Small Town LAB Steinkjer, Norway Pori, Finland Verdal, Norway - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Small Town LAB

Working Group 4

Final conference in Borgarnes, Iceland 17.-18. October 2019 Attractive Nordic Towns

Steinkjer, Norway Levanger, Norway Verdal, Norway Pori, Finland Mosfellsbær, Iceland Fljótsdalshérað, Iceland Iceland

Towns in Group 4

Joint challenges of Group 4

• How to make town centers more livable and interesting for citizens
• How to preserve natural and cultural heritage in sustainable urban

development

• How to increase public democracy and participation for decision

making.

• How to use public democracy and citizen involvement to make more

attractive towns

• How can the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals be used

to promote sustainable town development

Nordic town centers

Our objectives

• Induce more collaboration across sectors (public-private-citizens-academia)
• Exchange practice/experience with other towns through co-operation
• Find an appropriate method for small and medium-sized towns
• This method should be flexible and adaptable for each municipality
• Allow for co-operation between towns and ability to evolve and change

Small TownLAB

Small Town LAB methodology

A Small TownLAB can be:

• a permanent place - a meeting place in one or more locations in the

town, with information and knowledge exchange

• a mobile "place" that moves around and meets people wherever they

are, or a pop-up activity

• a digital platform

Small Town LAB methodology

We wanted to meet stake holders on their terms, arenas and through communication channels they normally use. We therefore concentrated on establishing meeting places for citizens and making pop-up activities in a wide variety of locations, such a town centers, business meetings, schools, shopping centers, town fairs, research festival and universities

Diverse approaches to Small Town LAB

Towns Permanent place Mobile facility / Pop-Up activity Digital platform Problem solving Innovation based Identifying target area Levanger x x x x x x Steinkjer x x x x Verdal x x x x Fljótsdalshérað x x x x x Mosfellsbær x x Pori x x x x

Goals for Small TownLAB

• Increasing the participation of the citizens and the cooperation with

stakeholders for creating more attractive and sustainable town centers.

• Developing the Small Town LAB as an appropriate method and meeting

places for small and medium-sized municipalities in municipal planning and development work.

• Make our towns more attractive

Examples of Small TownLab

Short videos showing examples of Small Town LAB projects in our municipalities

• Verdal pop-up event on town square
• Levanger Small Town LABs

Small Town LAB example - Verdal

Small Town LAB example - Levanger Small Town LAB example - Levanger

LEVANGER

Town LAB activities

• Co-creation with and involvement of the inhabitants

through workshops and arrangements

• Replace a public car park with popup activities, i.e.

children´s street party

• Introducing city bikes

for

STEINKJER

Town LAB activities

• Meeting people in shopping market and at town market
• Launching web-based surveys
• Planning how to contact retailers and building owners
• Aiming at redefine development tasks based on use

surveys involving wide range of stakeholders

• Co-creating is intended to use for transformation new

areas

VERDAL

Town LAB activities

• Opening up town square for local activities

and pop-up events

• Outdoor opera event a town square

FLJÓTSDALSHÉRAÐ

Town LAB activities

• Small TownLAB to reach out to citizens

for more detailed discussion how to make town center more attractive

• Meeting place to be installed in a vacant

green house

• Open for meetings and social gatherings
• Access to politicians
• Fleemarket, bicycle workshop

MOSFELLSBÆR

Town LAB activities

• Establishing an attractive meeting place in indoor town center
• Creating an information square (UPPMOS) for residents
• Increase public participation and citizen involvement
• Make Sustainable Development Goals more visible
• Open up space for meetings and social gatherings
• Further development of square in co-operation with citizens

through an e-democracy project

PORI

Town LAB activities

• Organizing pop-up events in the market square
• Organizing a game workshop on the city center

development with focus on sustainability approach

• Designing a kiosk for outdoor events
• creation of the PORIS temporary Urban LAB space in a

vacant retail space

• Organizing a citybike system
• Citizen meetings and surveys

Challlenges

• Lack of experience – studytrips have been educational and inspiring
• Some resistance from stakeholders and municipal

employees/politicians must be conquered

• This is a long term work with building dialogue and trust between

stakeholders and all participants

• Physical results will come in a longer perspective, but only if

intangible results among stakeholders have been accomplished in short term

Results

• More engagement from stakeholders
• Citizens take more responsibility for solutions
• Established meeting places
• Active participation from citizens and stakeholders
• TownLab is important framing of the collaboration
• People talk positive instead of negatively about town development

and local resources

• Have made more attractive towns and increased co-operation

Next steps

• Continue experimenting with Small TownLAB methodology
• Continue co-operation and sharing experience between towns
• Developing a Small TownLAB Give and share library for collecting

experience, knowledge, ideas and questions and to ensure lasting co-operation to achieve sustainability goals. SUSTAINABLE TEAMS