Visions of an attractive city

The Commission on Urban Planning held its seminar on 7 - 9 October in Šiauliai, Lithuania. The city was practically rebuilt after the World War II. Like many North European cities, it is suffering from loss of inhabitants. One of the aims of the CUP seminar was to find ways to increase the attractiveness of the city and to discuss how urban planning could help the city to keep its present inhabitants and possibly even increase the number of population.

Šiauliai used to be a very important and innovative industrial city where new industrial methods were in use. It also has the oldest pedestrian street in Lithuania, which is just one example of the up-to-date touch of the local planners. But due to the economic turmoil, there are few new investments and the maintenance of the old structures has been rather poor. The seminar concentrated on finding good examples of positive urban development. There were very interesting presentations from Hamburg, Odense and Umeå, where the local administration's active approach to solving problems has led to fine results despite the economic and political difficulties. One of the main conclusions was that the cities active in finding ways to solve their problems are the ones that survive. Seeking financial possibilities together with private enterprises and different state or EU programmes has made possible to carry out ambitious projects.

The seminar workshops focused on creating new use for the former Frenkelis leather factory area and on developing the city centre and the surroundings of the pedestrian street. There were lots of useful proposals for renovating old industrial buildings for education, culture, NGOs purposes and apartments, and for creating new parks, pedestrian and biking routes, light and new places of attraction for inhabitants. CUP will hold its next seminars in Växjö in spring 2011 and in Tartu in autumn 2011.