall Fund event in Bilbao last month, people with their hands down were a small minority.

    We were exploring the challenges that the 'Gig Economy' poses for equity and urban governance in the U.S. and Europe. As digital platforms become increasingly common, these new business models are generating new and complex questions for policy makers at all levels of government.
     
    So, what are the principal issues cities face in relation to these developments? How can they strike the right balance between regulation, designed to protect citizens, and innovation, which city authorities are keen to support? What can we learn from the experience of cities so far, and what can Urbact do to support decision makers as they grapple with these wicked issues? That’s what we’ll be exploring here.

     

    Eddy Adams

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  • The challenges of implementation

    “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something.” All European cities can certainly endorse this quote by President Obama and testify that taking action – or implementing – presents a whole set of challenges that can sometimes be daunting. How can delays in implementing a strategy be anticipated? How can expectations or potential conflicts be managed around the implementation of a strategy? How to remain within the initial budget planned for the strategy during its implementation? These are some of the issues that the newly launched URBACT Implementation Networks are now set to work on. 

    Soraya Zanardo

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  • Creating urban environments that inspire young people into ‘creative-tech’ careers

    Across the whole of Europe, the growing shortage of technical talent is starting to impact on urban economies. In this article, Jim Sims, the Lead Expert on the Urbact GEN-Y City Network, looks at educational and skills policy across Europe and makes the case for cities to be orchestrators of urban environments that can inspire young people into ‘tech’ careers. 

    Jim Sims

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  • Circular economy: another buzzword or your city’s future?

    In times of decreasing resources and growing responsibilities, many cities and regions are understandably skeptical towards what seems to be yet another buzzword. However, a transition to a circular economy is both a necessity and an opportunity, with the potential to offer long-lasting economic, environmental and social benefits. 

    What is circular economy? How can cities and regions support this transition? And, perhaps most importantly, where to start? Read on to find answers that are based on the experience of the European Territorial Cooperation programmes and the projects they support. 
     
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    Workshop “Pathways to a circular economy in European cities and regions”, The European Week of Cities and Regions 2016 (source: EWRC/flickr.com, CC BY-NC-SA)
     
    The article below is based on a joint policy brief „Pathways to a circular economy in cities and regions” produced by ESPON, Interact, Interreg Europe and URBACT and launched during the 2016 European Week of Cities and Regions. Full version of the brief is available here.
     
     

     

    Ania Rok

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  • Open for business? Europe’s cities and the skills challenge of the Next Economy

    Eight years after the advent of the Global Financial Crisis, much of Europe's economy continues to be sluggish, with uneven rates of jobs and business growth across the EU. There are, of course, bright spots on the map, but overall the picture remains disappointing.  

    As ever, the coming battle focuses on cities, where most businesses and jobs are concentrated. In those economies that remain weak, it is our cities which display the highest rates of joblessness. Equally, it is in our dynamic urban areas where hopes for business and jobs growth are highest. 
     
    The EU has consistently identified the key role cities occupy in relation to the skills and jobs agenda. A long history of macro policy statements and policy directives confirms this. The most recent of these is the launch of the Jobs and Skills Partnership within the Urban Agenda for the European Union. Another is the New Skills Agenda for Europe, which proposes a 10 point plan to boost EU citizens’ skills, particularly at the basic level. 
     
    But what does this mean in practice? This article will explore the challenges and opportunities facing cities in relation to the jobs and skills agenda. It will pay particular attention to assumptions about future growth – itself increasingly challenged as a beneficial concept. In doing so the article will touch upon the concept of the Next Economy, and what Jeremy Rifkin has described as the Third Industrial Revolution (TIR). Under this scenario, we will need a radical rethink of the way we prepare citizens for what is ahead. 
     
    We will explore what the Jobs and Skills Partnership can do to support cities' adjustment to this anticipated step change in the economy. Finally, the article will reflect on the leading work of cities in this area, as well as considering the contribution that the URBACT Programme can make. 

     

    Eddy Adams

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  • Ready for the future? Urban resilience in practice

    Blog OP URBACT je otevřený příspěvkům od představitelů měst, akademiků, aktivistů na místní úrovni ze všech koutů Evropy (a světa), kteří by rádi sdíleli své praktiky, výzkumy a nadšení týkající se záležitostí souvisejících s integrovaným městským rozvojem.

    Ania Rok

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  • Undertaking spend analysis and developing procurement strategy

    If cities are to progress the way in which they undertake procurement so that it brings more local economic, social and environmental benefits, they need to go through a number of steps. As part of the Procure network, we have already completed two of those steps. The baseline study enabled our partner cities to identify the activities they were already doing around procurement and importantly to identify key challenges they faced. Our first transnational meeting in Lublin, Poland effectively set the legal context for more progressive procurement through exploring European and National Level law.

     

    sbamber

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  • A short discussion note on Community Cohesion

    The theme of the First Workshop in Dresden 21-23 September 2016

    The issue of community cohesion has becoming increasing more pressing and as such has pushed the issue higher up the political agenda following the tragic events in Paris and Brussels. The  ongoing state of emergency in Paris and  Brussels, the ongoing arrival of migrants fleeing war and poverty and the recent  attacks  in Nice, Normandy and  in several German  cities have brought to the fore the ongoing challenges facing cities in respect of managing the new flows as well as addressing the issue of community cohesion.

    cvestrini

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  • Roadmap to a better Social Media Governance

    How Social Media can help the collaboration between Public Administration and Citizens

    "There is a lot of power in people to self-organise around a specific issue and if they'd like to use technology to mobilise themselves, they should have the capability and the choice to do that.”
    Juliana Rotich, founder of Ushahidi, 2011
    Interactive Cities explores how digital, social media and user-generated content can improve today’s urban management in European cities of various sizes.

    fvirgilio

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  • How Eindhoven unlocks the collaborative capacity of the city through social service delivery

     

    It is clear why Dutch cities have a good reputation recently among urbanists. In the beginning of the year we heard that four Dutch cities, Tilburg, Utrecht, Groningen and Wageningen, from January, 2016 are giving some of their social assistance receivers an unconditional social security payment (i.e. a monthly income of the Government without an obligation to take paid employment or to be involved in community service). They examine whether these people will become more active than others with the current, strict regime. In May, urban planners appreciated the signature of the Pact of Amsterdam paving the way for an EU level urban agenda. Last but not least, the URBACT community is hopefully already checking on the internet why the URBACT Summer University 2016 is taking place in Rotterdam, in the city which received the Urbanism Award in 2015. To carry on with ground-breaking urban experiments from the Netherlands, this article is about the WeEindhoven social experimenting programme, which might have had less publicity, but it is definitely worth following the results of this pioneering initiative.  

    Ferenc Szigeti-Böröcz

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