Cities as Regional Engines
The Commission on Urban Planning organizes
the second ABC-seminar on 16-19 October. The theme will
be: "Cities as Regional Engines".
 The
UBC Commission on Urban Planning has developed a unique
working method, employed in a couple of seminars. The basic
idea is to let professional city planners form a network,
act as expert advisers in actual urban development problems.
At previous seminars it has been noticed that the ongoing
processes are similar in different cities and countries.
Planning problems and possibilities are of the same character
even if there are big differences in size and location between
the cities. Therefore, it is possible not only to discuss
but also to solve planning questions together. This is the
working method used in the project ABC-Alliance of Baltic
Cities, a city network co-operation for local approaches
to regional strategies.
ABC is an INTERREG IE B project and is running
over the period 2003-2005.27 cities from seven different
countries are participating in this project. Phare-support
is also pending. The objective is to develop new strategies
and methods for concrete action on local level. The burning
questions are:
- Developed urban management
- Cities as regional engines
- Renewal of city districts
- Common conclusions on local approaches to regional strategies
in the BSR and also concrete small investment proposals.
The intention is to build a well-established
network of city planners, and make this network known as
a serious and clever partner to co-operate with when solving
local and regional planning problems in the BSR.
The first of the six seminars was held in
Kolding, Denmark in April this year, and the second one
is held in Vaasa, Finland, in October. Given a number of
qualified background lectures, the participants will discuss
local solutions in groups. The main question is what could
be done in and around the city of Vaasa to develop both
the city and its region to contribute to a further development
of the city of Vaasa as a regional engine. The themes for
the work groups are:
- Development of the regional attraction
- The significance of a developed traffic infrastructure
in the region
- New use of a former military barracks area.
As a result a project report will be published.
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