About Stone Age, human evolution, shops and URBACT
Edited on
03 March 2020Second thematic hub of Transfer Network Re-growCity in Isernia
Engine hissing, light flashes, the time machine stops and we get out…Welcome to Stone Age! A giant prehistorical elephants receives us in a place that we would call Italy. Now we are visiting a land which looks totally different than the home country of pasta, pizza, fashion and arts. We are curious about the Neanderthal men (and women) who are sitting next to a fire and walk to their dwellings to analyze their behavior and to get to know them. Somehow they remind of us people we know in modern life. Maybe there is still some Neanderthal blood in our veins? The Homo neanderthalensis are shy, but love to show us their weapons, animals and how their life looks like. Unfortunately we have to go back. Engine hissing, light flashes, the time machine stops and we get out…
Back in our time a group of URBACT Network Re-growCity stands in front of the prehistorical museum in Isernia, Italy where the second thematic hub of pop-up shop group took place in November 2019. Isernia is a city of 22,000 inhabitants of central-southern Italy, situated at an altitude of 465 meters on the sea level, between Rome (km 150) and Naples (km 100). Over time, it has alternated periods of splendor with periods of decline. It has been destroyed several times by wars and earthquakes. In 1970, Isernia was elevated to a provincial capital. Today, a heavy economic and employment crisis is leading it to a new period of decline. To find solutions for occurring problems officials from municipality decided to participate in an URBACT Transfer Network dealing with and finding solutions for shrinking cities.
This second workshop not only provided further and deeper information concerning Altena’s Good Practice of Pop-up Shops, but was a chance for partners to exchange their current level of development. All partners established more or less a way how to understand and implement Pop-up Shops while dealing with their specific problems. By sharing the experiences project partners noticed that all of them made an interpretation of the Good Practice and created an individual approach.
Melgaco (our Portuguese partner), a “star” of project partners presented its work in more details. The city’s team managed to involve different stakeholders, made up contracts for renting the shops without money and activated people to open several shops. All of this happened in one year. Melgaco did a great job so far, celebrated the first day of opening and shared their experience in local and national media. Now they have to find new goals to reach until the end of the project in December 2020 and how to make a sustainable strategy.
One main insight of the workshop was the importance of communication via different media. Sharing news, ideas and plans by using social platforms and news is an important way to reach and motivate people. Therefore partners like to intense their medial appearance by using different social media and a more effective way to communicate with local and national news.
Last but not least Daniele Terzariol, a thematic expert of Pop-up Shops in Italy shared his experience. Pop-ups are not only to open new shops for selling goods but also to create places for people to spend time at. These places can be set up homely or to connect different services: In a cake shops can be an open book shelter for costumers, neighbors, etc. to share literature.
Submitted by l.engstfeld on