Liveability and business attractiveness in urban transformation May 15 th 2018

Transcription

1 Liveability and business attractiveness in urban transformation May 15 th 2018 Group 3 Attractive towns. Green redevelopment, competitive Nordic urban regions

2 1 Liveability and business attractiveness in urban transformation - Tools to ensure liveability and urban life in new and existing urban areas - early in the planning phase with focus on the local identity and business strategy.

3 2 Index 1. Overall action plan 3 Common challenges and opportunities 3 Current indicators and methods used 6 Missing indicators 6 Topics to take forward 7 Overall timetable and budget 7 2. Single project: Liveability and business attractiveness in urban transformation 8 The aim of the project 8 The targets of the project 9 The outcome of the project 9 Work-packages and activities 10 Work-package 1. Kick-off study-trip to inspire the work 10 Work-package 2. Background analysis criteria of the liveability factors, indicators and criteria 11 Work-package 3. Examples of process tools 12 Work package 4. Analyzing business strategies 13 Work package 5. First proposal for general toolbox: criteria for townlife and processes. Summary conclusion 14 Work package 6. Test of preliminary toolbox (Case studies) 15 Work package 7. Toolbox with case-descriptions 16 ATTACHMENT 1. Indicators 17 ATTACHMENT 2. Timetable 0

4 3 Liveability and business attractiveness in urban transformation 1. Overall action plan Common challenges and opportunities Write a brief description of your common challenges and opportunities*, and specify the groups shared goals and measures. Write a intro tekst to the illustrations Group 3 consists of Middelfart in Denmark, Salo in Finland, Akranes in Iceland and Växjö in Sweden. They are different of size, the number of inhabitants in Middelfart is , in Salo , in Akranes and in Växjö They are small or medium sized Nordic towns that in many ways face similar challenges and opportunities. They are growing communities with various opportunities and excellent qualities in their origin and location. They are in many ways sustainable and family friendly towns with strong schools and after school activites, safe environment and strong social and welfare systems. Some of the towns are located close to larger communities and can offer good supply of cheaper housing and within them there are profitable production areas and even cluster areas within innovation, high-tech and creative industries. Despite that urban development provides important opportunities in our Nordic towns, it also poses challenges for example in sustainable development, such as increased output of local food and more efficient blue green solutions. Powerful transportation and increased employment opportunities from diverse sectors are vital to these communities. The proximity to larger cities, high proportion of senior citizens and urban renewal with an economic transformation are common challenges for two or more of the towns in our group, such as a need for more attractive city centers and to feel security and trust in modern society with new values. Another big challenge for smaller Nordic towns is the re-organizing of large-scale services from the state to the municipalities, such as healthcare and elderly people services, social housing etc.

5 4 Akranes - Salo -

6 5 Växjö - Middelfart -

7 6 - City Challenges Challenges and Opportunities Opportunities Akranes Transportations Business attraction Lack of green solutions Proximity to the capital Transformations area Sustainable and creative activities in modern economy Diverse business sectors Family friendly - Education - After school - Recreation Security and safety Good supply of cheaper housing Växjö Safety - trust - confidence Transportation Located in the middle of nowhere Remote Producing food locally Green solutions Middelfart Shifting demographics Holistic City City-structure Co-creation Tourism and cultural experiences as regional drivers Centrally located Transformations of city center Many businesses Attract younger people Security and safety Blue Green solutions The Climate City Existing network Salo More jobs in diverse sectors, High proportion of senior citizens Social housing - health care Located between two big cities (The capital Helsinki and the provincial capital Turku) Innovation Global aggregation Table 1. Challenges and opportunities of the cities Current indicators and methods used Middelfart, Salo, Akranes and Växjö use different indicators. A short collection of those is presented in an attachment 1. Missing indicators In general, the missing indicators are those that help to define and measure liveability and urban qualities of the towns. For example: How do pedestrians use public areas? How can we measure good city-life? Social indicators in general.

