Journal 3: 2022 The Key Year for the Delivery of the Activities
This report analyses the third year (January 2022 – December 2022) of the Tonite project in Turin, one of the three projects selected under the new UIA domain of security.
This report will focus on developments in 2022, a crucial year in which some of the most important activities developed. To sum up, in 2022:
- The urban data platform has been finalised: the urban security model was finalised, all the data was connected, and the visualization toll finalised. The Platform was tested in June and made available to the sectors of the municipality that expressed interest.
- The 19 projects ended in December 2022 mobilizing residents, city users and people interested in the development of the areas involved.
- The official opening ceremony of Viale Mai was in September 2022, while the other two urban regeneration projects will be realised in 2023.
This Journal will give a critical outlook of the developments based on Steering Committee meetings held in a hybrid format, the reading of the deliverables, and interviews carried out to clarify some specific aspects.
As underlined in previous Journals, Tonite aims to improve the night-time security perception of public spaces in an area of the city of Turin along the Dora River, in particular in the area named Aurora and in the area around the new University Campus. In doing so, the project will contribute to the quality of life and liveability in this area of the city.
This project has been carried out with an inclusive approach, involving the local community and stakeholders, fostering social innovation and urban regeneration to promote urban security.
ToNite project includes four main activities:
- Ethnographic and social research activities in the target areas aimed at understanding the citizens’ perception of urban security and engaging local stakeholders.
- Development of an urban digital platform to analyse existing and newly established data about urban insecurity in the city and provide the public administration with a new tool to support policy decisions.
- Urban regeneration interventions along the Dora River.
- Development of tendered projects and services capable of generating social impact involving local communities.
In addition, impact assessment of project actions and communication with citizens are two cross-cutting actions.
As underlined in Journal 2, the Urban Security Conceptual Data Model was conceived as a flexible model that considers data availability. In 2022, the final Urban Security model was validated. It confirms the nine clusters of determinants on the perception of security that emerged from the qualitative research (identity; education and cultural capital; familiarity with places; resources and uniqueness; social cohesion; condition of places; attendance of places; employment; association of networks) with the addition of the dimension of social media analysis. Currently, this tenth dimension needs to be further investigated due to the limited amount of data. However, in the future, as soon as a certain threshold of data is reached, it could be activated. After one month of testing in June, Engineering (the ICT partner) deployed the final version of the Urban Data Platform (UDP) in September after having integrated new connectors to new datasets, correcting minor bugs and finalising thematic dashboards (municipal police reports, urban commons, urban regeneration projects and areas of intervention of EU funds).
Branches of the municipalities currently interested in the platform include the Municipal Police, Urban Regeneration Department, Education Department, and EU Funds and innovation department.
The UDP has all the potential to facilitate good decision-making. The municipality has successfully made the Platform available for decision-making beyond the urban security topic, and the interest of the city education services, and the urban regeneration branch only confirms this.
Paradoxically, in 2023, more effort should be put into fully exploiting the Urban Data platform for urban security perception, particularly paying attention to updating data. Perception is challenging to analyse, requiring continuous adaptation of the designed model. At the moment, two alerts should be put on: 1) the data of the Urban security model that came from sources (such as the survey administered in Tonite) that need to be repeated in future to maintain the validity of the model; 2) the sensors that do not seem to have reached the significant amount of data required for a functional model.
By June 2023, the UDP will migrate from the Engineering server to the Turin municipality server. By the end of 2023, it should be clear how the Platform has been included on a regular basis in the decision-making of the municipality.
2022 was the year of the realisation of projects selected in September 2021 with the call for projects.
The 19 selected projects mobilised many citizens in a considerable number of events. According to project reports, 2,214 events were organised between September 2021 and December 2022 and 29,604 people participated (some of them in more than one event). Two locations (the youth centre Yalla Aurora and the Campus Leone Ginzburg) have been renovated. The projects have undoubtedly mobilised energy and creativity. For many actors, Tonite represented an excellent opportunity to move activities into the public space, moving out and forward from ordinary indoor activities. This significant mobilisation needs to be recognised as an important achievement. Another key achievement was the ability of some projects to engage with marginalised people or to identify the situations of social hardship in a territory characterised by social marginality and economic fragility. Looking forward, this requires that these projects find ways to keep working beyond Tonite while also striving to permanently connect the city's social services with these street activities. However, two main shortcomings can also be identified.
The first regards the night as one of the distinguished features of Tonite. Seven projects have frequently carried out night activities (i.e., after 10 PM) in public spaces. Two projects have also carried out indoor night activities related to specific events. Most of the projects worked after 5 PM and before 9 PM. However, this is not surprising for the projects working with children (and it was evident also when the projects were selected). In general, moving the activity to night requires a change in habits and mentality. It should also be underlined that the municipality and its partners spent great energy pushing the projects to work at night, but some reflections should be made on the carried-out projects selection.
