“I Quaderni” #12 of the online journal UrbanisticaTre is titled “Right to the Future – The participatory process for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda in Palermo” and is edited by PUSH and urbanita.

We are really proud of this publication entirely focused on the experience of our second Urban Thinkers Campus that took place at Palazzo Sant’Elia from April 6th to 8th.

It describes first of all the process ending with the ratification of the New Urban Agenda, document aimed to inspire the future of the cities for the next 20 years. Right to the Future’s main goal was indeed to collect “visions”, a crucial concept for a city like Palermo that needs to decline its own agenda towards a right and more sustainable future.

“I Quaderni” #12 presents then the participatory process that we followed to organize the event: from the 100 millions for the future of Palermo survey that we used to ask participants to imagine to manage 100 millions for the city growth, to the Call for visions launched online to collect proposals and ideas to improve the quality of life in our city.

The publication, moreover, includes some of the most valuable ideas selected by the Steering Committee: Elisabetta Rizza’s proposal to have linguistic tandems in order to foster social inclusion in a multicultural context like Palermo; CivES, the new model for community welfare already implemented in Molise by Luigi Piccirillo; Marco Terranova and Benedetta Rodeghiero’s proposal for an urban regeneration process that starts from kids; the digital platform proposed by Michelangelo Ferri to stimulate collective agriculture activities in peri-urban contexts; Sicily & Sicilians, socio-cultural project realized by Sandro Aglialoro to support young sicilian artists and the idea of Sara Rizzo who, after a long period in the Brazilian favelas, wants to implement here a model for young entrepreneurship able to reactivate cities.

“I Quaderni” #12 is available here, enjoy it!

The second Urban Thinkers Campus in Palermo took place from April 6 to 8 at Palazzo Sant’Elia. It was one of the 75 that will happen around the world in 2017.

“Right to the Future”, organized by PUSH in collaboration with the Municipality of Palermo, the patronage of the United Nations and with the support of around 70 international partners and media partners, was aimed to collect proposals and visions for the future of the city and lay the foundation for the translation of the global principles of the New Urban Agenda into concrete actions at local level.

A three-day debate including plenary frontal sessions – Urban Labs – exchange moments with the audience – Urban Thinkers Sessions – interactive co-design workshops – Roundtables – and the first Urban Journalism Academy after the ratification of the New Urban Agenda, coordinated by two representatives of Habitat III and targeted for journalists and communication and media professionals on urban policies.

During the Urban Labs international guests shared best practices experimented in other cities and countries – in Netherlands, Portugal, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus and other regions in Italy – and replicable here in Palermo, while the authors of the best proposals selected by the Steering Committee through the Open Call presented their ideas on the future of Palermo. On April 6 and 7, during the afternoon, there were the three Roundtables on the topics selected by the participants – citizens and representatives of around 30 local organizations – cultural and artistic heritage, public spaces and community living.

The whole Campus has risen a strong interest and participation. More than 200 participants, Palermitans and non, took part to the activities and to the 20 side events around the city during the same week. Around 200.000 users were reached online through the social media channels and the website of the initiative, while more than 1000 followed the online streaming of the conference during the three days.
18 were the countries represented within the Campus.

Furthermore, from April 18 to 22, the Right to the Future Intensive School took place. It was the second edition of the educational programme on service design for urban innovation and it was organized by PUSH in partnership with commonground. The School, sponsored by Fondazione CRT, Confcooperative Sicilia, LUCA School of Arts and Link Campus University, was attended by 16 international students of different age, geographical origin and academic and professional background.
In a five-day full immersion, guided by expert mentors and working in four different teams, the participants elaborated, prototyped and validated concrete proposals for the city of Palermo. Their four projects – on food and traditions, public spaces, tourism and gamification of urban contexts – were presented Saturday April 22 in the context of the Street Food Fest.

The 60 proposals collected through the Open Call, presented by individuals and organizations of 13 different countries, the 10 ideas coming from the Roundtables and the projects developed by the students of the Intensive School will be part of the international publication “Right to the Future: Vision Development Kit for the Future of Palermo” and of a special edition of the magazine UrbanisticaTre.

A few weeks ago we were invited by Habitat Secretariat to be part of the historic conference Habitat III, in the city of Quito, Ecuador, located 2850 meters (9,350 feet) above sea level!

The city, founded by Spanish conquistadors, is a UNESCO Human Heritage site since 1978 and a megalopolis with about three million people. Delegates from more than 150 countries and thousands of participants were involved in thousands of events focused on the future of human settlements inside or outside urban contexts.

For the UN the goal was to make the delegates sign the New Urban Agenda; for delegates and participants, the goal was trying to figure out how to implement policies of sustainability, inclusivity, resilience (and others) in urban contexts.

Undisputed protagonists (their conferences were the most crowded!) were mayors, local governments representatives and grassroots leaders who shared their paths, their mistakes and their achievements.

During the six days of Habitat III we had the chance to meet Rose Molokoane who on behalf of the poor people of South Africa was elected new president of World Urban Campaign; Rainer Kern and Charles Landry who design Mannheim through music and creativity: Demos Helsinki, Safecity, Pakhuis de Zwijger, Metropolis and the policy makers who are transforming Taipei in the world capital of design; Gregory and Simone from Citiscope, Saskia Sassen and Richard Sennett who, with Ricky Burdett and Joan Clos, are working on a after-Quito document «to inspire a more complex, open and incomplete vision of the city».
During our event, in the wonderful Centro Cultural Benjamin Carrion, we offered a summary of our research on service design for urban policies, telling of the process that led us to the developing of our projects: MUV, Open Tour and Street art Factory.

Back from Ecuador we immediately started dialoguing with the people we met and planning future collaborations for new international projects. Hoping to be able to disseminate and actively support the New Urban Agenda from Sicily we will hardly work to be present at the next appointment of Habitat IV, in twenty years, with new solutions for cities and citizens.