Interactive Cities in Tallinn: our good practice cities!

The City of Genoa  adopted the City Tax Management System back in 2012, through which it developed a joint strategy between the City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce for the use of tourism tax. Within our network they are working on improving the digital communication and promotion strategy of the city thanks to the Social Media Team, with activities funded by the tourism tax.

When it comes to city branding the work developed by Alba Iulia is impressive, especially when  putting into perspective the challenge many small or medium-sized cities from Europe face when wanting to gain visibility in a changing economic context while promoting their cultural heritage.Currently, they are working at improving their use of social media to attract businesses and tourists in the city.

The Lisbon Local Development Strategy for Priority Intervention Areas (Bip/Zip) is an ongoing program providing the city with a range of integrated tools for regeneration based on a co-governance process. Today, they are working on creating local digital communication strategies to support the neighbourhood regeneration.

Paris is working on the Participatory budget: the Participatory Budget asks people to come up with solutions to problems in their community, on which they are the experts and in which they are highly invested. The city of Ghent is trying a pro-active approach for welcoming refugees, starting the integration process from day one.  Finally, between 2007 to 2013 the City of Murcia has carried out the regeneration of the Espíritu Santo district, by aiming at the improvement of three strategic areas: the physical space; the social and cultural context; and the economic environment. Based on this experience, today they have been replicating this work also in other neighbourhoods with a strong digital communication component in the participation strategy.

All these cities are planning on developing a partnership for the upcoming Transfer Network call, so we invite any interested reader to get in contact with them as soon as possible! In fact, already during the Tallinn URBACT Festival they have already received much interest from potential partners, which shows us how much need there is to exchange knowledge to address our common challenges in cities. If you are curious to know what these cities are up to, keep an eye on the Interactive Cities Facebook page!

The city of Genoa was in Tallinn to receive the award for its Good Practice “City Tax Management System” and to meet other cities which could be interested to work with us to a Transfer Network.

From this point of view, the meeting has been a success! URBACT created many different occasion to exchange ideas, from the most formal ones, like the Meet the city sessions or the Thematic Panels, to the fastest, the Speed Networking (7 minutes to explain everything, with the merciless bell of Eddy setting the times, what a challenge!).
And the Good Practice Gallery allowed us all to keep an “open channel” with the other cities all along the meeting.
Like very other city, as Genoa we played both the roles, presenting our Good Practice but also listening to the ideas and the proposal of the colleagues; and we had the pleasure to be one of the speakers in a Thematic Panel dedicated to “Co-creating local economy”, a title that in few words perfectly identified the aim of our GP.
As always happens, every moment of the day was good to talk to the colleagues, to ask for detail, to discover the richness and the diversity of the Good Practices presented by the cities, in a continuous flow of learning and sharing. And we met so many other Interactive Cities Awarded: we are a great team! The city of Tallinn welcomed us with its beauty and its fascinating locations; and we would like to thank all the URBACT Team for the incredible work done to make it all possible!

Daniela Patti - Lead Expert

Raffaella Cecconi - Communication Officer city of Genoa