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OC 45: Open City Fatigue?
Exhaustion Does it still make sense to reflect on open cities? Is it worthwhile discussing actions of others who contribute to open up cities in the public domain, trying to contribute individually towards more open cities? Or has the time come to succumb to the forces which fragment cities, privatise the public realm, colonise the […]
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OC 38: Can Cities Be Too Open?
The limits to openness During a perfect summer day I was ambling on the boulevards of Paris, enjoying its public realm, open to anyone from anywhere. I did what many people do in open cities, I settled down on a pavement café with a paper and watched the world go by. I came across an […]
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OC 37: Open Cities Blog – Follow-up From British Council Open Cities Blog
British Council URBACT Open Cities project Up to now, all the posts on my Open Cities blog constituted inputs to the blog I was invited to write for the British Council for its Open Cities project website. This project, funded by URBACT II has been completed in May 2011. I have reviewed some of the […]
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Open Cities 36 Open Economic Recovery?
Open Cities: Milestone On 25 May 2011, URBACT, the British Council, the Open Cities Network and the Open Cities project partner cities congregated at the premises of the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions in Brussels, Belgium, at the conference on Open Cities and Economic Recovery, the closing event of […]
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Open Cities 22 Sustainability and Openness
Like other leaders of cultural institutions – Elmar Brandt when he led the Goethe-Institute in London in the early eighties, or Mike Hardy, leader of the intercultural dialogue programme of the British Council at present, the Swiss Ambassador to London, Alexis Lautenberg, is fascinated by cities. He established a Swiss – UK Dialogue on urban […]
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Open Cities 21 Cities for Everyone
The premise here is that ‘cities for everyone’ are by definition ‘open cities’. Was this corroborated by the CORP conference 2010 in Vienna last May which asked whether liveable, healthy and prosperous cities were a promising vision or an unrealistic fantasy? CORP Knowledge Creation and Sharing CORP, the Competence Centre of Urban and Regional Planning […]
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Open Cities 1 Setting the Scene
Open Cities 1 Setting the Scene Why open cities? The aim of the Open Cities project initiated by the British Council in Madrid is to create and sustain open cities.http://opencities.britishcouncil.org/web/index.php?home_enIn 2008, the first Open Cities conference held by the British Council in Madrid identified the characteristics of open cities. Subsequently the eight participant cities bid […]