Inclusive Urban Regeneration with Citizens and Stakeholders: From Living Labs to the URBiNAT CoP

Abstract

In recent decades, many city authorities have been implementing strategies for the development of urban regeneration in their central areas. Most of these processes aim to improve the use of public space, and are often to be found in historic areas and waterfronts. The aim of this text is to put forward an alternative urban regeneration plan which focuses on the peripheral areas of cities, areas which were often built as neighbourhoods of social housing, and which now face environmental challenges as well as social and economic ones. To this end, the URBiNAT H2020 project is promoting inclusive urban regeneration that engages citizens and stakeholders in all the stages of the co-creation process. The overall objective is to implement a cluster of human-centred, nature-based solutions (NBS) in order to create Healthy Corridors that bring together both material and immaterial solutions that will impact the environment and the wellbeing of the community. The activation of Living Labs in the seven URBiNAT cities is building a Community of Practice so that knowledge can be shared with project partners, within the cities themselves, and with the public in the wider world. The intermediate results achieved in the pilot case studies validate the overall methodology and are helping us to identify lessons to be learnt and recommendations for the future.

Social Cost-Benefit Analysis of Bottom-Up Spatial Planning in Shrinking Cities: A Case Study in The Netherlands

“…In this respect, Dutch citizens are taking on leadership roles to contribute to the quality of life in their immediate surroundings, and local governments are encouraging such development, supporting citizens' initiatives [4][5][6]. Including citizens in the regeneration of shrinking areas has attracted significant academic attention [7][8][9][10][11][12]. For example, differences are evident regarding perceptions of active civic action among citizens in shrinking areas [12], and regarding capacities to be involved in the regenerating of vacant and open spaces [13].…”