Archives for 2014

Happy New Year!

By URBACT, on December 31st, 2014 at 18:24

Funding Local Action Plan delivery

ESIMeC  is one of the 3 so called URBACT ‘delivery pilots’ funded to test whether transnational exchange and learning continues to be useful during implementation of Local Action Plans. The pilots started early in 2014 and run until March 2015 so now seems like a good time to take stock and share some of our […]

By Alison Partridge, on December 19th, 2014 at 19:53

Smart City +…Turin’s Platform for Employee-Driven Innovation

Torino: Open to ideas Energy sensors to minimize power usage in public buildings; the adoption of virtual meetings to reduce staff travel time; and the establishment of a crack team to modernise local authority procurement methods. These were some of the winning ideas generated by local authority staff as part of Innova.TO, the city of […]

By Eddy Adams, on December 16th, 2014 at 10:30

Measuring Impacts of Local Action Plans in Cities

ESIMeC  is one of the 3 so called URBACT ‘delivery pilots’ funded to test whether transnational exchange and learning continues to be useful during implementation of Local Action Plans. The pilots started early in 2014 and run until March 2015 so now seems like a good time to take stock and share some of our […]

By Alison Partridge, on December 10th, 2014 at 15:48

We Need to Talk About… Delivering on Our Action Plans (part I)

ESIMeC  is one of the 3 so called URBACT ‘delivery pilots’ funded to test whether transnational exchange and learning continues to be useful during implementation of Local Action Plans. The pilots started early in 2014 and run until March 2015 so now seems like a good time to take stock and share some of our […]

By Alison Partridge, on December 5th, 2014 at 20:22

The URBACT experience in Hungarian Cities

The more formal outcome of the participation in most URBACT project networks (with the exception of the pilot delivery networks) for a city is what we call a Local Action Plan (LAP), co-produced by city authorities and stake-holders of the Local Support Group (ULSG) . The latest national training scheme seminar in Hungary focused on […]

By Mariann Majorné Venn, on November 27th, 2014 at 19:10

Lights on Riga

Riga, Latvia’s capital, was the European Capital of Culture this year, together with Umea in Sweden. Those particular spotlights are almost about to go out, although they will immediately be replaced by those drawn by the European Council Presidency, which Latvia will take on starting January 2015. But there’s still a month and a half […]

By URBACT, on November 14th, 2014 at 20:27

Open! Community Utilisation of Vacant Retail Space

The signs of the 2008 crisis became visible within few months after its outbreak on the Grand Boulevard of Budapest, which was one of the most important retail locations of the city, and on many other streets as well: closed shops, business premises with lowered blinds to let. Like in many major European cities, the […]

By Mariann Majorné Venn, on November 7th, 2014 at 18:41

Tackling Brownfields and Land-Take in Europe

Brownfields are an inherent feature of most, if not all, cities around the globe.  They all have a potential contribution to make the long-term success of their city. However, if they are ignored, brownfield sites can become the focus of social and economic problems. The 4th International Conference on Managing Urban Land celebrated progress, almost […]

By URBACT, on November 3rd, 2014 at 14:41

Why Building City Stakeholder Capacity Matters More Than Ever

We’re on the road again. Between late October and early 2015 URBACT is holding Info-Days  in locations across the EU. It’s an opportunity for our participating cities to share some of the success stories from the current programme, now drawing to a close. And of course we’ll also be explaining how URBACT III is going […]

By Eddy Adams, on October 29th, 2014 at 16:01