Networks and cities' news

REIMAGINE THE EMPTINESS: COMBINING PLACEMAKING AND POP-UP SHOP INITIATIVES (by Daniele Terzariol, Urbact Ad-hoc expert)

Empty commercial spaces can be understood as urban supplies for the experimentation with collective dreams, not just places for  relaunching trade. Which point of view do we have to adopt to reinterpret abandoned places and to give them new life and shape? How to combine and integrate temporary uses into longer term  urban regeneration processes? How to rekindle interest or provoke debate on the tools, policies, laws and practices of reactivating marginal, degraded and underutilized spaces? How can we make them accessible again and capable of answering society's housing, leisure and work needs? Some recent design experiences in Europe, many of which are funded through URBACT encourage experimentation with practices that reuse  places by extending their use  to a plurality of actors, fertilizing abandoned spaces with new activities and uses. Than can  trigger new economic activity  that combine architectural conversion with public art, creative urbanism, activism and social design. These reuse projects will be the result of continuous selection and settlement processes.

Commercial services maintain and amplify a socially aggregating function: they aren’t a “public cities” in the strict sense, but they represent places where a plurality of "public life" activities take place and, with very different forms, they continue to connote spaces potentially and variously "central” in local settlement systems. Temporary informal spaces near small commercial realities can be considered places of participation and sharing, places where you can experience forms of community and where you can take control and management of spaces, even if for a short time and with limited purpose activities.

The Urbact “Re-growCity” network is experimenting with the creation  of pop up shops. These are temporary uses of vacant retail property by local entrepreneurs, artists or community groups.  Deepening the dynamics of temporary reuse for the revival of trade placemaking is an important element for successful cases. Below we will analyze some examples, which are inspirational.

TUNE IN! An experiment to create a digital tool to turn an old shortwave radio station into a driver of city development during the pandemic

Niilo Rinne & Ville Kirjanen June 2020

The URBACT project Come In! Talking Houses, Shared Stories faced existential challenges when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in spring 2020. ULGs are not able to meet face-to-face, events can not be organized, everything is uncertain. During the time span of the project, it will be hard to plan anything that would include social interaction with physical proximity.

Grigny: keeping the link, continuing to teach music and inventing the next day

A Zicadanse in lockdown, a sudden adaptation of the teaching methods to the times of Covid-19 and a lot of enthusiasm and volunteering spirit: here is Grigny's latest update on how the URBACT OnStage project is progressing in the town!

How to manage networks? Lessons from COVID-19

Health & Greenspace Action Planning Network had its Phase II Kick-off meeting on June 16-17th. This means that 9 EU cities embark on a 2-year long journey on involving local stakeholders and planning actions together on improving urban greenspaces. Our topics remained the same from greenspace design and management related to mental and physical health, urban heat islands, air pollution, social inclusion but the context changed largely: after finishing Phase I, COVID-19 stroke and created massive crisis all over the world including our partner countries. 

"Spheres Of Influence"

Mantova's reflection of delivering carbon literacy training in their own city. 

The Mantova carbon literacy training gave some basic information on the science of climate change, using interactive activities and videos with experts speaking. The second part of the session focussed on the role of arts and culture and what can be achieved within cultural organisations and through their "spheres of influences

"All is not lost when it comes to climate change"

Carbon Literacy: “An awareness of the carbon dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis.”

Today, over 14,000 individuals and more than 40 organisations are Carbon Literate. We can now include the C-Change network and some of their city staff to this list. 
 

As part of the Manchester study visit in October last year,  a bespoke carbon literacy training course was delivered to the network. 
The original content of the course was updated to respond to the climate emergency and delivered to project partners including representatives from their arts and culture sector. 

The training was then to be replicated in their own cities and we can hear from Agueda who have already done this successfully.