In a constantly changing world, cities are becoming the place to be. Growing population, fast paces, diversity. Urban areas provide fertile ground for experimentation, innovative thinking and labor opportunities, but also for diverse contestations and (re)-claims. As a consequence, problems such as unemployment, youth poverty or ethnic segregation are highly concentrated.
At the same time, top-down urban policies fail to overcome the contemporary urban challenges, highlighting the need for participatory planning and community interventions. In the past years several European cities have tried to tackle urban problems in a bottom-up manner by focusing on participative urban development and transparent decision making processes.
Finding bottom-up solutions to empower local population
People have always contributed to the production and creation of urban space. Nowadays, more than ever, citizens and local communities are willing to take ownership of the neighborhood they reside in, and pursue urban change.
In practice, even young professionals who are willing to work in the urban field, are not prepared enough to engage with the complexity of urban planning. This happens due to a lack of practical experience that would allow them to target issues themselves in small-scale initiatives. Within the educational system, the focus still lies on how to plan a city top-down, very often how to design it, but rarely how to involve the local stakeholders. Although some changes and discussion started, the practice of city planning is still based on strategic schemes, control systems and it is centred over ‘professionals’.
The CityToolBox Platform aims at closing this gap and allows young people to gather practical knowledge and experience of starting citizen-led organizations.
The Project is funded by ‘Actors of Urban Change‘, a program by RBSG in cooperation with ‘MitOst’ and the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
