PUBLIC SPACE REGENERATION THROUGH INTEGRATED URBAN SPORTS’ HUBS FOR THE PARTICIPATION OF YOUNG CITIZENS (RE-GEN)

PUBLIC SPACE REGENERATION THROUGH INTEGRATED URBAN SPORTS’ HUBS FOR THE PARTICIPATION OF YOUNG CITIZENS (RE-GEN)

Project consortium:

Verona Municipality, Italy - Lead Partner

Business Innovation Center of Albacete, Spain

Daugavpils State City Local Government, Latvia

Municipality of Vila Do Conde, Portugal

Kapodistriaki Development S.A., Greece

Municipality of Pula, Croatia

Dobrich Municipality, Bulgaria

Milan Municipality, Italy

Lezha Municipality, Albania

Funded: URBACT IV (2021 - 2027)

Duration: 31 months (07.2023г. - 12.2025г)

Budget: € 847.130,50

Abandoned/unused public spaces are present in all cities of the partnership, and there is a need to regenerate and turn them into green common spaces to attract, and train new generations of young citizens towards more cooperative/sustainable bottom-up governance models. In contexts where social inequalities are expected to grow, thus increasing economic and social poverty, baby gangs, drug abuse and school drop, it is necessary to foster social cohesion/inclusion. The project use the common language of sport to attract target groups and to exploit the visibility from the Winter Olympic/Paralympic games 2026 in Verona/Milan.

The project aims: at improving the capacity of urban stakeholders to design and implement sustainable urban development policies, practices and innovation in an integrated, participative and place-based way in the field of greener, low–carbon transitioning towards a net zero-carbon economy and resilient Europe as well as social inclusion. Such issues will be faced taking into account cross cutting principles of green transition, digital transformation and gender equality.

Project activities: During the project the partner cities from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Albania and Latvia will identify and map areas that might serve as a concrete link between the city centre and disadvantaged urban suburbs to be transformed into “Urban Sports Hubs”. The Sports Hubs will represent not only a safe space for young citizens and their families but also a concrete example of urban regeneration and social inclusion. The regenerated hubs selected by the project will ultimately serve as spaces where the whole community can meet and experiment new forms of sports activities testing street sports (i.e. skateboard, parkour, street dance) but also will be a hub for active citizenship, culture exchange (events/festivals), information and communication thanks to the app thus fostering a sense of belonging and inclusiveness among young people.

Re-Gen aims to create international networks for participative governance in the field of sustainable urban development and social inclusion. The project centres its activities around sports hubs as a tool to foster direct involvement of secondary school students from disadvantaged groups into the management of dismissed or abandoned areas according to green and gender architecture criteria. These areas will be selected according to specific standards and will be the object of participative budgeting actions by secondary schools students asked to take active part in the design, implementation and monitoring phases. These actions will lead to the creation of more sustainable cities, and will introduce the concept of gender/feminist architecture to create safe areas for women and families.

Re-Gen represents a concrete and hands-on tool to improve the planning and delivery of integrated urban policies to be translated into specific Integrated Action Plans. It will directly involve stakeholders, and target groups into the co-design of urban areas and give them the chance to design them according to their needs, and in compliance with green, gender, and accessibility criteria. This will lead to a greater feeling of ownership of the policies and more effective urban areas management

The project targets two categories of youngsters (10-18 y.o.):

• disadvantaged areas and groups  
• disabilities

The values at the basis of the intervention are the following:

• attention to youngster’s needs through the participative process, dialogue and direct involvement with all stakeholders
• urban sustainable development
• creation of green common areas for social inclusion of disadvantaged groups