by Ornella Martinello | Jul 22, 2016 | The Urban Media Lab
Maurizio Carta, Architect, PhD in Urban and Regional Planning, Full Professor of urban and regional planning at the Department of Architecture at the University of Palermo and advisor for a number of public national and international bodies, is the author of “Creative City – Dynamics, Innovations and Actions“. In his work, Carta tries to condensate his studies on urban regenation based on culture, innovation and creativity. The result is a review of the most innovative processes of urban regeneration undertaken across Europe, an “atlas of urban, landscape and architectural projects”.
Evocative and inspiring is the quote by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw which the author decided to open the book with:
“Some men see thing as they are and say, ‘Why?’. I dream of thing that never were and say, ‘Why not?'”
Admittedly, the book is the outcome of a “trip” across current best and most innovative urban practices and a hopeful insight into the future of territorial bounds, communities and cities. The wide set of maps, data and figures that complement the analysis not only helps to better figure out how cities are evolving nowadays in Europe; they also give a strong evidence of the fact that the future will undeniably lie in a kind of city that is creative, culture-oriented and sustainable. In Carta’s words:
“The city of the future will be a city of culture, a city generating new culture: the creative cities of the twenty-first century will be capable of competing on the international scenario by optimizing and promoting their own individual cultural identities, attracting a class of creative and generating new sustainable futures.”
The author concisely depicts the world of the future. But he also gives us the instruments we need to build it, or, as he defines them, the “four keywords” which the “creative city manifesto” is based on and which should guild city-makers:
– VISION, the city of the future is forward-looking;
– MISSION, the city of the future is responsible towards its citizens and their needs;
– OUTPUT, the city of the future is productive and effective;
– FUTURE, the city of the future is culturally and environmentally sustainable, able to enhance its citizens’ wellbeing without compromising future generations’ one.
As a matter of fact, these concepts recur repeatedly throughout all the three parts which the book is divided, namely:
I – Creative cities: an Action-Oriented Manifesto;
II – Towards a new polycentric competitiveness;
III – The fluid city – experiments in 13 cities around Europe.
What markedly emerges from the review of those 13 citites (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Genova, Hamburg, Lyon, Lisboa, Marseille, Newcastle, Palermo, Rotterdam, and Valencia) is a call to act now in order to make our future richer. As Carta puts it, “the twenty-first century is without doubt set to be the ‘age of cities'”. The present and future lie in the local dimension. That is where territorial specificities are respected and promoted and where new forms of political participation can be experimented.
In order to make our cities “desirable places to inhabit”, we cannot but recognize the crucial role governance plays in determining the quality of the outcomes of urban regeneration and how working on ownership, inclusiveness, participatory practices and cooperation leads to a better and long-lasting enhancement of the local dimension, re-building a sense of citizenship through culture and knowledge.
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Il famoso drammaturgo irlandese George Bernard Shaw scrisse: “Vedi cose che esistono e ti chiedi “perché”? Ma io sogno cose non ancora esistite e chiedo “perché no”?”.
Attraverso una rassegna dei progetti più creativi ed innovativi messi in atto in 13 città europee, l’architetto italiano esperto di rigenerazione urbana Maurizio Carta traccia i contorni della città del futuro: visionaria, produttiva, sostenibile, creativa.
by Ornella Martinello | Jul 11, 2016 | The Urban Media Lab
Join LabGov in Amsterdam at the “Peer Value: Advancing the Commons Collaborative Economy” Conference.
The event will take place next September 2-3, 2016, hosted by the city of Amsterdam, in collaboration with P2P Value, Wikimedia, CSG, Shareable and Ouishare. Its aim is to address the world of the commons on a global scale, to share ideas and offer innovative insights through a mixture of conversations and action plans.
The event will cover three broad topics:
- P2P: Inclusive Politics, Activism and Law for the Commons;
- Decentralized Tech and Beyond: Global Design, Local Production;
- From Platform to Open Cooperativism.
Participants will offer ground-breaking viable solutions trying to answer to the following question in an open debate:
- What are the conditions that encourage communities to work as peers, creating commons?
- What are the best practices communities can adopt to safeguard their resilience?
- Decentralization – why is it important, and how is it implemented and maintained?
- How can the working methodologies honed by well-established digital communities act as transitional guidelines for sustainable “material” manufacturing?
- What about social innovation and livelihoods – how does contributory and open accounting work with the systems of value creation found in CBPP?
- How can civil society participate in recommending policy proposals that support CBPP for governments at the local, regional, national – even global – levels?
Registration are now open via this link.
For further information visit the event website.
