NEW BRIDGES project -
Developing quality of life and urban rural partnerships

The issue of developing quality of life is becoming an emergent challenge in making the city- regions in the Baltic Sea Region more attractive. This is an urgent quest for city-regions covering urban and rural areas since the interactions of the two types of territorial qualities become more and more complex.

The Peltola allotment garden in Turku

The growing importanceof quality of life as an essential element of policy-making has brought forward the requirement of a distinctive and objective comprehension of its influence. Approaches for developing quality of life cannot be based on policies initiated by hierarchical co-ordination of public institutions, but should take into account the individual aspects and preferences. Improvement of quality of life is not only a question of equity, but also a strategic issue in order to attract people and investments.

The UBC EnvCom coordinates NEW BRIDGES project (2009-2011) focusing on urban rural interactions, their management and impacts on quality of life. The project aims to improve the management of urban - rural interactions by developing sound strategies to identify and launch key projects and management tools for strengthening quality of life in seven partner city-regions across the BSR.

Within the project, quality of life is approached through three key elements - residential preferences, mobility & accessibility and provision of services. Particular attention is paid to the individual preferences of people living in the city-regions. Inhabitants and local stakeholders - practitioners, representatives from interest groups and NGOs, scientists, decision-makers, and entrepreneurs & employees - have been involved from the very beginning through surveys. interviews and Local Stakeholder Meetings. During the first year of the project the partner city-regions started to create new urban rural partnerships and identified their three most important priority challenges regarding the quality of life. Most challenges were found within mobility & accessibility and provision of services.

Furthermore, the partners analysed the individual preferences and the prevailing local circumstances and policy environment. The analyses show difficulties in addressing the identified challenges in regional planning as cooperation and communication between the relevant stakeholders and an integrated planning approach is insufficient. During the spring 2010 the partners perform a critical reflection by linking the outcomes of their analyses to the priority challenges identified. Based on the reflection each city-region will select Pilot Actions that will be implemented between summer 2010 and spring 2011.