Good morning @Alberto ,
Good evening @Alberto ,
We started indeed with a small group of people. The city of Ghent used the theory of transition management to create a strong group (“arena”) to start reflecting on the future. We explained this in this article: http://www.polisnetwork.eu/uploads/Modules/PublicDocuments/thinking-cities-launch-issue-web2.pdf (page 24)
The city of Ghent (thanks to the European MUSIC-project) coördinated the first year of thinking, dreaming and creating a strong group (see also https://drift.eur.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/DRIFT-Transition_management_in_the_urban_context-guidance_manual.pdf) . Then the group organised themselves, with sponsorship money and a lot of volunteer time of the pioneers of the first hour.
The Living street experiment evolved from 2 streets during 1 month in 2013 to more than 30 streets during sometimes 2,5 months the last years. Each edition the evaluation is done through collaboration between the residents in the street,
“From streetparking to neighborhood parking”: if we want to create free spaces in streets we have to find solutions for the parked cars in the street. When experimenting with Living street the initiators have to find appropriate places for their cars to park. Not just ‘around the corner’. We look for under-used parking spaces at shops, companies, railwaystations, … This can be in the neighborhood or even more remote at ‘long distance parkings’. Each time citizens (on a volunteering basis) test this new way of parking and are supported by our network through (e)-bikes, bus/tramtickets, … The insights and experience we gain here are used by the local city administration.
Social streets: We heard about social streets not long ago via Giulia Ganugi. She’s a PhD student Sociology in Bologna. Her research is about the Social Street phenomenon, born in Bologna three years ago and spreaded throughout Italy and the world. She visited us in Ghent to know more about the Living Street-experiment.
We also like to add the link to our newspaper: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/55700321/livingstreetsnews1
Kind regards,
Pieter and Dries from Ghent