Registrati ora alla conferenza “Peer Value: Advancing the Commons Collaborative Economy” e raggiungi LabGov ad Amsterdam i prossimi 2 e 3 settembre! Parleremo di commons, cooperazione e condivisione!
by Ornella Martinello | Jun 21, 2016 | The Urban Media Lab
Next Thursday, June 23rd, Utrecht University will host the Symposium “Cooperation in the field”. It will be the opportunity for international researchers, experts and students to gather and share their respective ideas and practical experiences on cooperative practices. The event is part of the strategic thematic series on “Institutions for Open Societies”.
Professor Tine de Moor, Full Professor ‘Institutions for Collective Action in Historical Perspective’, Department of Social and Economic History, Utrecht University will moderate the sessions.
Among the excellent speakers are:
- Ruth Meinzen-Dick, senior research fellow at IFPRI, coordinator of the CGIAR program on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) as well as leader of IFPRI’s Gender Task Force, also co-leading work on strengthening women’s assets.
- Marco A. Janssen, professor at the School of Sustainability of Arizona State University and director of the Center for Behavior, Institutions, and the Environment of ASU.
- Hans Groeneveld, Associate Director Cooperative & Control at Rabobank and distinguished professor at TIAS School for Business and Society.
- Wilbert van den Bosch, consultant on cooperatives for NCR, The Dutch Council for Cooperatives.
- Christian Iaione, Associate Professor of Public Law at the University of Guglielmo Marconi studios in Rome , fellow at the Urban Law Center of Fordham University and governance of the commons professor at the LUISS Guido Carli under LabGov – Laboratory program for governance of common goods .
To register click here.
For further information visit the official webpage of the event.
Giovedì 23 Giugno LabGov sarà a Utrecht con il Professor Iaione per parlare di cooperazione e innovazione sociale.
by Ornella Martinello | Jun 14, 2016 | The Urban Media Lab
With adoption of the Amsterdam Pact on May 30th, EU leaders showed their full endorsement of the need to attach considerations at the urban dimension to EU decision-making. As we pointed out in our previous article on the topic (We are already on our way to Amsterdam: Countdown to the new EU Urban Agenda), the Amsterdam Pact aims at enhancing new forms of multilevel cooperation in the management of EU funds in four pilot sectors: housing, air quality, integration of migrants and refugees, urban poverty. The real breakthrough is represented by its working method, which champions partnerships on urban-salient issues across multiple levels of government. It is the symbolic beginning of a new process, signalling how sensitive this issue has become for EU policy-makers. By now, reflecting on citizens’ needs at the urban level has become a cornerstone in EU policy-making. EU institutions are demonstrating their leadership and willingness to dialogue with stakeholders on such topics.
Brussels has become a hub to share ideas and experiences and to inspire innovative solutions to the most pressing urban challenges. Here, the European Commission will host the 10th edition of the European Development Days, one of the major conferences dedicated to the issue which will be held on 15th and 16th of June. Among the co-organizers are: ALDA European Association for Local Democracy, Smart Villages Initiatives, The Hague Academy for Local Governance, UN-HABITAT, and UCLG, United Cities and Local Governments. The agenda will focus on the status of implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Within the five main themes (People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, Partnership) a considerable number of parallel sessions will be in fact devoted to urban-related sub-topics: “Inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities”, “Circular economy”, and “Inclusive and peaceful societies”). Here our selection:
15 June 2016
Time to think urban (09.30-10.45)
City-to-city cooperation: Municipal climate partnerships (09.30-10.45)
Move towards sustainable lifestyle for the people and the planet (09.30-10.45)
My city, my right: Towards inclusive and equitable urban spaces for women (14.00-15.30)
Towards a circular economy for sustainable consumption and production (16.00 – 17.30)
Localising the Sustainable Development Goals: Owning the global development agenda (16.00 – 17.15)
New cooperation models for cities in the age of the Sustainable Development Goals (17.45 – 19.00)
16 June 2016
Mobilising innovative finance for resilient and sustainable cities (13.00 – 14.15)
Local action to address fragility and protracted displacement (14.30 – 16.00)
Urban Now: City Life in Congo (14.45 – 16.00)
Most of the sessions will be available online via streaming.
For the complete agenda and further information visit the link.
Con l’adozione del Patto di Amsterdam lo scorso 30 maggio, i leader europei hanno confermato come la dimensione urbana sia ormai elemento cardine per la formulazione di politiche efficaci a più livelli. Il tema sarà uno dei principali discussi durante gli European Development Days che si terranno il 15 e 16 luglio a Bruxelles alla presenza di personalità di spicco, dal Segretario Generale ONU, Ban Ki-Moon al Vice-Presidente della Commissione Europea, Federica Mogherini.
by Chiara Fratalia | May 30, 2016 | The Urban Media Lab
Money savings and personal satisfaction produced by urban gardening have allowed people to rethink chicken breeding in a “more local” way: in many US and Canada cities people can grow their own hens in their backyard, just as they would do with tomatoes or salad in their kitchen garden.
