Supporting a more just transition
City practices
- EUI - Imperfect City, Aarhus (DK). With Anne Marie Frederiksen and Zuzette R.Keldorff, Municipality of Aarhus
- New European Bauhaus Demonstrator – Desire. With Torben Klitgaard, Bloxhub
- UIA Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. project - Cultural Hidden Identities Reappear through Networks of Water, Chalandri (EL). With Christos Giovanopoulos, Municipality of Chalandri
Topic and challenges
We live in the Anthropocene, a new era in which humans have become a dominant force over nature, widely recognised to have catastrophic consequences for the planet. Violent urbanisation processes which deplete natural resources, pollute, displace people and contribute to planetary crises, add to structural and historical injustice. The impacts of climate change are strongest for those who have contributed least to the climate crisis, including people who are chronically ill, or living in extreme poverty, children exposed to environmental risks, and people working outdoors in unhealthy conditions, according to the WHO. Meanwhile, the 10 percent of households with the highest emissions per capita contribute 34-45% of global household greenhouse gas emissions.
Achieving a just transition involves radically and holistically transforming power imbalances and crystallised inequalities, changing the way we live and relate to each other, work with nature, produce and consume, establishing new economies and social norms, and respecting and promoting human rights for all people to achieve environmental justice. The nexus of climate action and justice is particularly important in urbanised areas since they generate more than 70% of global CO2 emissions.
While these challenges occur on multiple levels, across diverse global geographies, local governments have a central role to play in driving a collective and comprehensive just transition. This involves climate mitigation planning and adapting strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change.
In this process, cultural heritage and culture can be a source of resilience, an asset supporting climate change actions in an integrated approach to local policy-making. One inspiring local practice here is the completed UIA project Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. Chalandri demonstrates how the culture and cultural heritage associated with a still-functional Roman aqueduct can be used as a catalyst in re-evaluating the ecological and holistic transformation of urban life in a densely populated metropolitan area.
Another example showcased in this lab is from the EUI project ImperfectCity. This initiative centres on a particular demographic of vulnerable individuals: young people living with mental illness. Health and wellbeing are prioritised by enhancing the comfort of their local environment. This is achieved by regenerating meeting spaces, improving energy efficiency, and facilitating access to the city's wooded and green areas.
Meanwhile, the NEB prized Desire project establishes a conceptual framework for micro interventions in urban renewal projects. It fosters cultural initiatives and creativity to engage ordinary citizens in discussions on environmental responsibility and climate change.
At EU level, several initiatives have stressed the importance of culture in helping local communities tackle climate change and initiate a behaviour and mindset shift. These include the Climate Heritage Network (CHN) which argues that culture – from arts to heritage – can drive transformative climate action by empowering people to imagine and create low-carbon, just and climate-resilient futures. The European Cultural Heritage Green Paper explored the need for methodologies that prioritise win-win outcomes for climate action and safeguarding culture. Other examples include the EU Parliament Briefing The impact of climate change on cultural heritage.
Highlights
Text
- Cultural values are not for sale
Deprioritising tourism, as exemplified by Chalandri within the highly visited metropolitan area of Athens, is a key approach to identifying community values that can help renew a sense of place for residents. The aqueduct's water resource emerged as the central focus for developing new community values, drawing on residents' recollections, archaeological preservation, collaborative design of green public areas, and water use for the community. The comprehensive initiative led by the local government is designed not to generate profits, but to reinvest gains within the community.
- Save water and pay less
Following the principles of environmental justice, Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. in Chalandri demonstrates that successful and equitable community-based economies are attainable. Together, public and private entities at national, regional and local levels facilitated an agreement to reduce the cost of non-potable water from the former aqueduct for subsistence economies (e.g. small orchards), thereby fostering a consumer mindset orientated towards savings through incentives for reduced consumption.
- People-based governance model for a better environment
While local governments have been directing these EU funded projects, it is through collaborative efforts that their sustainability can be ensured. ImperfectCity aims to experiment with having NGOs take the lead in managing common spaces destined to become creative laboratories for people with mental illness. And Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. has enabled a sophisticated commoning of water sources, with a citizen-based cooperative designed to ensure the project’s long-term sustainability, despite any future political shifts in the local government that may jeopardise the longevity of the project.