8 7 Topics to take forward During the first group meeting in Middelfart in November 2017 and the following discussions it became clear that each town could relate to that theme Transformation areas livability and business attractiveness. Each town has the common challenge of how to connect a transformation area to the existing city center and make the transformation area liveable. In the second meeting in Växjö in February 2018 it was decided that instead of doing separate single projects it would be more fruitful to combine the activities to one bigger project with local reflections and piloting. Overall timetable and budget The study visits, work group meetings, local workshops and consultancy work are visualized at the timetable. (See also attachment 2.) Picture 1. Timetable

9 8 The budget for external and internal costs is presented at the table. The internal costs for the participating cities are mainly personnel costs. External costs (incl. VAT) DKK Cost owner Time of payment from the Ministry Internal Costs (personnel) Total DKK Study trip costs Akranes tbc Consultancy costs (exl. Business strategy) tbc (either Växjö or Middelfart) tbc Business strategy analysis and hackathon Salo tbc Total DKK Table 2. Budget 2. Single project: Liveability and business attractiveness in urban transformation The aim of the project This project is more than anything meant to stimulate the sensation and awareness of liveability in transformation areas for all inhabitants and visitors in everyday life in small and medium sized Nordic towns. When developing a new district or a transformation area the attention is often focused on building percentage, number of parking spaces, building height, etc. These issues are obvious and therefore easy to claim. What is crucial for whether we are getting a well-functioning city is often more difficult to define and demand. In the project we will focus on and raise awareness of the local identity and the existing qualities in the town because each place is unique and has its own distinguished soul or spirit. An attractive city includes different functions including a wide and varied range of jobs. Therefore, we will also focus on how towns can attract new companies and create more jobs while building a more liveable town. The main question is: How do we get the city's soul and liveability into the area?

10 9 The targets of the project Our targets are 1. to develop tools of planning and dialogue which help ensuring human-scale town life and liveability early in the planning phase and keep both the municipality and the developer focused on liveability throughout the process. Our main focus is liveability, people and human scale, the Nordic climate and climate adaptation, co-creation and community, diversity and sustainability. 2. to assess and present business attraction opportunities in sustainable city development, in order to increase both business attractiveness and job creation in towns. The outcome of the project The project will collect and pilot a toolbox for developing small and medium sized Nordic towns as liveable, attractive cities. The tools include suggestions for indicators, criteria and development process in a simplified, clear and visual way. How does it address key indicators for UN s sustainable development goals (SDG) The project deals mainly with UN s sustainable development goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. It is possible that during the project some other goals will be touched as well as goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation, goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts or goal 15: Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss. Business attractiveness and job creation link to several SDG s but the most obvious are goal 8: Decent work and economic growth and Goal 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure. How does it address indicators to the group s shared goals and measures. The indicators will be studied during the project. How can it contribute to a Nordic strategy for competitive and sustainable urban development. The project will develop a Nordic toolbox which will support and give ideas how small- and medium sized cities can transform existing, expired business areas into new attractive urban areas and thus creating added value to the city.

11 10 Work-packages and activities Overview of the work packages: 1. Kick-off and study trip to inspire the work 2. Background analysis of the liveability factors, indicators and criteria 3. Examples of the process tools to facilitate indicator formulation 4. Analysis of business strategies 5. First proposal of tool box: criteria for town life and processes 6. Testing the preliminary toolbox 7. Toolbox with case descriptions Work-package 1. Kick-off study-trip to inspire the work Purpose: The work package helps us find different points of view to the theme liveability and attractiveness of a small and medium sized town. It will also help the work group to set the target on a high level. Activity: Inspirational kick-off study visit and facilitated work group meeting. Themes: - city quality for people, - processes for transformation areas - business attractiveness

