UrbCulturalPlanning
Project Duration
January 2019 – June 2021
Making our neighbourhoods better for living.
Keywords
Baltic Sea Region, cultural planning, citizen participation, social innovation, neighbourhood revitalisation
Summary
Urban Cultural Planning set out with a clear mission: to make neighbourhoods better places to live through culture and creativity. From shrinking towns to bustling city districts, the project spanned the Baltic Sea Region to explore how local culture can drive social innovation and foster community connection.
What makes UrbCulturalPlanning unique is its deep commitment to citizen-driven cultural planning. It brought together public authorities, NGOs, and local communities to co-create solutions to local challenges while valuing the perspectives of youth, artists, and residents. The project didn’t just talk about participation, it practised it, using artist residencies, creative games with young people, and hands-on Urban Labs to turn ideas into action on the ground.
As a cross-border effort with 14 partners and 36 associated organisations in 9 countries, the project provided a space for learning, experimenting, and sharing methods for cultural planning as well as documenting these insights in a practical toolkit and mentoring local actors on using it effectively.
Objectives
- Strengthen the capacity of public authorities and local NGOs to work together on citizen-driven cultural planning
- Empower communities to address local challenges such as social inclusion, shrinking cities, and gentrification through culture
- Promote the use of creative methods, including cultural mapping and visioning, in local development
Key Activities
- Developing and sharing a Cultural Planning Toolkit with mentoring for local actors
- Organising 11 Urban Labs across the region on cultural mapping, visioning, and local social innovation
- Supporting 10 Demonstrator projects in neighbourhoods addressing real challenges with cultural solutions
- Facilitating artist residencies to bring fresh perspectives into communities
- Using games to engage children and youth, encouraging their creativity in finding local solutions
- Hosting three conferences to connect practitioners, policymakers, planners, NGOs, and businesses in Kiel (2019), Gdańsk (2020), and Riga (2021)
Results
- Strengthened collaboration between public authorities and communities in cultural planning
- Tested and scaled practical cultural planning methods across the Baltic Sea Region
- Supported innovative local projects addressing neighbourhood challenges
- Created a Cultural Planning Toolkit for wider use in the region
- Fostered new partnerships and networks for sustainable, culture-based urban development
Explore the project’s results, toolkit, and learnings here