- Use, invent and capitalise on what is available
The lab showed various practices that use existing resources to infuse innovation. The ImperfectCity initiative repurposes and refurbishes Brutalist buildings, making them more energy efficient and linking them to green areas, serving as a symbol for recovery from mental illness. As for Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T., the imperative to ensure that all inhabitants over a wide area have access to water from the aqueduct necessitated greater transportation investments than originally anticipated. In response, the municipality engaged a pre-existing Roma cooperative to take on the task, thereby enhancing the inclusion of Roma individuals in the city.
The practice in Desire focused on educating participants about climate change and recycling in the context of building new housing. Future inhabitants collaborated with local artists to recycle and repurpose materials and artefacts discovered at the building site.
- Communicate with (un)usual messages
Although climate change messages resonate with many people, it can help to engage cultural mediators to help communities connect with artistic and ecological projects, supported by associations with diverse expertise. This was an innovative approach used in Desire project’s multistorey building construction site. The Desire project engaged with culture and art, creating a temporary place for educational activities that incited curiosity and familiarised individuals with the concept of climate-conscious behaviours.
- Storytelling vs changing the narrative
To establish a novel approach opposing touristification, Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. developed a new appeal and a historical archive that communicated a fresh local narrative, emphasising the preservation of water. At the same time, the creation of a new narrative for a location, as seen in ImperfectCity, can also entail altering discourses around stigmatisation.
- Cultural values are not for sale
Deprioritising tourism, as exemplified by Chalandri within the highly visited metropolitan area of Athens, is a key approach to identifying community values that can help renew a sense of place for residents. The aqueduct's water resource emerged as the central focus for developing new community values, drawing on residents' recollections, archaeological preservation, collaborative design of green public areas, and water use for the community. The comprehensive initiative led by the local government is designed not to generate profits, but to reinvest gains within the community.
- Save water and pay less
Following the principles of environmental justice, Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. in Chalandri demonstrates that successful and equitable community-based economies are attainable. Together, public and private entities at national, regional and local levels facilitated an agreement to reduce the cost of non-potable water from the former aqueduct for subsistence economies (e.g. small orchards), thereby fostering a consumer mindset orientated towards savings through incentives for reduced consumption.
- People-based governance model for a better environment
While local governments have been directing these EU funded projects, it is through collaborative efforts that their sustainability can be ensured. ImperfectCity aims to experiment with having NGOs take the lead in managing common spaces destined to become creative laboratories for people with mental illness. And Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. has enabled a sophisticated commoning of water sources, with a citizen-based cooperative designed to ensure the project’s long-term sustainability, despite any future political shifts in the local government that may jeopardise the longevity of the project.
- Use, invent and capitalise on what is available
The lab showed various practices that use existing resources to infuse innovation. The ImperfectCity initiative repurposes and refurbishes Brutalist buildings, making them more energy efficient and linking them to green areas, serving as a symbol for recovery from mental illness. As for Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T., the imperative to ensure that all inhabitants over a wide area have access to water from the aqueduct necessitated greater transportation investments than originally anticipated. In response, the municipality engaged a pre-existing Roma cooperative to take on the task, thereby enhancing the inclusion of Roma individuals in the city.
The practice in Desire focused on educating participants about climate change and recycling in the context of building new housing. Future inhabitants collaborated with local artists to recycle and repurpose materials and artefacts discovered at the building site.
- Communicate with (un)usual messages
Although climate change messages resonate with many people, it can help to engage cultural mediators to help communities connect with artistic and ecological projects, supported by associations with diverse expertise. This was an innovative approach used in Desire project’s multistorey building construction site. The Desire project engaged with culture and art, creating a temporary place for educational activities that incited curiosity and familiarised individuals with the concept of climate-conscious behaviours.
- Storytelling vs changing the narrative
To establish a novel approach opposing touristification, Cultural H.ID.RA.N.T. developed a new appeal and a historical archive that communicated a fresh local narrative, emphasising the preservation of water. At the same time, the creation of a new narrative for a location, as seen in ImperfectCity, can also entail altering discourses around stigmatisation.
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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