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Information Manager:

Itämeren kaupunkien liiton ympäristösihteeristö/Turun kaupunki
Vanha suurtori 7
20500 Turku
FI
Maija Rusanen
E-mail: maija.rusanen@turku.fi
Phone: +358 44 9075 994
Fax: +358 2 262 3425

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Summary description of the project:

Better management of urban-rural interactions can improve quality of life, and thus make the city-regions more attractive and sustainable for people to move, live and work in. Current challenges such as climate change, demographic change, urban sprawl or environmental problems cannot be solved within individual municipalities. In order to build attractive and well-functioning regions cooperation over municipal borders is necessary including both urban and rural areas. The fluency of the interaction between these areas impacts the development patterns of the whole region. The NEW BRIDGES project has sought to develop new approaches to the integrated management of urban rural interaction with a view to improving the quality of life across the Baltic Sea Region. Urban rural interactions are directly linked to people’s everyday lives and to the way in which they interact with, shape and utilize their living environments.

The starting point of the project was that there are certain elements within urban rural interactions that influence the quality of life: mobility and accessibility; the provision of services and residential preferences. Project implementation was based on the creation of new management models and methods for regional planning corresponding to the needs, values and lifestyles of the people living in the BSR. These models and methods were tested during the project by the 8 NEW BRIDGES partners in 7 city-regions around the BSR through concrete Pilot Actions focusing on different aspects of quality of life. The project involved successfully various city-regions around the BSR in comparison of their size, from Hamburg metropolitan region to Hiiumaa island in Estonia, but also with the significantly distinct planning cultures and the policy approaches between these countries.

Various methods were used and tested in relation to encouraging the participation of local residents, politicians and interest groups in regional planning, including local stakeholder meetings, surveys and interviews. Involving local actors in the planning process helped the project partners to better understand the different perspectives on quality of life. The project contributed to this through the promotion of a new planning culture which advocates for a more open, interactive, innovative and inclusive society. One of the most important achievements of the project has been the newly established urban-rural partnerships between neighboring municipalities in the partner city-regions. The project has also helped to realise that multilevel cooperation between the national, regional and local levels is required in order to build attractive and competitive regions in the Baltic Sea Region.

Achievements of the project so far:

The New Bridges project 'Strengthening of Quality of Life through Improved Management of Urban Rural Interaction' (2009-2012) has been developing novel methods and new perspectives to city-regional planning around the Baltic Sea Region. The main achievements were 1) Improved urban-rural interaction and more coherent city-regional planning across the administrative and sectoral borders. 2) Development of more inclusive and participatory regional planning methods involving different stakeholders and especially the residents of the regions in the planning process. Important results of the project were the Pilot Actions, local projects implemented by the 7 NEW BRIDGES partner city-regions. The Pilot Actions were built around the three key elements of the project: residential preferences, production of services and mobility and accessibility. The local Pilot Actions varied from sustainable mobility plans to parts of joint city-regional master plans.

The scope and the scale of the Pilot Action varied but all had certain aspects in common: improving quality of life in the region by taking into account better the individual perspectives of local residents and other stakeholder groups and increasing the cooperation between urban and rural municipalities aiming at more integrated regional planning. Involving local actors in the planning process through concrete actions like local stakeholder meetings helped to better understand the value of planning together with the goal of creating better living environments. The project has also focused on further conceptualizing the concept of Quality of Life. Published handbook “Managing Quality of Life in the Context of Urban-Rural Interaction – Approaches from the Baltic Sea Region” on quality of life and its 3 elements helps to better understand and analyse the multidimensional concept and take it better into account in regional planning.

In a result of multilevel (macro-regional, national and city-regional) cooperation in BSR the project developed “Planning Together for Better Quality of Life – Guide for Integrated Management of Urban Rural Interaction”. The guide presents comprehensively new improved and integrated management model for strengthening urban-rural interaction. Furthermore, it gives policy recommendations for three different governing levels. The guide is complemented with the Online toolkit, which is a series of practical advises on how to apply more integrated approach to planning: how to go through systematically different planning activities together in the city-regional context; how to involve individuals, private sector actors, politicians and other stakeholders into the planning process; how to increase the cooperation between urban and rural municipalities.

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List of partners