Urbact: the need for adjustment/change

URBACT: The need for adjustment/change

An open blog to the Urbact Community

This blog is a reflection of what I felt and I know others felt based on the discussions I had and heard during the URBACT annual conference in Stockholm. The mood I picked up was a sense of frustration over the way the programme is being driven. To get to the point URBACT is a great idea being poorly executed.

The main issues that need urgent reappraisal are Quality and Transparency.

“Quality”and “added value” are also two key principles of the programme and yet the machine is producing/approving a high volume of projects that objectively fail that test. The results of the second call highlight this issue. Consider the following example :

In response to the second call three proposals ( one for a working group and two for thematic networks) were submitted for the same priority: “Integrated development of deprived areas & areas at risk of deprivation”. Here is what the three partners wrote in their respective submissions in response to two key questions (I have simply highlighted key statements as they are the core of the project):

Question 2.2 Main objective and expected outputs for the whole project

Project One

This project will involve several actors (Cities, Regions, Universities, local key actors) and knowledge forms in developing shared interpretations of processes of renovation and revitalisation of public spaces in deprived urban areas. The focus is on projects and programmes developed within innovative mainstream area-based and integrated urban regeneration programmes. Success as well as failure cases will be focused in order to single out strengthnesses and weaknesses of these processes and build up guidelines useful for supporting both EU level capitalisation processes and local policy-making.

The case-studieswill be selected among policies which have been set up and implemented within either domestic (national, regional and/or local) urban policy or the mainstream of structural funds (Regional Operational Programmes). What is important is that in these experiences innovation was somehow linked to to what learnt from Community Initiatives and Innovative actions targeting urban deprived areas (in particular, Urban Pilot Projects, Urban, Urban II) as well as by participating in EU networks such as URBACT.

Often the different actors dealing with urban regeneration in deprived areas do not agree on what are the elements of the processes they observe/are involved in which plays a key role for policy effectiveness. Breaking barriers between different interpretations of these processes involving different forms of knowledge and points of view in building up shared interpretations aims at both supporting capitalisation processes within EU networks and impacting on local policy-making. And this is the main objective of this working group.

Processes of renovation and revitalisation of public spaces will be analysed focusing, in particular, on actors and forms of knowledge, modes of interaction between different actors, learning processes developed. The outcomes of different approach to public spaced renovation and revitalisation in terms of social cohesion, improvement of the area attractiveness and of quality of life will be explored. Their embedment in local (cultural, institutional, social) contexts will be considered in order to set up a process of mutual learning, involving partners and support local groups to identify guidelines for urban policy and practice in these areas.


Project Two

The project’s overall objective is to enhance sustainable growth and rehabilitation in deprived urban areas by boosting and diversifying local economies, promoting community development, developing innovative housing methods and improving local employment opportunities, as core components of an integrated Socio-Economic Urban Rehabilitation Model. This will be achieved through an efficient transnational exchange of experiences and learning, the identification and dissemination of good practices and innovative approaches, and the proposal of policy recommendations and action plans. It is also an intention of the…. network to assist policymakers and managers of operational programmes to define initiatives in this field, which may be selected for Structural Funds programmes. Focusing on socio-economic aspects of urban rehabilitation represents an innovative approach in comparison with other initiatives centred on big cities, providing high value added outputs that can be replicated in other European cities and regions.

The integrated socio-economic urban rehabilitation model, which is the main output of (the) network, will be a common strategy adopted by the partner cities, and will be disseminated as a guidebook for European small and medium sized cities. In order to reach the overall objective, the project will have a particular focus on the following specific objectives/sub-themes:

1. Boosting and diversifying local economies by realising and exploiting existing growth potentials.
2. Innovative rehabilitation of degraded public spaces by using community development as a tool to increase the attractiveness of the areas for businesses and investments (e.g. quality of public spaces and services).
3. Increasing quality of life in high density zones by developing innovative housing methods and large scale panel rehabilitation programmes and by improving ownership structure (governance and planning).
4. Improving social safety by generating special local employment projects linked to the socio-economic revitalisation (e.g. quality of the work force, special training / employment programmes, improving skills of local inhabitants).

Each partner will focus on a selected number of specific sub-themes, which will multiply the effectiveness of sharing knowledge and experiences and the dissemination of good practices.

The main expected outputs of the project (Implementation Phase) are:

o Collection of case studies based on the study tours to be organised by the network to deprived urban areas with a strong, community based economic development work (UK, Spain, etc.).
o Guide of good practices, integrating the innovative approaches identified in the case studies and additional research carried out by the partners.
o Policy orientations and practical guidelines targeting policy-makers, practitioners and Managing Authorities of Operational Programmes at a European level.
o Economic driven Socio-Economic Urban Rehabilitation Model will be developed and disseminated on European level.
o Local Action Plans for each network partner, focussing on socio-economic rehabilitation of a deprived urban area.