This tendency was accelerated by the outbreak of salmonella in 2010, that led to the nationwide recall of 500 millions store-bought eggs, thus driving down the perception of their being risk-free; and now it has become a way to have a larger control on the food we eat everyday, while cutting energy use and fuel emissions for the trasportation of eggs from farms to cities.
Julie Simpson, president of the pro-chicken group Urban Chicken Advocates of Nashville, in an e-mail to the New York Times says: “It simply made sense to me to have a few chicken in my backyard. I was concerned about where my food was coming from, and having backyard hens was one small thing I can control”.
Buying chicks is easy and cheap, so most of the potential problems depend on having too many chickens in too little space. For this reason, some cities, such as Nashville and Portland, have approved motions that allow urban hen breeding, but with a limitation in the number of hens, calculated in reason of the land extension. These limitations found the approval of Pamela Geisel, director of the statewide Master Gardener Program run by the University of California Cooperative Extension, that says they “can help chicken keepers be better chicken keepers”, allowing them to avoid bigger risks.
Hens breeding it’s not just collecting fresh eggs for your breakfast, but it is a heavy daily effort to keep them clean and healthy, and for some people it’s not just worth the effort. But not for Ms. Geisel: “I love my chickens. They’re my pet” she says about her six backyard hens. “And homegrown eggs”, she added, “are so much better and tastier than store-bought”.
These eggs are not only tastier and healthier: they are far more enviroment-friendly and sustainable. In facts, eggs are in the top ten products with higher carbon footprints: the production and distribution in supermarkets of 1 kilo of eggs produces an average of 4.8 kg of greenhouse gases, that is the equivalent of 11 car miles. Also, more than half of the emissions (2.7 kg) are made only in the transportation phase, that is completely eliminated in case of urban breeding.
Not only an increase in food security and a decrease in damaging emissions: domestic chicken breeding is likely to be free from the ethical dilemma produced by intensive industrial farming. The domestic breeder is likely to develop some sort of an affection for his/her pet chickens and hens, and will probably avoid brutal practices such as the detention in barren battery cages, or the genetical selection.
In the broader framework of a local program that endorses community gardening and urban farming, these practices could significantly cut down greenhouse gases emission, by operating a substantial reduction in the need of goods transportation. Moreover, urban farms and community gardens could also work as carbon sinks: in facts plants (especially the evergreen ones) absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and release breathable oxygen (O2) through photosynthesis, thus relieving the carbon accumulation that is innate in urban areas.
In addition, plants absorbe and remove particulate matter, the result of the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles and power stations, classified by the WHO as one of the most dangerous carcinogenes. Given this statement, is easy to say that this cleaning action carried out by community gardens could reduce mortality rates in urban areas. To give an example of plants effectiveness in pollution abatement, Bradley Rowe in his essay states that “just one square meter of uncut grass on a city roof is needed to offset the annual particulate matter emissions of a car“.
Gwan-Gyu Lee, Hyun-Woo Lee and Jung-Hwan Lee have shown in their essay that the spreading of urban agriculture in Seoul, one of the most advanced cities in terms of collaborative and sustainable governance of the commons, has reduced the greenhouse gases emission by a rate of 11,668 tons per year. This value is the equivalent of the CO2 emissions for 1155 persons on the annual basis of 10.1 tons of CO2 emissions per capita (2007 data), and it has been achieved with a urban agriculture area of just 51.17 square kilometers, which is about half the extension of rooftops in New York City.
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L’allevamento domestico di galline e polli è una pratica sempre più diffusa negli Stati Uniti, che permette di controllare maggiormente il cibo che mangiamo ed eliminare problemi etici come i trattamenti abominevoli subiti dagli animali negli allevamenti intensivi. Nel quadro più ampio di un programma di incentivo all’urban farming e al community gardening, queste pratiche potrebbero avere un impatto significativo sulla riduzione del carbon footprint e sulle emissioni di gas serra, per la gran parte dovute al trasporto delle merci dai luoghi di produzione ai supermercati.
Maurizio Carta, Architect, PhD in Urban and Regional Planning, Full Professor of urban and regional planning at the Department of Architecture at the University of Palermo and advisor for a number of public national and international bodies, is the author of “Creative City – Dynamics, Innovations and Actions“. In his work, Carta tries to condensate his studies on urban regenation based on culture, innovation and creativity. The result is a review of the most innovative processes of urban regeneration undertaken across Europe, an “atlas of urban, landscape and architectural projects”.
