COMMISSION ON URBAN PLANNING SEMINAR IN AARHUS

The Commission on Urban Planning had a seminar and meeting in Aarhus, Denmark between April 23rd and 26th, 2008. The seminar theme was Future City Life. The theme is connected to the current overall theme of the CUP, namely "Sustainable and Attractive Cities" and an ongoing discussion of the development of ideals and visions for sustainable and attractive cities as an overall theme, with a special fo-cus on how to create good living environments.

During the seminar there were interesting lectures by Danish urban planners and architects. Also, the seminar participants had a chance to get to know current urban development projects of Aarhus during a good and educational sightseeing around the city - the 2nd biggest city in Denmark right after Copenhagen. One of the projects we learned about is the ongoing relocation of the industrial harbour to a new loca-tion and the transformation of the former harbour area into a new urban quarter with housing, educational institutions and other city functions. Very interesting was also the city's effort to transform one of the coun-try's largest social housing estates Gellerup from a problematic "ghetto" to an attractive modern neighbourhood with lots to offer its' own multi-cultural inhabitants as well as the citizens from other parts of Aarhus.

Naturally there were workshops about current urban planning problems in Aarhus, in the former freight railway station area "Godsbanen" and in the Midtkraft, a part of the industrial harbour area which used to house the power plant of Aarhus but now hosts many film and modern media companies.

In the seminar some changes in the CUP Steering Committee were an-nounced. Gvido Princis from Riga, Jonas Jakaitis from Vilnius and Gunilla Kronvall from Malmo have resigned from the membership of the Steering Committee due to getting ahead on their careers. Instead, Mrs Mara Liepa-Zemesa from Riga has joined the Steering Committee. Also, the Commission aims to apply for financing for the VisualCities Project from the Interreg Baltic Sea Region. The main activities in the Visual Cities Project will be to create methods and strategies for sus-tainable management of 3D GIS data, visualization of the planning process and creating a planning platform giving sustainable and attrac-tive BSR cities with good quality of life ("Sustainable and Attractive Cit-ies"). If the project application succeeds, the new project will start in spring 2009.

The next seminars of the Commission on Urban Planning will be in Turku, Finland in September 2008 and in Gdansk, Poland, in spring 2009.

Sirpa Kallio
Chairperson of the Commission on Urban Planning

Photo: The Commission on Urban Planning seminar participants above the rooftops of Aarhus.