Based on the above mentioned outputs, the main expected results of the project (Implementation Phase) are:

o Action plans adopted by city councils
o Municipality staff and local key stakeholders with increased capacities
o Policy guidelines approved by Managing Authorities and other concerned local/regional/national bodies

The implementation of local action plans will be assured and can be supported by other mainstream EU or national programmes after the end of the URBACT II project.


Project Three

This proposal seeks to offer participants an exchange programme that will be “problem solving” focussed, where the goal will be to examine intellectual concepts and risk taking linked to “real-time” experimentation which will create a cycle of learning and relearning based on some underlying principles such as:

o The need to involve those affected by a problem in implementing solutions;
o Providing an environment for problem-solving that permits open-minded learning opportunities both for decision-makers and those affected by them, and;
o Generating solutions that are culturally, economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.

This proposal has the overall goal of assisting partner organisations to develop Local Action Plans which will address local needs. These Local Action Plans will seek to secure funding from Operational programmes for ESF/ERDF or other EU or national funds.

To realise these overall aims the project would have the following key objectives and outcomes:

1) To establish a transnational exchange programme across 8- 10 cities/regions. The proposed theme for the transnational exchange programme would be “Public Spaces: Their role in area based regeneration in challenging urban environments”. The transnational exchange programme would have the following components:

o Two transnational workshops
o Bi-lateral/trilateral visits
o Web-based support programme on the Urbact website,
o Telephone conferencing linked to web based conferencing

2) The above transnational exchange programme will be linked to a ”real-time” redevelopment of a public space in the city of Amadora. The city is part of a Portuguese urban regeneration programme called “The Critical Areas Programme”. This is a programme that seeks to develop and evaluate the impact of integrated approaches in number of critical neighbourhoods in Portugal. As part of this programme , the city of Amadora has budget of €7m to be spent in the revisioning of a public space in one of its critical areas. The goal will be use this “real time” development for partners to work together in “developing” through an exchange of experience and ideas. This is the ingredient that makes this exchange unique as it provides a chance to actually take part in the “real –time” development and review of this proposed revisioning.

3) Establishment of a Local Support Group gathering key stakeholders concerned by the issues and policies addressed by the project. The main aim of the Local Support Groups is to spread the learning from trans-national exchanges to a broader cross-section of local stakeholders and to ensure that the lessons learnt lead to change at a local level;

4) Each LSG will have a local facilitator. This is someone who will work with the LAG and develop a programme of local activities(consultation; dissemination; a “local”(sub-regional, regional, national);local media involvement ). This person has to be able to work in English at transnational level;

5) Each LSG will produce a Local Action Plan. This will be a multi stakeholder, co-production that the transnational and local programme of activities will support;

6) Facilitate bi-lateral/trilateral exchanges between LSG members in the partner cities. These would complement the transnational exchange programme and allow more in- depth transfer of learning and practice;

7) Create a web site resource, on the Urbact website, which would include:

o Case Studies
o Sub-Theme reports
o Links to relevant websites
o Publications / Reports
o Contacts with regional/city/national/European actors;

8) Develop actions within the Local Action Plans that could form part of the participating partners regional operational programmes(ERDF/ESF);

9) Disseminate the project outcomes to other cities and regions.



Question 2.3 Main Issue to be addressed in relation with the selected topic

Project One

In analysing cases of renovation and revitalisation of public spaces in deprived urban areas and areas at risk of deprivation we will focus on the role played by different actors, including also those who are not usually included in integrated urban
regeneration programmes in terms of
- improvement of social cohesion
- the improvement of residents quality of life
- promotion of the attractiveness of the area for the rest of the city
The aim of this working group is to better explore the effective role of public spaces in renovation and revitalisation processes as a tool to re-scale deprived areas within the city as a whole. This potential has not been fully understood by researchers and practitioners.

Project Two
The main issue that will be addressed is the socio-economic oriented, integrated urban rehabilitation.This theme is coherent with the requirements of the EU Cohesion Policy and Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas that place a particularly strong emphasis on job creation for increased competitiveness. The SURE network is also in line with the Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities since it aims to develop an integrated urban development policy with a strong socio-economic approach. This approach makes it possible to link deprived neighbourhoods to the economic, social and cultural life of cities by strengthening the local economy and local labour market policy. The integrated approach also helps to see deprived urban areas as an integral part of the city and emphasizes community based development.

