Leading change
City practices
- CO-City - Turin (IT). With Giovanni Ferrero, Municipality of Torino
- CUP4Creativity - Újbuda (HU). With Mate Abraham, Újbuda Municipality
- Future of Work - Cluj-Napoca (RO). With Oana Buzatu, Cluj-Napoca Municipality
Topic and challenges
Public authorities play a crucial role in stimulating culture and cultural heritage initiatives as collaborative, generative and collective experiences. By fostering positive social transformation, they can shift the aspirations of inhabitants, build on strengths, and work to develop new skills, capacities, ambitions and leadership. This requires authorities to first imagine, then design, and finally implement policies and actions that incorporate emerging values into practice.
Ensuring wide and diverse engagement requires the right tools, methods, approaches, languages and messages. More agile administrative, legal and operational frameworks are also often needed to integrate innovative components into urban processes. This can involve working to reduce friction and tensions, institutionalising certain informal practices, and deconstructing rigid formal frameworks, all of which can significantly enhance the innovation capacities of the local ecosystem as a whole – with its multiple connections between local actors such as businesses, residents, NGOs and public bodies. Such efforts foster learning, mutual knowledge, and ultimately, the creation of new institutions, players, interfaces and public functions.
Urban authorities face several challenges in promoting cultural- and heritage-oriented urban regeneration. A primary difficulty lies in supporting sustainable development processes that integrate culture and heritage into broader planning frameworks. This involves aligning long-term urban strategies with cultural assets to preserve their value while ensuring they contribute to economic and spatial revitalisation.
Post-industrial and low-income urban contexts present unique hurdles, often requiring initiatives to tackle complex, overlapping issues without adequate resources or clear pathways for revitalising underutilised heritage sites. In these areas, urban authorities must also work to rebuild connections within fragmented communities, fostering relationships both among residents and between citizens and local institutions.
Encouraging participation in cultural initiatives presents further challenges. Authorities must lower barriers to entry, making cultural activities accessible and engaging for diverse audiences. This requires not only creating opportunities but also building mutual trust and promoting social inclusion between community members and local governments.
Another significant challenge is procedural: adapting governance structures and procurement processes to support collaborative and participatory approaches to implementation of projects. Many existing systems are rigid, prioritising compliance over flexibility, which can hinder experimentation with new models or the tailoring of solutions to specific local contexts.
Highlights
Text
- Fostering collaboration through formal agreements
The creation of structured collaborative frameworks, such as pacts of collaboration between city administrations and citizens’ organisations, has proven effective. These agreements establish shared objectives and clarify roles, providing a foundation for cooperative action and mutual accountability. Turin’s Co-City project is an example of this approach, enabling a formal collaboration between citizens and the City for the care, shared management and regeneration of urban commons. This has resulted in the signing of over 60 Pacts of Collaboration since 2016.
- Supporting local Initiatives and recognising site specific potential
Grassroots projects and cultural events have highlighted the importance of recognising and harnessing local potential. Small, locally driven initiatives often address unique community needs and provide opportunities to experiment with new approaches. Authorities have found value in supporting such projects, particularly in building momentum for larger-scale regeneration efforts.
- Developing public innovation infrastructures
Public innovation infrastructures have emerged as tools for improving the spatial and economic conditions of urban areas. These systems support experimental approaches to development, allowing cities to test and refine methods for integrating cultural and heritage assets into broader urban strategies. In Cluj-Napoca, for example, the Municipality and other consortium members adopted a novel approach, based on repeated cycles of learning and adjustment through experimental actions, while testing co-management practices and encouraging cross-sectoral integration of Cluj Future of Work (CFW) interventions.
- Embracing failure as a learning asset
Failure, when viewed as part of the collective learning process, can contribute to more resilient and adaptive development strategies. By treating unsuccessful initiatives as opportunities to reflect and refine, public administrations and communities have been able to co-create more effective new solutions.
- Balancing innovation with the consolidation of experience
Regeneration processes have benefited from finding a balance between exploring new methods and consolidating lessons from past projects. This dual focus ensures that innovative approaches are grounded in proven practices, particularly when addressing complex urban challenges.
- Encouraging stakeholder participation and inclusion
Urban authorities have learned the importance of creating welcoming and inclusive spaces to foster participation. Community centres can act as "city antennas" facilitating two-way communication and engagement while providing platforms for cultural initiatives. These participatory hubs serve as focal points for collaboration and help sustain connections between local governments and communities. For example, in Turin, a network of ten Cultural Hubs supports community cooperation and civic engagement at local level, while also facilitating city-wide collaboration among community centres.
- Promoting smart specialisation in creative industries
The concept of smart specialisation has been a useful framework for cities seeking to enhance their economic competitiveness. Creative industries and knowledge-intensive business services have been identified as sectors with significant potential for growth. Training and skills development tailored to these industries have supported their integration into heritage-led regeneration strategies. For example, Cluj-Napoca’s Future of Work (CFW) project re-imagined work based on social values and technological potential, by promoting smart specialisation and providing training and affordable working spaces for local businesses.
