Small Town LAB Steinkjer, Norway Pori, Finland Verdal, Norway Fljótsdalshérað, Iceland Iceland Mosfellsbær, Iceland Levanger, Norway Working Group 4 Final conference in Borgarnes, Iceland 17.-18. October 2019 Attractive Nordic Towns
Towns in Group 4
Joint challenges of Group 4 • How to make town centers more livable and interesting for citizens • How to preserve natural and cultural heritage in sustainable urban development • How to increase public democracy and participation for decision making. • How to use public democracy and citizen involvement to make more attractive towns • How can the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals be used to promote sustainable town development
Nordic town centers
Our objectives • Induce more collaboration across sectors (public-private-citizens-academia) • Exchange practice/experience with other towns through co-operation • Find an appropriate method for small and medium-sized towns • This method should be flexible and adaptable for each municipality • Allow for co-operation between towns and ability to evolve and change Small TownLAB
Small Town LAB methodology A Small TownLAB can be: • a permanent place - a meeting place in one or more locations in the town, with information and knowledge exchange • a mobile "place" that moves around and meets people wherever they are, or a pop-up activity • a digital platform
Small Town LAB methodology We wanted to meet stake holders on their terms, arenas and through communication channels they normally use. We therefore concentrated on establishing meeting places for citizens and making pop-up activities in a wide variety of locations, such a town centers, business meetings, schools, shopping centers, town fairs, research festival and universities
Diverse approaches to Small Town LAB Towns Permanent Mobile facility / Digital Problem Innovation Identifying place Pop-Up activity platform solving based target area Levanger x x x x x x Steinkjer x x x x Verdal x x x x Fljótsdalshérað x x x x x Mosfellsbær x x Pori x x x x
Goals for Small TownLAB • Increasing the participation of the citizens and the cooperation with stakeholders for creating more attractive and sustainable town centers. • Developing the Small Town LAB as an appropriate method and meeting places for small and medium-sized municipalities in municipal planning and development work. • Make our towns more attractive
Examples of Small TownLab Short videos showing examples of Small Town LAB projects in our municipalities • Verdal pop-up event on town square • Levanger Small Town LABs
Small Town LAB example - Verdal
Small Town LAB example - Levanger Small Town LAB example - Levanger
LEVANGER Town LAB activities • Co-creation with and involvement of the inhabitants through workshops and arrangements • Replace a public car park with popup activities, i.e. children´s street party • Introducing city bikes for
STEINKJER Town LAB activities • Meeting people in shopping market and at town market • Launching web-based surveys • Planning how to contact retailers and building owners • Aiming at redefine development tasks based on use surveys involving wide range of stakeholders • Co-creating is intended to use for transformation new areas
VERDAL Town LAB activities • Opening up town square for local activities and pop-up events • Outdoor opera event a town square
FLJÓTSDALSHÉRAÐ Town LAB activities • Small TownLAB to reach out to citizens for more detailed discussion how to make town center more attractive • Meeting place to be installed in a vacant green house • Open for meetings and social gatherings • Access to politicians • Fleemarket, bicycle workshop
MOSFELLSBÆR Town LAB activities • Establishing an attractive meeting place in indoor town center • Creating an information square (UPPMOS) for residents • Increase public participation and citizen involvement • Make Sustainable Development Goals more visible • Open up space for meetings and social gatherings • Further development of square in co-operation with citizens through an e-democracy project
PORI Town LAB activities • Organizing pop-up events in the market square • Organizing a game workshop on the city center development with focus on sustainability approach • Designing a kiosk for outdoor events • creation of the PORIS temporary Urban LAB space in a vacant retail space • Organizing a citybike system • Citizen meetings and surveys
Challlenges • Lack of experience – studytrips have been educational and inspiring • Some resistance from stakeholders and municipal employees/politicians must be conquered • This is a long term work with building dialogue and trust between stakeholders and all participants • Physical results will come in a longer perspective, but only if intangible results among stakeholders have been accomplished in short term
Results • More engagement from stakeholders • Citizens take more responsibility for solutions • Established meeting places • Active participation from citizens and stakeholders • TownLab is important framing of the collaboration • People talk positive instead of negatively about town development and local resources • Have made more attractive towns and increased co-operation
Next steps • Continue experimenting with Small TownLAB methodology • Continue co-operation and sharing experience between towns • Developing a Small TownLAB Give and share library for collecting experience, knowledge, ideas and questions and to ensure lasting co-operation to achieve sustainability goals. SUSTAINABLE TEAMS
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