In line with the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas, the proposal intends to create innovative socio-economic urban rehabilitation methods which could represent new engines for sustainable urban development and enhanced social cohesion.

The network emphasizes the overarching goal of the second call of the URBACT II programme by promoting complex, integrated and community based approaches of urban renewal and boosting and diversification of local economies.

The integrated approach creates strong links with other URBACT themes, such as promoting entrepreneurship and employment and human capital.


Project Three

Given the contextual background outlined above, the network will therefore address the following specific sub-themes:

1) Community-based planning.

This is one method for tackling issues of under representation of sub cultural groups. On the one hand, it seeks to redress the monolithic and often top-down approach to politics and planning by bringing those historically excluded voices into the decision-making process. On the other hand, participatory planning is crucial because it is a mechanism for empowering communities to make planning and development decisions for themselves rather deferring to professional planners. The potential for the development of social capital through this process should not be underestimated. Place makers know well that outreach requires more than simply advertising workshops and meetings. More proactive and context-specific strategies must be developed to gain resident input, especially when working with communities who have been historically excluded from the public process. ;

2) Cultural Planning.

As mentioned earlier, today many cities are facing a challenging period of transition. …..This is why, in an attempt to deal with an increasingly complex urban civil society and with local identity, policy-makers are turning to more integrated approaches to culture and regeneration. One such approach is Cultural Planning. This method derives from a tradition of radical planning and humanistic management of cities championed in the early 1960s, chiefly by Jane Jacobs. In her thinking, Jacobs implicitly acknowledged a debt to the Scottish biologist and philosopher Patrick Geddes, who, at the beginning of the 20th century, imported from French geography the idea of the ‘natural region’. For Geddes, policy had to start with a survey of the resources of such natural region (whose ingredients were Folk-Work-Place) and of the human response to such a natural region.

The idea of a territory as a living ecosystem, made up of diverse resources which need to be surveyed and acknowledged by the local community at large before policy can intervene, is at heart of Cultural Planning.

Thus, Cultural Planning can help urban governance partnerships to identify the distinctive cultural resources of a locality and to apply them in a strategic way to achieve key objectives in areas such as community development, place marketing or economic development. By combining a mapping of resources with new, more flexible and transparent methods of delivery, Cultural Planning can be a powerful tool for dealing with urban and social issues and can help communities to regain confidence in the democratic process of governance.
A successful Cultural Planning strategy must also seek to challenge existing ‘received’ perceptions about the culture of a place and be guided by a locally distinctive vision where access for all is fostered;

3) Street Reclaiming.

While traffic calming focused on slowing traffic, street reclaiming focuses on reclaiming the street around public spaces for neighbourhood-building activities such as play, socializing, commerce, culture, and sharing of street wisdom.

There are two broad street-reclaiming strategies: reclaiming through activity and reclaiming through design.

o Reclaiming through design entails changing the psychological feel of streets so they feel less like a corridor owned exclusively by cars and more like a series of interconnected outdoor living rooms in which motorists are a guest. Residents can employ many of the design strategies without city help or approval. (Which strategies are legal depends on local laws and regulations.)

o For the city, street reclaiming design techniques can replace traditional traffic calming devices. And unlike traffic calming, street reclaiming can be adapted to all classes of streets. These design options also open up exciting opportunities for the city and residents to work in partnership in reducing the impacts of traffic on neighbourhood life.


If you haven’t guessed, Proposals One and Two were approved. Proposal Three was rejected.
It seems that a project that offered “a real time” development of public space in a deprived urban area as learning tool for the transfer of experience was not seen as valuable as two projects that will produce guidelines. Indeed project two offers the development of what is called “The integrated socio-economic urban rehabilitation model”, this undefined product will be..” the main output of (the) network” and , “will be a common strategy adopted by the partner cities”.

Such an objective is not only vacuous but totally undeliverable. How was it possible to score such a proposal so high?

The above example is not an isolated example. There are many others. For example:

• In the second call another project was approved on the theme of socially excluded youth. Having had two such projects in URBACT 1 and My Generation in URBACT 2 already covering the same themes it raises the question as to what is the added value of having yet another on the same theme.
• Similarly, another project on middle and small sized cities and demographic change has been approved while Active Age is already addressing the same theme.
In contrast, in one of the workshops run by the Secretariat in Stockholm, focussing on the impact of crisis, we were presented with a strong need to focus on the social economy, and yet a proposal from the city of Nottingham that focused on the social economy and micro-finance institutions in local recovery was rejected .

The approval of low quality proposals is in part linked to the issue of transparency.

