Switching their energy supply to renewables is central for municipalities to reach their carbon emissions goals. Being one of the most local green energy makes photovoltaic particularly easy to get city dwellers involved. Thus Dornbirn in Austria (50 000 inhabitants) and Burgas in Bulgaria (200 000 inhabitants) are taking two different but complementary paths to … Read more
You probably already know the “15 minutes city”. Highlighted by Paris, the concept aims to design the city in order to meet all the basic needs within a 15-minute radius on foot or by bike. But the swedes came to the even more local concept: the One-minute city! The ambition of the concept is to … Read more
In the old days, prisons were commonly located close to the city centers. Nowadays, the closure of these outdated places creates new challenges and opportunities for the municipalities. Most of them are demolished to make space for modern buildings, but some historical architectures deserve preservation. It is the case for the Lukiškės Prison in Vilnius, … Read more
In Santiago de Compostela, the municipality created a unique way to encourage its citizens to have sustainable and environmentally friendly behavior: by giving them rewards! The program is called Tropa Verde (“green troops” in English) and fights the biggest barrier against recycling, which is habits. The principle of Tropa Verde is simple: as a citizen, you … Read more
For a long time, the capital of Estonia was quite an important industrial hub of the Baltics. Since the 1990s, the country’s economy radically switched to the third sector, especially betting on Tech, innovation, and tourism. This successful turn is now visible in Tallinn’s landscape. Let’s look at two former industrial neighborhoods that radically transformed … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, we presented Kaunas in Lithuania as the European Capital of Culture 2022, but another city shares the title: Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxemburg. The second-largest city in the country aims to renew its industrial heritage and culture with more than 160 cultural projects. The keyword here is Remix! This keyword reflects the … Read more
Located between the German Alps and the Schönbuch nature park, Tübingen is a city whose strong commitment to the environment allows the development of alternative lifestyles. According to the magazine Géo, Tübingen is “the most vegan-friendly city in Europe”. Indeed, the important share of vegetarian and vegan inhabitants pushes the shopkeepers to adapt to the … Read more
Today, it is rare to witness the opening of a new park inside the dense urban area of a European capital. It is even more unusual when it hosts exceptionally diverse and almost untouched wildlife. This park exists and it is called the Văcăreşti Park. A bit of history: It was first born as a … Read more
The capital city of Latvia faced real challenges in the last decades that changed its economy, morphology, and identity. After 2008, many vast spaces remained vacant because of the disappearance of former economic activities. In the meantime, the local artistic and cultural scene was booming and needed space to blossom. From that point, a citizen … Read more
Antwerp is not located under the tropics but it will suffer more than other cities from heat-waves in the future. This is due to the “urban heat islands”. This phenomenon implies higher temperatures in urban environments than in their rural surroundings. The denser and more mineral the city is, stronger is the phenomenon. This makes … Read more
*This event is not organized by the French Government. However we have been allowed by the French Government to use the emblem of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