The second is related to the impact on urban security. As we have underlined in a previous article, the projects approached urban security deterministically. Now that the projects are finished, we can say that this deterministic view was probably due to lack of a clear understanding of the security problem and consequently a reflection on the carried-out interventions. The municipality has likely underestimated the need to develop an accompanying action to support the projects on this aspect.
The urban regeneration interventions of public spaces along the Dora River are the activities that suffered the most delays and issues caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
After signing the contract, in December 2021, the work in Viale Mai was carried out without significant problems. On 6 October 2022, the official opening ceremony took place with the participation of the municipality and university representatives. Later in October, the municipality launched a public tender for a shading structure in steel with a covering sail that will complete the area's renovation.
In December 2022, an expression of interest was launched for the urban furniture that will be put in the Pellegrino Garden, where several projects have carried out social and engagement activities. This urban furniture will conclude the renovation of the garden, which was carried out within the project Usanze Pellegrine.
Challenge table level of risk
In 2022 the selected projects progressively overcame the obstacles of the Covid-19 pandemic. Problems remained for public work due to increased costs and the consequent impact on the timetable.
In 2022, the collaborative leadership of the city of Turin was a consistent feature of the management of the Tonite project. The cooperation proceeded quite well, and the planning of the Steering Committee well in advance guaranteed the partners' continuous participation.
After three years of the project, the city emerged as a player that pays great attention to the delivery of the actions, mitigating risks, sometimes at the cost of reducing the activities’ ambition.
However, the project should not be viewed as completed since this would reduce attention down to the final much-needed effort to increase project impact and legacy.
In 2022 there were no new challenges in public procurement. What has been underlined in the previous journal about the limited innovativeness and the issues related to delays can be confirmed
The EU funds and Innovation Department of the city of Turin managed the project. However, the success of the project requires the active involvement of many departments. Established in September 2020, the inter-departmental working group met for its first meeting in February 2021. In 2022 the working group met twice (in February and March). It focused its attention on new opportunities for the Aurora area based on REACT-EU (Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe) fund and Multi-fund National Operational Programme Metropolitan Cities (PON METRO). It specifically focused on how to coordinate these initiatives between 2022 and 2024. Despite the difficulties, the working group has been identified as the arena where new investments should be discussed and governed. As anticipated in the previous journal, the finalisation of the urban data platform confirmed the potentiality of the cooperation among the EU funds division and the municipal police, the city education services and the urban regeneration division.
The active involvement of local stakeholders, citizens, informal groups, and non-profit organisations is a cross-cutting and distinguished feature of the Tonite project. The delivery of the activities of the 19 selected projects has demonstrated strong mobilisation capacity. While the participative approach has been fully deployed, a clear understanding of being part of a unified participatory governance of urban security seems to be missing.
Monitoring and evaluation activities were carried out during 2022 and required huge efforts from Torino Wireless, the key partner for this activity. The mid-term monitoring report was completed by April 2022 and underlined each project's strengths and weaknesses and potential room for improvement to increase the impact of the projects. Apart from the difficulties linked to the Pandemic, which has been an obstacle for many projects (either in terms of delays or adjusted activities), the main challenges identified include partnerships across projects, the need to focus on legacy and the possibility that results will endure after the end of the projects. The main strengths include the connections and collaborations among projects and the broad range of beneficiaries.
Communication activities in 2022 saw a strong synergy between the communication on social media by 6 (Aurora in movimento, Dora in Avanti, Lo spaccio di cultura, Luna Dora, Usanze Pellegrine, Yalla Aurora) of the 19 projects and Tonite communication.
The project also participated in 3 international conferences, one on line (EFUS web seminar on the use of digital tools in urban security In June) and two in person conferences: the BTO conference in Florence and the World Urban Forum in Katovice (Poland).
2022 was the core year for the deployment of the activities, but more is needed to understand the impact in terms of upscaling towards other cities. Some positive results have been obtained regarding upscaling with other city departments (in particular, the city education services and the urban regeneration division). In May, a transferability workshop took place between Tonite and the experience of some Municipalities in Tuscany on nightlife management. In December, the 19 project team members and potential investors met to discuss legacies beyond the project duration. By the end of 2023, more substantial and substantiated reflections could be carried out on the upscaling of the Tonite activities.
2022 was the pivotal year for the delivery of the activities. The Urban data platform was finalised, and most activities of the 19 projects took place. As anticipated in the previous journal, the number of activities to be carried out was a challenge in itself, and it ended with some minor and understandable delays (e.g. the service masterplan will be prepared in 2023 due to the delays of preparatory activities). Significant delays occurred in the urban regeneration work. The main urban regeneration project (Viale Mai) was concluded in 2022, and the others will be realised in 2023.
The next report Journal will be published in January 2024 and will focus on the last activities of Tonite to be carried out in 2023 and the project’s legacy.
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The Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) is a European Union initiative that provided funding to urban areas across Europe to test new and unproven solutions to urban challenges. The initiative had a total ERDF budget of €372 million for 2014-2020.
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