In 2018, the city of Brest launched a unique project in France: “Objectif Couleurs“. This device encourages residents to repaint the facade of their houses with bright colors. This scheme is the result of a grassroots process. Indeed, in the 1990s and 2000s, the local association of the Loucheur neighborhood decided to repaint their facades … Read more
The benefits of cycling are now not to be proven: exercise, health, traffic, accessibility for all public, quality of life, or noise. Yet despite the beautiful weather conditions, Portuguese cities can have trouble convincing drivers to trade their cars for a bike. Thus the city of Braga, alongside Istanbul (Turkey) and Tallinn (Estonia), took the … Read more
In the heart of the Cypriot capital city lies a peaceful community garden. The story goes that in October 2019, an energetic team called Gardens of the Future presented their project and won the Climathon Nicosia Concours. This award kickstarted the project to makegarden reality. With the help of hundreds of volunteers, the derelict space … Read more
In Hungary, the transport sector accounts for 20% of CO2 emissions. To tackle this issue on a national level, the National Hydrogen Strategy was adopted last June to push the adoption of this new technology. It encompasses the rapid extension of the production capacities, the creation of 40 filling points, and the purchase of almost … Read more
Situated 60km away from Dublin, the town of Drogheda has seen in the past years an increase in population, boosted by the Covid pandemic and subsequent move of Dubliners looking for more space. Thus the municipality aims to reconnect the newcomers and already inhabitants to their town through culture. In this framework, officials unveiled the … Read more
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
*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.
