Urban Echos – A platform for thoughtful practices for common spaces
We are reaching out to you as our long-standing partners who have helped to foster creative economies in our cities and regions over many years. We would now like to shift our focus with you to new fields of action to regional economies that are both creative and inclusive, resilient and more common-grounded. We will show you practices which enable more commoning and for more multi-coded spaces where we see alternative solutions. We will echo with our partners around the globe these connections and the exchange of experiences to help you nurture your city and region.
We will showcase with you an economy that prioritises the expansion of accessible green spaces for all allowing more encounters of publics, and encourage diverse communities in our cities. It´s the need of the people, their purposes, and the collective will that drives our “next communities” against the backdrop of injustice. Amidst the global challenges of climate crisis, resource scarcity, and growing social inequality, we believe that regional and urban development must be inclusive and more than sustainable. Commons play an essential role in this critical development, significantly contributing to the enhancement of well-being, care, solidarity, equity and alternative economies.
Our interest is to show you how creative economies can embrace wider common needs and building-up new place-based communities. We connect creative economies with the need of better public infrastructures that are more inclusive, foster collective well-being, and depend on post-fossil resources. European cases will focus on more cradle-to-cradle, circular economies and up-cycling designs that have had hard times in the euphoria of the creative growth of the 2010s. Of course, smart technologies are essential, if it nurtures inclusivity, commons, and well-being. In doing so, collaborative participation will be key to foster more commoning.
Starting in September 2024 with Co-Developer Dr. Steve Harding (Birmingham), Katharina Kipp (Berlin), Dr. Sebastian Schlüter (Marseille) and Dr. Bastian Lange (Berlin) we will offer you practices and principles that shape resilient and equitable spaces. The following articles and contributions showcase practices and initiatives that create and enhance spaces of commoning in both urban and non-urban environments. By sharing case studies, experiences, and expertise, we aim to collaboratively learn and explore what it means to create commons that enhance more inclusivity, decarbonization, and spaces we love to share with others.
In 2024 we will build a range of cases studies and through 2025 we will start to pull together the threads of these experiences and fashion some key points to share with you linking creative economies, culture and well-being. Follow us on LinkedIn.
Experimental mobilities: temporary bikelanes in Berlin
In Berlin new wider bike lanes are literally popping up or old ones are painted green to make them more visible and safe. But did it first need a crisis and such an exceptional situation as Covid-19 and the lockdown?
Author: Meret Batke, Researcher at Multiplicities-Berlin
Of reclaiming freedom of mobility and speech as egocentric action.
Berlin and the first of May have a special history and relation. The Covid-19 pandemic induced restriction of public speech, demonstrations and individual rights – which challenged this relation a lot. Since imposed state sanctions of demonstration bans have started to be loosened since 11 of May 2020, a paradoxical situation occurred, as Mai Anh Ha reports.
Author: Mai Anh Ha, Researcher at Multiplicities-Berlin
Berlin: Coping with the Corona-crisis – experimenting with small-scale solutions
What can we learn during Covid-19-pandemia from Berlin as a city, that is known for its experimental attitude? Bastian Lange argues for small scale attempts how to cope with the crisis. What is needed, and how can creative labs generate ideas and solutions to improve our lifes?
Author: Dr. Bastian Lange, Urban and Economic Geographer, University of Leipzig.
Business not as usual – Immediate responses by three Birmingham Enterprise Support Organisations
For Birmingham (UK) three organisations are highlighted to give a snap shot of responses highlighting actions and approaches.
Author: Dr. Steve Harding, Birmingham City University (BCU)
Lisbon: 14,000.605
Lisbon: The last few weeks have changed the outlook – from Lisbon as an eco -system full of physical meetings and face to face creativity into a new reality. How can we begin to re-think our entrepreneurial future? Susy Silva gives a personal reflection on dystopia and how we can begin to find new beginnings.
Author: Susy Silva