New models for urban planning in the fringe. Lead Expert Maarten van Tuijl runs through our challenges and solutions, introducing each of the partner cities.

The network sub>urban. Reinventing the fringe is coming to an end. We loved sharing our story and giving a chance to all of our partner cities to showcase their results, challenges and insights of the past 2,5 years. In this newsletter we reflect on the final meeting in Barcelona Metropolitan Area.

Thank you for listening to our story and enjoy this second last newsletter. 

Our network doesn't only talk about the fringe. We made sure all of our events took place in the fringe, meeting new and exciting places and bringing unexpected inspiration. More info on the projects.

What better location than a market place to share insights and challenges of new urban planning in the fringe. Mercat de la Florida in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat was our first stop.

Second venue of the day was Music school and arts center, Gornal, also in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat. The school focuses on using the arts as an instrument for cohesion, social mix and increasing the academic achievement. Its activities focus on the economically deprived areas of the city with high levels of unemployment and urban poverty. We were lucky to actually catch a glimpse of their work with a classical and rock concert.

The 22@Barcelona projects fill the city's need to recover both economic and social dynamism in the old industrial areas of Publenou and to create a diverse and compact environment where productive spaces coexist with research, training and tech transfer centres, as well as subsidized housing, facilities and green areas that improve the quality of work and life in the neighbourhood. On top of this, is is a high quality, diverse and ecologically efficient and economically strong urban model. 

Pirineus street is located in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a city on a hill with big housing blocks. It is a highly dense neighbourhood of 140.000 inhabitants. In the seventies the city grew without social infrastructure and open spaces. Traditional regeneration tools on building renewal were not working, because of the financial crisis. But renovations were very urgent, as was the need to upgrade to more energy safe measures. Two years ago they involved 650 of the current inhabitants in the decision making process and proposed a finance plan for 5 years. During our visit we could already see the results with the exterior of the housing blocks being painted in different colours. The choice of the colours was part of a participatory process with the owners.

Nau Bostik was supposed to become a new railway station, but then the 2008 crisis hit. Now it is a space for photographers, music performances, events and a recording studio for tv spots. In other words a good example of temporary use. 

Badia del Vallès was one of the highlights of the final meeting in Barcelona. The local action plan was drafted for this municipality.  Badia is a dense area and in need of transformation to improve the quality of the life. Our AMB partners had their final local event when we were there. It was a celebration showing the local action plan in a mini expo, letting children dream about the future Badia and bringing the people together. More info on the project: walk 1 and walk 2.

The final conference was all about sharing the results. All of the partner cities have finished their local action plans and had their final meeting with local stakeholders. It is the perfect time to share insights, concrete results and more. 

Click here to browse through the presentation: introduction of the network, getting to know URBACT, a brief overview of all the partners, network results, network output and last but not least the toolbox of the 3 networks: Refill, 2nd Chance and sub>urban. 

Or revisite the posters of the Marketplace.

Or get inspired by our keynote speaker Amador Ferrer, who talked about the urbanism plans of Barcelona metropolitan area. Click here to discover the presentation.

And the Woohoo award for best efforts in communication goes to Solin. For best efforts in project management: Brno. But just putting the spotlight on the partners who really stood out, wasn't enough for the final conference. We gave one final award: ambassador of sub>urban to all of our partners and to Isabelle Verhaert (initial lead partner), Maarten van Tuijl (lead expert), Ivan Tosics (URBACT advisor) and to Nuala Morgan and Kristijan Radojcic of the URBACT secretariat.

The great benefit of being in an URBACT network is to get to know many people from all over Europe. In our final conference all different sorts of stakeholders were present from political representatives to locals, representatives from other networks like 'Meaning' and the URBACT secretariat and National URBACT Points, the network partners and experts from universities and the private sector. Even the local press joined us to discover more about our projects.

Wednesday 25th, Barcelona Metropolitan Area invited all guest in the MUHBA for a welcome cocktail. Vice-President for international relations and cooperation Alfred Bosch gave an inspirating speech on the importance of working on the Metropolitan Area. You can watch the speech on Twitter @suburbanfringe.

Even the local press is present. Joan Caba, urban planner at AMB, is talking about the sub>urban network. 

From right to left: Nuala Morgan from the URBACT Secretariat, Francesc Belver, Deputy Mayor of coordination planning economic, development and employment of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Ramon Torra, AMB General Manager, Mieke Belmans Lead Partner and Isabel Michielsen communication officer

From left to right: Martin Schuster (Member of the State Parliament of Lower Austria and Mayor of the Municipality of Perchtoldsdorf, Austria), Marie Halvorsen (Political advisor for Urban Development and Member of the Green Party, Norway), Eva Menor (Mayor of Badia del Vallès, Spain), Rüdiger Maresch (Member of the Vienna City Council and Head of the Committee for Urban Planning, Austria), Sara Labao (Executive Comission of Porto Metropolitan Area, Portugal)

Thank you Barcelona Metropolitan Area for being a great host for this event.

We will send out one final newsletter sharing the result of the cities final local event. 

Thanks for reading.