An inclusive urban project for healthy cities

Abstract

With the advent and rapid dissemination of the COVID 19 corona virus the world has found itself living in a new reality, one which has, to a great extent, revealed a different face of globalization, in which we are all connected by a network that goes far beyond that of the virtual world. Dealing with the current pandemic therefore requires a strategy that is universal and embraced by and for all, one that asserts the right to a more sustainable planet, containing territories that are more inclusive, co-creative and healthy. The city was, is, and always will be, for a variety of reasons, the place where these common purposes can be investigated and disentangled. Recent history shows, with rare exceptions, that urban territories have always found it difficult to conciliate the intransigent economic and financial needs imposed by the wider world with the policies of social and cultural cohesion desired by local populations, especially by those who live in conditions of greater vulnerability. The aspiration is towards a collective lifestyle which respects the management of natural resources. Our survival and that of the planet depends on this. Faced with this challenge it is up to us as inhabitants of this planet to participate in the change we know to be inevitable. URBiNAT – Urban Innovative and Inclusive Nature – is a European project promoting inclusive urban regeneration in seven European cities, aiming to prove that the practice of a process of co-creation, one that involves politicians, technicians and citizens, can create a pathway towards a space in which all are valued: a space that is both public and healthy.