Bridging Culture, Innovation and Integrated Development

Bridging culture, innovation and integrated development Sabina LEOPA EU Projects Manager, URBASOFIA |

www.urbasofia.eu

„STANDING STILL IS THE FASTEST WAY OF MOVING BACKWARDS IN A RAPIDLY CHANGING WORLD” Lauren Bacall

CHANGE AND PRESSURE

Internal: • Expectations; • Resources; • Demographic and socioeconomic changes; External • Growing competition; • The Smart City race; • International policy.

Strong foundations!

A LITTLE BACKGROUND ON URBASOFIA 

Laboratory for urban development, strategic planning, policy design and territorial cohesion focused on developing more integrated, participatory and smart-oriented solutions to pressing urban problems;

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Involved in development and management of EU-funded projects, especially in connection with smart cities, strategic integrated planning, urban regeneration as well as the social impact assessment of current urban issues and new ICT solutions under development.

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Developed the Integrated Metropolitan Strategy for Cluj-Napoca 2030; Partner in the Horizon 2020 ROCK Project.

www.urbasofia.eu

INNOVATING THROUGH PLANNING: CITY STRATEGIES What are the common denominators?

1. IMPACTFUL: Committed to real change through concepts, processes and tools 2. INSPIRING: Attracting attention, talent, resources and investments 3. INTEGRATED: Vertical and horizontal, but also spatially, thematically, from the point of view of governance actors and funding: Ecosystems 4. INTERACTIVE: Cities as governance arenas. Cities as a service. Cities as platforms.

5. IMAGINATIVE: Unique places fostering creativity and connection

THE CLUJ-NAPOCA METROPOLITAN STRATEGY A PROCESS OF RETHINKING (2015-2017)

CLUJ-NAPOCA 2030

BUILDING ON THE STRATEGY...

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The Integrated Development Strategy: creating the framework for development, but also experimentation; Priority: Exploiting the endogenous potential and strengths of ClujNapoca for a strong positioning within the EU innovation landscape; Key competitive advantage – Cluj-Napoca is a creative knowledge city: (Multi) Cultural, lively, dynamic, growing university center, de facto capital of the region.

Leveraging Cultural Heritage: unique potential for regeneration, sustainable development and economic growth of the city.

...THROUGH INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY • •

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Competitiveness and sustainability: Bringing a traditional approach into contemporaneity; Principle: The contemporary urban spaces are enriched and contaminated by a new layer of space and information.

Smart cities, smart places!

Public hyperspace: Space and heritage, empowered by cutting-edge technologies – today’s new infrastructure?

THE HORIZON 2020 ROCK PROJECT REGENERATION AND OPTIMISATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN CREATIVE AND KNOWLEDGE CITIES „ROCK” – Horizon 2020 SC5 www.rockproject.eu

THE HORIZON 2020 ROCK PROJECT •

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Historic city centers as extraordinary laboratories: Cultural Heritage [CH] can be a unique and powerful engine of regeneration, sustainable development and economic growth for the whole city.

Promoting effective regeneration and adaptive reuse; Integrating the Creative City with the Knowledge City; 7 Role Model cities: Athens, Cluj-Napoca, Eindhoven, Liverpool, Lyon, Turin and Vilnius.

3 Replicator Cities: Bologna (LP), Skopje, Lisbon

THE HORIZON 2020 ROCK PROJECT

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ROCK implements an innovative circular systemic approach to connect different actors, places of CH value and systems, at EU and local level - facilitating the innovation process and the adoption of environmentally and socially sound solutions to achieve sustainable growth.

ROCK conceptualizes an innovative circular urban system model – the ROCK Circle

STRATEGIC APPROACH

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Knowledge Inventory Sharing and Modelling Piloting and Demonstration Assessment and Upscaling

Transfer project: practices and technologies, validated or demonstrated in relevant environments – ROCK Tools for Heritage-led regeneration (10)

CLUJ-NAPOCA: CommunityBased Design Best Practice •

Brokering between public and private stakeholders, within an open and cooperative environment: financial schemes to support community based design in heritage-led regeneration (eg. Participatory budgeting, nonreimbursable public funding, etc); Further focus in ROCK: • Applying Monitoring and management tools - evaluating results, assessing impacts and providing necessary feedback for improving citizens’ life conditions and patterns of mobility in large-scale cultural events; • Analysis and validation of methods and instruments for adaptive heritage and vacant space re-use (urban regeneration).

PILOTING: LBA SENSE

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LBA Sense: Monitoring tool analyzing (accurate and anonymised) data over time providing real-time insights Sensor, web platform and mobile app of LBA Sense into patterns of activity and mobility behaviour.

(DFRC)

Piloting (2018-2019): Implementation locations: several areas in the central part of Cluj-Napoca which form the larger area of polarization for tourists and locals alike hosting a wide range of large-scale events

PILOTING: LBA SENSE

Results: • Impact & planning of large-scale events • Organic development indicators of the cultural scene • Baseline information on safety and security • Joint scenarios with other cities in ROCK

cluj2015.eu

Provisional end of piloting: end of 2019 untold.com

IN CLOSING

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Bridging top-down with bottom up is setting a base for future coherent territorial development in cities and regions, and the foundation for embedding Smart Cities tools and technologies.

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There is a real need for smart local participatory planning tools, especially in South East Europe, and they need to be directed at valorizing local assets;

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Good results require good expertise: local administrations need more direct support both during and after Urban Development projects. A great methodology is not sufficient.

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EU Level: 330 million EUR earmarked for urban innovative actions for sustainable urban development in 2014-2020, and even more for Innovation Actions with direct impact in cities. Strategies play the role of integrators for these initiatives.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR QUESTIONS! Sabina LEOPA | Town and Regional Planner URBASOFIA | General Manager of EU Projects sabina.leopa@urbasofia.eu | www.urbasofia.eu