Amy Labarriere meets activist Oktawiusz Chrzanowski, who prompted city officials to write a declaration supporting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights in the Polish capital. “Everyone is equal before the law. No form of discrimination is allowed, and Warsaw should be open to everybody.” This is how the City of Warsaw (PL) announced Mayor Rafał […]
The story behind Warsaw’s new LGBT+ declaration
Porto, the URBACT city par excellence!
The city of Porto (PT) is the URBACT city per excellence amongst Portuguese cities! And why? On the one hand, it is the city with the largest participation in URBACT networks over the last 10 years: six, in total. On the other hand, it is a city that registers a strong involvement of various departments […]
Meet Mitja Kolbl
In 20 years, we want Ljutomer (SLO) to be a city of “friendly traffic” Mitja Kolbl has been employed at the Municipality of Ljutomer for 15 years. In addition to the regular assignments he has as transport infrastructure manager – from investments and maintenance to winter service – he participates in three European projects. He […]
Online tools for urban practitioners
Political journalist, Jamie Mackay, takes a look at URBACT’s choice of digital tools, a fundamental part of how we work today. Innovation in urban development is first and foremost about people, about how citizens imagine the future of their local communities, and how specialists realise this. It is, by extension, a question of organisations, of […]
The Women We See … and don’t see
Last year marked the centenary of the passing of the Representation of the People Act, extending to the right to vote for the first time to (some) women in the UK and Ireland (it would be another ten years until universal suffrage was introduced). To mark this anniversary, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, launched […]
Common public space design in Estonian-Latvian twin town Valga-Valka
Johanna Holvandus and Kadri Leetmaa make a case for cross border city twinning, showcasing the story of Estonian-Latvian border towns Valga and Valka, the recent hosts of a regional URBACT seminar. On October 18, 2018 Estonian-Latvian border towns Valga (EE) and Valka (LV) hosted a regional URBACT seminar. The aim of the common event was […]
New urban planning: long-lasting innovation or just a temporary illusion? [PART 2]
Iván Tosics, URBACT Programme Expert from the Metropolitan Research Institut in Budapest asks whether new urban planning methods will stand the test of time. In the first part of this article, Ivan introduced the process of development of new public policies accross Europe and gave concrete examples of new urban policies and planning. The new […]
New urban planning: long-lasting innovation or just a temporary illusion? [PART 1]
Iván Tosics, URBACT Programme Expert from the Metropolitan Research Institut in Budapest asks whether new urban planning methods will stand the test of time. The Great Financial Crisis (economists talk about the crisis in capital letters) created a new situation: the severe changes in economic and financial conditions extorted the revision of existing public policies. […]
How interactive is your city?
Daniela Patti, Levente Polyak, Simone d’Antonio, Elisabetta Savino and Sabrina Bruzzone report on the festival’s Interactive Cities (IC) lab. The project is dedicated to finding out about how interactive European cities are and how they use social media tools to be interactive. The Interactive Cities Lab in Lisbon saw the participation of some of the […]