Initiatives and organisations

There are several projects, initiatives and organisations that are relevant to Cities-4-People. Below you can find a small selection that you can use to explore further topics such as sustainable mobility, neighbourhood approaches and people-centred urbanisation.

Cities-4-People is not the only project adopting a neighbourhood approach. It has three sister projects with similar aims, but different methods and locations. However, they all rely on the neighbourhood level.

“Neighbourhoods are full of experts and of character. This is especially true with regard to mobility. Local people have deep insight on the day-to-day issues facing mobility where they live. That is to say, people are experts on their own home area. Neighbourhoods tend to have their own character, and in many cases, this character is a conglomeration of the diverse set of people – ranging in age, interests, background, and more, all of which contribute to a more heterogeneous set of skills and ideas” (Max Kortlander on DSI4EU).

SUNRISE stands for Sustainable Urban Neighbourhoods Research and Implementation Support in Europe. SUNRISE’s innovative approach lies in its concrete involvement of citizens, stakeholders and users throughout all phases of the innovation process, from the early identification of problems to the implementation of solutions and their evaluation. These solutions are being tested in six SUNRISE neighbourhoods in the cities of Bremen, Budapest, Jerusalem, Malmo, Southend-on-Sea and Thessaloniki through the so-called “neighbourhood mobility labs”.

The neighbourhood mobility labs of the SUNRISE cities set down the  foundation of the Sustainable Neighbourhood Mobility Planning (SNMP) which in turn builds on the Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning (SUMP) concept. The SNMP applies the transport measures and participatory approaches to the neighbourhood scale by working closely with local partners organisations and citizens.

For further information check the website.

Metamorphosis is a project that aims to transform neighbourhoods in more liveable and shared spaces. The project starts from the premise that when a neighbourhood has many children in its public spaces (Gehl, 2013), this is a major indicator that it is well designed as a people-oriented and sustainable neighbourhood.

The objectives of the project are pursued in seven European Partner cities (Alba Iulia – RO, Graz – AT, Meran – IT, Munich – DE, Southampton – UK, Tilburg – NL, and Zurich – CH) through the support of six national Research and Consultancy partners.The project applies an innovative and participatory approach, which encompasses the direct involvement of children as crucial players in each phase of the project – from planning to implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. During each phase of Metamorphosis, children’s perspectives, suggestions, and ideas are highly valued as essential contribution to create more children-friendly cities.

For more information, please visit the project website.

MUV – Mobility Urban Values –is a project that levers behavioural change in local communities using an innovative approach to improve urban mobility: changing citizens’ habits through a game that mixes digital and physical experiences.

Rather than focus on costly and rapidly ageing urban infrastructures, MUV promotes a shift towards more sustainable and healthy mobility choices by engaging in a positive way local communities, local businesses, policymakers and Open Data enthusiasts.

MUV solutions will be open, co-created with a strong learning community of users and stakeholders, and piloted in a set of diverse urban neighbourhoods spread across Europe: Amsterdam (NL), Barcelona (ES), Fundao (PT), Ghent (BE), Helsinki (FI), Palermo (IT).

Mobility and environmental data gathered via the mobile app and the monitoring stations will allow policy makers to enhance planning processes and civic hackers to build new services able to improve cities’ quality of life in a more effective way.

For further information visit the website.

Cities-4-People is not only about transportation and mobility, but it is also about citizen participation in decision-making processes and (digital) social innovation. This is why we have established synergies with other projects that may have less to do with urban mobility, but that are concerned with open governance and DSI (for a definition of DSI, have a look here in the dedicated section).

The OpenGovIntelligence project aims to modernize Public Administration by connecting it to Civil Society through the innovative application of Linked Open Statistical Data (LOSD). The project also supports approaches to co-design and co-produce services and aspires to adopt new business processes, policies, and tools to enable the active participation of society and enterprise in data sharing and in the co-production of innovative data-driven public services.

You can find their specific objectives on the official website.

DSI4EU is a project commited to support Digital Social Innovation across Europe in a number of ways. Its main tools are the lively network managed through the digitalsocial.eu platform and six thematic DSI clusters, i.e.: skills and learning; health and care; food, environment and climate change; digital democracy; migration and integration; and cities and urban development.

This is the link to the website: click on it to explore the DSI community, look for funding or find inspiration and stories of DSI in sectors as different as healthcare, education, environment and mobility.

You can read about the Cities-4-People case study here.