Vitality of Smaller Cities in Europe Conference, Barcelona, 25 October: registrations open

Vitality of Smaller Cities in Europe is a one-day conference highlighting the importance of sustaining smaller cities despite the attractiveness of large cities.

The event will be a great opportunity to bring together smaller cities in Europe to share ideas on how to improve their vitality. The conference proposes one full day of inspiring talks, good practices presentations and panel discussions with carefully selected experts and cities.

The main 3 topics are:

• developing new local retail propositions
• engaging the community in placemaking
• enhancing the local agricultural production

Don't miss out!

The event is free of charge and wishes to reach an audience of active citizens involved or interested in urban sustainable development, from an integrated and participative perspective. All participants shall reserve their tickets here, as there are limited spaces available.

The smaller cities' challenges, seen from three different pespectives

The event will be the opportunity to share the knowledge generated during the last three years by RetaiLink, Agri-Urban, and City Centre Doctor, three URBACT Action Planning Networks. These networks have been tackling the issue of how to make smaller cities more vital from different perspectives.

RetaiLink created an impetus for retailers in the city center and other stakeholders to understand and respond to global retail trends, technology, and consumer preferences.
 

Agri-Urban involved cities whose local economies have strong agricultural traditions and focused on how to improve agricultural outputs thanks to innovation in production and marketing related to wellness, organic farming, and quality of urban life.
 

City Centre Doctor aims at creating a better understanding of factors that influence the vibrancy of city centers such as increased mobility and liveability as well as the design and use of public spaces and the diversity of services in the city center.

Building up on opportunities to share knowledge

As the topic of sustaining the medium-sized and smaller cities is getting more and more attention, these networks have already been invited to share their stories at the European Forum on City-Center in Metz and the “Action Coeur de Ville” meeting, organised by the Comissariat Général a l’Égalité des Territoires, in France.

A breakout session of URBACT City Festival 2018 is organised by the three networks RetaiLink, CityCentre Doctor and Agri-Urban.

In the Barcelona conference, experts and cities from these networks will present good practices and lessons learned, focused on the vitality of smaller cities. The design of the conference, based on the URBACT methodology, aims to maximize the exchange of knowledge and experiences between the participants.