12 11 Work-package 2. Background analysis criteria of the liveability factors, indicators and criteria Purpose: Clarify and set the framework to the term liveability, get the overview of potential indicators and criteria. Activities: a) Inspiration and work group brainstorming: What is good life? Facilitated by a consultant. The consultant should make a presentation with different ways to analyze city life and provide methods for collecting information that can be used to define what good urban life is. b) Workshop at each town based on the work group brainstorming: - What is good life in each town? - List of liveability factors, criteria and indicators. The list can be made by using for example vox pop, interviews with focus groups, topics from the value rose and other methods that the consultant has given us. c) Simplifying the list of criteria (This activity can also be done in combination with the work package 5.) - The definition of "a good life" is complex with many factors. Once each town has made a list of criteria, consultants should see if the criteria can be simplified so that it becomes more manageable in the further process. The criteria should help make the communication easier, clear and visual. - The work group comments by and Skype. Motivation for the analysis Before we can make a toolbox for liveability in urban transformation we have to define what is a good life in a small and medium sized Nordic town now and in the future. The focus will be on people and the human scale. Good city life should be for all the users of the city - the ones who live there both old and young ones, families, visitors from the small villages nearby and tourists. Genius Loci find the roots, the identity and the specific qualities of the transformation area in your town: During globalization, when trends are rushing from one end of the world to the other in an instant, the risk of endangering the soul of the places is growing rapidly. Due to constant development of transportation infrastructure, housing and open areas, places that used to be different are becoming more and more alike. At the same time there is a growing need for each place to offer something unique and rare. The tourists who visit the place, the residents who want to attract new job opportunities as well as those who want to bring the community together feel this need. Local identity is important in this context and its importance will increase in the years to come. A good local identity includes the ability to identify what the local spirit is based upon, an understanding of how these factors interact and a determination of what decreases its distinctive features and what can strengthen it. With an improved local identity the development can be secured in different places and kept in harmony with its core while meeting other standardized needs. The Genius Loci method is based on 3 parts: mapping of the characteristic elements of the place, assessment of these and drafting a plan strategy. Books to read: Cities for people Jan Gehl architects Bylivsstudier Jan Gehl og Birgitte Svarre Livet mellem husene - Jan Gehl architects

13 12 Work-package 3. Examples of process tools Purpose To show different dialogue methods and actions that can be used in the different phases of the transformation and with areas with certain conditions. Activities: a) Preparation at home - every town prepares the phase and conditions a transformation area can have and gives examples of dialogue methods and actions that are used in their own town or country. Example phases - Ideas - Strategies - Planning - implementation of public spaces - implementation of quarters Example of conditions to be studied: - Proportion of land owners, municipal / private - Industries, disturbances and risks - Regulations plan (detailed plan) - Polluted soil - Conservative buildings, buildings to be saved from demolishing or changes - Traffic flows and noise - Nature values and green structures Examples of dialogue methods - focus group interviews, - competitions, - individual calls, - information letters etc. - workshops Motivation for process tool development The relevant indicators need to be matched with the methods we choose for the towns. Where lies the strength and weakness in each town? Together we collect methods that help the towns to follow up on relevant themes within transformation fields. This may include best practice examples and/or possible pitfalls. To develop process tools we can both use quantitative toolboxes - for example, how many independent / non-governmental organizations are in the towns, how many new citizens and analyze deeper the population etc. We can use qualitative tools like interviews, workshop / group meeting with a consultant. We can draw on local people and resources that the policy makers wouldn't think to consult or use. Those who are familiar with members of the target population and the community at large, who know the history of the community, understand the relationships, how the issue in question has played out over time, what has been attempted before and what happened as a result, all of which can be crucial in devising a plan that will work. In addition, knowing the community resources - the effective organizations, the key opinion leaders, the institutions, the funding sources - can make a change possible. When the proposal is easily understood and logical and explains clearly why it will work, people will support it. Once the public is behind a reasonable plan, policy makers usually follow. Find people having experience working with the issue or being in contact with others who have done the same, are aware of research in the field and have some idea of what has worked elsewhere. Most policy makers are either politicians or generic experts who have academic or public service credentials, but little practical experience at the street level (or "water" or "ground" level, in the case of environmental issues). When it comes to the public health, planning and community issues, they are likely to have only the most general knowledge to bring to the situation. b) Workshop by work group - defines phases the transformation area studied (at least) one transformation area in each town. - goes through different conditions transformation areas may have. - the consultant inspires about dialogue methods - describes groups that are affected or interested in the transformation and different dialogue methods that can be used with them c) Summarize the results into a Draft 1. Toolbox for Dialogue and actions - The consultant will summarize the results from the workshop.

