When you hear about the URBACT programme, does it sound like an abstract thing that wouldn’t be of any use to you? Check out these suggestions. You may be surprised to find out what this program can do for you!
4. Are you an activist, a user, a citizen?
Be aware of the priority issues your city is facing, and how institutions and people are dealing with them. Knowing your city is the first step towards doing something to improve it. You may discover problems and initiatives you didn’t even know existed!
- See the case of Glasgow. The baseline studies are a great place to start.
Understand the point of view of your local elected representatives or technicians in order to better support them… or not! Informed feedback is worth a thousand protests. Use your empathy and adapt your message to find a common ground between their position and yours.
- Look for ‘juicy’ and open-ended working documents like workshop reports, etc.
Discover institutions and people that are more open to collaboration with bottom-up projects like yours. Knock on the right doors, instead of randomly trick-or-treating everyone around you! Your chances of getting the ball rolling will be much higher.
- Find out who is involved by looking at some of the projects’ documents.
Find out if there are possibilities to engage with your local government about issues you care about. There might be more open channels than you think! Find out how, when and to what extent they are reaching out for citizen involvement.
- If your city appears on the map, there at least a Local Support Group you can reach to.
These are just a few suggestions on how you could take advantage of URBACT’s open knowledge and transparency principles, which leave all the working documents and results exposed for you to review, reuse and adapt. We are sure you can find even more creative and productive ways of using all of the information that is available. Will you miss this opportunity?
Are you not a citizen or user? Well… we are pretty sure you are. Everyone is! But still, you may want to check the other articles in this series, specifically aimed at decision makers or elected representatives, public employees or municipal technicians, practitioners or studens.
Is—or was—your city a part of URBACT? Find out here!
If not, invite your local representatives to join the URBACT Infodays!
