Project
European cities are constantly evolving by adjusting to new circumstances, such as socio-economic shift, new political agendas, new technological trends, public health concerns and the most challenging of all, climate change.
Over the last decades, the pace of change in urban Europe has been far more rapid than at any time in its recent history. Our urban areas, previously seen as a conglomerate of societal troubles, are now acknowledged as assets for transformative change.
Urban regeneration presents unique opportunities to revitalise underprivileged areas and turn them into vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable neighbourhoods where people want to live and put down roots. The process is not without criticism as urban interventions can sometimes bring about adverse consequences such as social exclusion and gentrification.
Urban regeneration is a place-based process, where effective strategies and actions are shaped by specific local context, strengths and weaknesses, and successful projects do share some key commonalities. However, there is a lack of large-scale and exportable experiments to provide sufficient evidence on the success factors and barriers.
WeGenerate is an Innovation Action designed to fully address the topic HORIZON-CL5-2022-D4-02-02 ‘Solutions for the sustainable, resilient, inclusive and accessible regeneration of neighbourhoods enabling low carbon footprint lifestyles and businesses (Built4People)’.
The project seeks to infuse the elements of people and co-creation in the urban regeneration processes. It fully embraces the paradigm shift from building for the people to building with the people. We – cities, citizens, communities, businesses, researchers, and practitioners – take ownership of the urban regeneration processes and co-create together sustainable, resilient, people-centric, inclusive, accessible, and beautiful neighbourhoods.
The project is about the stories of four neighbourhoods and their communities located in different parts of Europe. Although they are at different stages of development and are facing different challenges but they share the same vision of positive change. WeGenerate will help them to reinvent themselves and in the process find new values and opportunities.