14 13 Work package 4. Analyzing business strategies Purpose This work package aims to explore municipal strategies to attract new business to the urban towns. The target is to assess and present business attraction opportunities in sustainable city development in order to increase both business attractiveness and job creation in towns. Activities: The work package includes four activities: a) Analysis of municipal business strategies or business development policies - The consultant / student analyses how the municipal strategies include business development policies or job creation aspects. The analysis is made from an appropriate number of municipal strategies, from towns who have applicable strategy. The analyzed strategies are from the municipalities participating in Attractive Nordic Towns program. b) Inspirational examples - The Consultant finds and presents 3-6 examples of business attraction and / or job creation methods from around the world. The methods should be useful in small and medium sized towns. Either a visit to one example town or a visitor from one example town can be arranged. Possible questions to help to choose the example are f ex: - What kind of localization in towns do the businesses need in the future/coming years? Urban areas or areas with city life or outside the town? - What kind of urban qualities are attractive for businesses? - How do we keep business in our transformation areas in spite of higher rents etc? - How do we move business that are disturbing? c) Work group workshop with discussions of the role of the business development policies and what is important for business attraction and job creation. The Consultant will present analysis and examples of business attraction and job creation strategies. d) Summary and recommendations of how to include business attraction or job creation point of view in a sustainable urban development. - The Consultant will summarize the analysis, the examples and the discussion. The report will recommend, inspire and describe the methods of how Nordic towns could include business attraction and job creation in both strategic and concrete level of sustainable urban development. The recommendations and methods will be included in the toolbox.

15 14 Work package 5. First proposal for general toolbox: criteria for townlife and processes. Summary conclusion Purpose To put the toolbox together. The consultants presents the first proposal of the toolbox and we discuss the proposal. Activities: a) Drafting the first proposal - The consultant drafts the proposal. b) Comments - The work group comments the draft. - The work group summarize the comments on a Skype-meeting and submits them to the consultant. c) Approved toolbox before testing Motivation: There is a risk that the success of our proposal will mean far more to the professionals working with land use planning of the transformations areas and to the people living of working there than it will mean to the policy makers. The proposal of the toolbox should be "saleable. If we get the tools to define liveability or a good town life, it will be easier to help the politicians to keep focus on liveability. This should be kept in mind from the early phases of drafting the toolbox.

16 15 Work package 6. Test of preliminary toolbox (Case studies) Purpose: The target of this work package is to test and pilot the methods and examples (ie. tools) of the preliminary toolbox. The pilot cases and tools will be chosen by the participating towns. Test the toolbox (liveability criteria and process): - Evaluating a proposal or today (place or area) or - A business event or - An event with citizens Activities: a) Every town will select a transformation area to use the toolbox on. b) Organizing the pilot depends on the chosen cases/areas and the tools (every town does not have to make all the activities): a. Criteria for town-life: How can you achieve these criteria in the area, (depend on phase) b. Tools for dialogue: What kind of dialogue is suitable in the area in this development phase and conditions. c. A business hackathon on a sustainable urban development project a description of the development case (f.ex. areal planning, building technology) finding companies or research institutions interested in the case organizing a hackathon event which combines the case, companies, research and possibly students. Event is organized at the pilot site c) Evaluating the tool and developing the toolbox. Workshop how does the toolbox work? Have in mind: (SMART+C) Specific Measurable (at least potentially) Achievable Relevant (to the case) Timed Challenging (requiring extraordinary effort)

17 16 Work package 7. Toolbox with case-descriptions Purpose: This work package collects and summarizes the work done at the project. The tested toolbox can be used widely across Nordic small and medium sized towns to build liveable and attractive towns for people and businesses. Activities: a) The consultant makes the final report. b) The work group comments the report. c) The tool box is distributed at the final seminar.

18 ATTACHMENT 1. Indicators 17

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21 ATTACHMENT 2. Timetable