- Building ecosystems of collaboration
Frameworks that bring together diverse actors, from grassroots organisations to institutional stakeholders, have been effective in channelling collective energy into unified strategies. By aligning processes and resources, these ecosystems can support coherent and impactful regeneration initiatives. For example, Ujbuda’s CUP4Creativity project strengthened the local cultural ecosystem by mapping local actors, helping identify potential overlaps and collaborations, and the conditions needed to make them possible.
- Using culture to address social fragmentation
Culture has demonstrated its capacity to strengthen social ties and address issues such as loneliness and social isolation. Cultural initiatives have provided platforms for shared experiences and dialogue, fostering a sense of belonging and mutual trust within communities. For instance, in its focus on strengthening the local cultural and creative ecosystem, Ujbuda’s CUP4Creativity project linked cultural initiatives with the technology sector, and made art and technology accessible to people beyond the district cultural institutions’ regular audiences.
- Aligning processes with emerging ecosystems
The emergence of cultural and heritage ecosystems has highlighted the need for collaboration frameworks. These systems ensure that resources, expertise and energy are directed towards shared goals, contributing to sustainable and inclusive urban development.
- Fostering collaboration through formal agreements
The creation of structured collaborative frameworks, such as pacts of collaboration between city administrations and citizens’ organisations, has proven effective. These agreements establish shared objectives and clarify roles, providing a foundation for cooperative action and mutual accountability. Turin’s Co-City project is an example of this approach, enabling a formal collaboration between citizens and the City for the care, shared management and regeneration of urban commons. This has resulted in the signing of over 60 Pacts of Collaboration since 2016.
- Supporting local Initiatives and recognising site specific potential
Grassroots projects and cultural events have highlighted the importance of recognising and harnessing local potential. Small, locally driven initiatives often address unique community needs and provide opportunities to experiment with new approaches. Authorities have found value in supporting such projects, particularly in building momentum for larger-scale regeneration efforts.
- Developing public innovation infrastructures
Public innovation infrastructures have emerged as tools for improving the spatial and economic conditions of urban areas. These systems support experimental approaches to development, allowing cities to test and refine methods for integrating cultural and heritage assets into broader urban strategies. In Cluj-Napoca, for example, the Municipality and other consortium members adopted a novel approach, based on repeated cycles of learning and adjustment through experimental actions, while testing co-management practices and encouraging cross-sectoral integration of Cluj Future of Work (CFW) interventions.
- Embracing failure as a learning asset
Failure, when viewed as part of the collective learning process, can contribute to more resilient and adaptive development strategies. By treating unsuccessful initiatives as opportunities to reflect and refine, public administrations and communities have been able to co-create more effective new solutions.
- Balancing innovation with the consolidation of experience
Regeneration processes have benefited from finding a balance between exploring new methods and consolidating lessons from past projects. This dual focus ensures that innovative approaches are grounded in proven practices, particularly when addressing complex urban challenges.
- Encouraging stakeholder participation and inclusion
Urban authorities have learned the importance of creating welcoming and inclusive spaces to foster participation. Community centres can act as "city antennas" facilitating two-way communication and engagement while providing platforms for cultural initiatives. These participatory hubs serve as focal points for collaboration and help sustain connections between local governments and communities. For example, in Turin, a network of ten Cultural Hubs supports community cooperation and civic engagement at local level, while also facilitating city-wide collaboration among community centres.
- Promoting smart specialisation in creative industries
The concept of smart specialisation has been a useful framework for cities seeking to enhance their economic competitiveness. Creative industries and knowledge-intensive business services have been identified as sectors with significant potential for growth. Training and skills development tailored to these industries have supported their integration into heritage-led regeneration strategies. For example, Cluj-Napoca’s Future of Work (CFW) project re-imagined work based on social values and technological potential, by promoting smart specialisation and providing training and affordable working spaces for local businesses.
- Building ecosystems of collaboration
Frameworks that bring together diverse actors, from grassroots organisations to institutional stakeholders, have been effective in channelling collective energy into unified strategies. By aligning processes and resources, these ecosystems can support coherent and impactful regeneration initiatives. For example, Ujbuda’s CUP4Creativity project strengthened the local cultural ecosystem by mapping local actors, helping identify potential overlaps and collaborations, and the conditions needed to make them possible.
- Using culture to address social fragmentation
Culture has demonstrated its capacity to strengthen social ties and address issues such as loneliness and social isolation. Cultural initiatives have provided platforms for shared experiences and dialogue, fostering a sense of belonging and mutual trust within communities. For instance, in its focus on strengthening the local cultural and creative ecosystem, Ujbuda’s CUP4Creativity project linked cultural initiatives with the technology sector, and made art and technology accessible to people beyond the district cultural institutions’ regular audiences.
- Aligning processes with emerging ecosystems
The emergence of cultural and heritage ecosystems has highlighted the need for collaboration frameworks. These systems ensure that resources, expertise and energy are directed towards shared goals, contributing to sustainable and inclusive urban development.
About this resource
The European Urban Initiative is an essential tool of the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy for the 2021-2027 programming period. The initiative established by the European Union supports cities of all sizes, to build their capacity and knowledge, to support innovation and develop transferable and scalable innovative solutions to urban challenges of EU relevance.
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