“Transparency” also sadly remains opaque in the programme. Just two instances to illustrate my point.
• One of the workshops focussed on the feedback from the two pilot Fast Track projects launched jointly by Urbact with the EC. At no point in the feedback process were delegates informed that one of the pilots had run into such great difficulties that it had effectively “failed”. A real commitment to transparency would have meant an honest analysis of what went wrong. Indeed, maybe its failure could have been instructive as learning tool.Instead, delegates were fed a fantasy version. Are we considered unable to discuss failure?

• During the event, the results of the second call were also announced. URBACT 2 has in fairness established what is referred to as an independent evaluation panel. However, the composition and way of working of then panel remains opaque. For example, the chair of the panel is the , previous Director from DG Regio who was responsible for setting up of the URBACT programme. How is it possible to claim independence when it’s your own product that is being evaluated? Independence requires greater integrity and there is an inherent conflict of interest in having anyone from the EC involved in the”independent”evaluation panel that was responsible for the programme.

• There are also questions over who gets selected by the Secretariat. It seems again a conflict of interest to entrust the selection of independent evaluators to the secretariat who are in effect in the pay of the secretariat. It’s the case of the regulated paying the regulators. Furthermore, the Urbact Secretariat keeps secret the names of these independent evaluators. Why is that? Surely we as peers are entitled to know at least who is undertaking the evaluation. The reason for secrecy may also be due to who the Urbact Secretariat actually selects. For example, it has become common knowledge in the Urbact Community that one of the evaluators was a previous employee of the Urbact Secretariat. That hardly constitutes an “independent” person.

• Still leaving aside this aspect, there is also a lack of transparency over how proposals are finally selected. In the Operational Manuel, there are 25 criteria outlined for the evaluation. However, the criteria are not weighted; instead they are clustered into sub- groups which are then allocated a maximum score. All seems very good expect that it’s a system that produces patently bad decisions. The system allows high scores to be given despite the fact that there is really no added- value to the proposals that get recommended for approval.

In addition to the issues of Quality and Transparency, there are a number of Operational issues that are in need of urgent review. Here are some of the issues that arose in one of workshops I participated in and also in the Urban Café:

• The programme is centred on the concept of the key outcome being the production of Local Action Plans. These are conceived as being “roadmaps” for the city on the chosen theme. This is a totally unrealistic objective given the scale of the programme. The MILE pilot has clearly demonstrated the success of an approach that centres on the concept of “undertake an action that makes a difference”. In contract the other pilot, URBANMECO patently failed in the production of Local Action Plans that provide such a “road map”.

• The programme is also centred on the concept of Local Support Groups. Great idea, but poorly thought through so that it becomes simply a mantra rather than a reality. The programme is based on the idea that by allocating €7000 to each LSG they would then be in the position to produce the LAP as “road map”. LSG’s need to be properly resourced. They need to have financial resources to undertake the following:
o Pay for a part-time local co-ordinator
o Pay for a programme of local activities that can support the transfer of the transnational programme at a local level and widen ownership of the LAP
o Pay for some desk top research to improve the evidence base for their LAPs


• Their needs to be a stronger focus on co-production. The programme is currently heavily top-downward driven. The thematic poles and the accompanying clouds are simply not working. The best that comes out of the process is actually when the participants take charge, not from the planned use of time dreamed up by the Secretariat. “The clouds”, as one delegate said to me, “are simply generators of wasted time and hot air”.
• The Secretariat has to allow greater experimentation and flexibility, albeit within the natural safeguards for financial accountability. The Secretariat has stopped three networks from using online innovative approaches. The instruction has been to use Agora. Participants have been raising concerns about Agora since its inception. Our words have fallen on deaf ears. Word has now reached us that the representatives from Germany on the Monitoring Committee have also criticised Agora. Maybe their voice will carry more weight. Let’s also not forget what the price of this inflexibility (and incompetence) has been. On my reckoning URBACT 1 and URBACT 2 has spent more than €3m in the various version and revisions of the website that have been introduced and it still is poor.
• Lastly, we need a culture within the programme that accepts criticism and engages in a meaningful way with programme deliverers . So many participants have intimated to me that they dare not speak out as they will be quickly victimised, through subjection to close unwarranted monitoring, marginalised within the programme and any future applications for funding simply killed off through the opaque decision making process. I for one have already experienced this treatment.

None of the above changes requires any modifications to the programme that are implementable within the regulations governing the programme. There is no defence in therefore hiding behind such regulations. Fundamentally the challenge is one of spirit not regulation. URBACT is a great idea. In the context of crisis its time has come, but it needs a new paradigm.

Haroon Saad
Lead Expert for MILE and UDIEX-ALEP.
November 2009