CITY MAKERS CALL
The (Im)Pact of Amsterdam
THE (IM)PACT OF AMSTERDAM NEW EUROPE CITY MAKERS CALL FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION AND COLLABORATIVE CITY-MAKING The complex challenges of our time demand innovative solutions and above all, a new way of working. The city of the future doesn’t originate from a blueprint on a designer’s table or the executive’s office. Our cities are in transition. Urgent matters like climate change, increasing poverty and inequality, housing or food supply demand an approach characterised by experiments and integrated collaboration, rooted in ownership and participation of the city’s users.
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City Makers are the pioneers exploring, shaping and defining this new way of working. They are the active citizens that enhance livability and create communities in their own neighbourhood, setting up cooperatives, starting communal gardens, and organising self-sustaining energy facilities. They are the architects and developers starting their design process by building a community and developing buildings and areas in collaboration with end users. They are the civil servants and political decision makers who base their policies on participative decisionmaking, transparency, open data, and so on, based upon trust in the strength of their partners in the city. They are the alliances of residents, entrepreneurs, civil society organisations, municipalities, and knowledge institutions, sharing circular ambitions and working together in closing loops of water, energy, raw and waste materials.
connected through shared ambitions and principles but characterised by a diversity of initiatives adapted to different socio-economical contexts and needs. New Europe - Cities in Transition wants City Makers to connect, inspire, and learn from one another and work together in increasing support by the public and on a political level. The highlight to date is the City Makers pre-Summit held in Amsterdam in February 2016, in which more than 500 City Makers from 80 European cities met to collaboratively work on the City Makers Agenda. This agenda is presented on May 30, 2016, at the informal ministerial meeting concerning the Urban Agenda for the EU. At the same moment, the City Makers meet each other at the New Europe City Makers Summit, only 500 metres away at Pakhuis de Zwijger. It is these links City Makers are always looking for.
Pioneering City Makers often work on a small scale, which doesn’t apply to the impact of their work. You can find City Makers anywhere. They constitute a movement capable of shaking up society and redefining existing systems. It is a movement manifesting itself throughout Europe and causing a change in cities. A movement
Although the City Makers Agenda is an ongoing process - and sees itself reflected in the expanding network of City Makers, the know-how they exchange and the collaborations they develop, we want to take this opportunity to call to the Ministers responsible for the Urban Agenda for the EU to the following.