International work camp – strategy for sustainable urban development

By Elena Asprovska

We live in a dynamic world, a world of constant change, digitalization, continual technological progress, rapidly growing societies, modernization… Are we all equally able to cope with the changes?

Due to such “modern” lifestyle, the urbanization of cities becomes inevitable. How can we make this development sustainable? – “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Bruntland Report (1987). Sustainability also appeals to constantly working on finding solutions to the problems that are present within one society. 

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“City of one function”

By Lucy Gavrilenko

One of the ways we call functional cities is monotowns. They are part our history for a long long time, since the industrial revolution begun.

                   Factory of “RusAl” in Krasnoturinsk photo made by Yuri Timofeev

Nowadays 20% of all Russians live and work in the monotowns. Some time ago monotowns as such were vital and beneficial for country’s economic system. But now, after the crisis, which is one of the number of problems that monotowns gave birth to,  their benefits are much less then expenditure.

Youth Involvement in Urban Planning in Riga

By Justine Pantelejeva

Public space, is continuously overcrowded in urbanised cities, but in shrinking cities has been left to deteriorate by conjunction, privatization, bad urban planning and design and overall neglect. But, by neglecting the public space, we are neglecting the people in it. One of the most vulnerable groups in the society is youth, as they use public spaces as a safe haven after school or university hours, to relax and enjoy themselves in a safe and socially inclusive environment. So, the question arises: Who are we planning our urban spaces for? And how can we cohesively plan our cities without a dialogue with all the stakeholders?

 

Call for articles – The Future of small Functional Cities

 How small functional cities can tackle capitalistic future?

You may have thought a lot about the dominance of capitalism and financial power that decreases chances for individuals to have influence on politics. Small, functional cities, that were build due to particular industry are even more unprotected in front of inhumane, irresponsible and unethical capitalism. These cities are built due to certain purposes: exploitation of natural resources, railway knots, tourism etc. They are not big and the inhabitants are mostly dependent on a monopole company or set of companies. Developing countries are especially encountering afore–mentioned problems, due to modern forms of imperialism, exclusive trade deals or state wide corruption.

Movie night -Urbanized

 

Urbanized is a documentary film directed by Gary Hustwit and released on 26 October 2011 and considered the third of a three-part series on design known as the Design Trilogy, the first being Helvetica about the typeface and the second being Objectified about industrial design.

The documentary discusses the design of cities, looking at the issues and strategies behind urban design  and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners,  policymakers, builders, and thinkers. 

Movie Discussion – Damm i Kolori

“Damm i Kolori” (Give Me the Colors)

was filmed in Tirana, by Anri Sala. It is a movie about a project initiated by Edi Rama (the city’s mayor at that time and a former artist as well as a current Albanian Prime Minister) which aimed to give a life to gray Tirana’s buildings by colouring them. 

Movie discussion – Ekumenopolis

In July 2015 CDN Alternative Urbanization Working group had an online movie night and discussion.

The discussion of the movie started with sharing general feelings about the movie, participants of the discussion mentioned, that it was interesting to see how after Ottoman empire there was neoliberal empire coming into it’s place. The film showed us how government in Turkey started making money from construction numerous buildings,
under the name of improving the life in Istanbul, while actually destroying the city and victimizing poor people. It was especially interesting to watch the part of democracy and how the construction sites and policies changed the ways people talk about cities and
democracy. Some of us were acknowledged with the public transport system of Istanbul, but for some of us that as a shock. For majority it was interesting to discover TOKI as such. Also some members were thinking that the shaping of current Istanbul is a result of capitalism and not neoliberalism.

CDN in Art Squat in Yerevan

During CDNs seminar in Armenia, from 26th of April to 2nd of May, called “Sharing is caring: Collective actions for common solutions” on the topic of commons, the participants had the chance to visit a local artists’ squat. Read more about it and get activists support video at the end.