Urban Development

The project B.Green implemented several successful green infrastructure concepts, plans and executions to improve early phase urban planning. All the actions were implemented in six selected pilot areas located both in Helsinki and Tallinn: 

The Augmented Urbans project focused cooperation efforts on three important aspects of the urban planning: local participation and involvement of stakeholders, urban resilience and applying new technologies (XR).

The HEAT project contributed to the planning of healthier, more active and inclusive urban areas in the Central Baltic region, in which biking is a safe, popular and acceptable mode of transport. 

Integrated Stormwater Management (iWater) project improves the urban planning in the cities of the Baltic Sea region through development of comprehensive stormwater management system which is integrated into the urban development processes of the city at all levels.

In result, each of 7 partner cities (Helsinki, Turku, Tartu, Jelgava, Riga, Söderhamn and Gävle) developed its own tailor-made solution – a city-specific stormwater management strategy. Each city also established an institutional model for stormwater management.

Cities play a significant role in our efforts to reduce the effects of global climate change. Smart cities and innovative urban environments will be the main target of investments in e.g. Africa, Asia and South America within the next ten years. The SME2Go project focused on improving the competitiveness of hundreds of identified smart city solution providers in Estonia, Finland and Sweden.

Baltic Urban Lab created and tested new integrated planning and partnership models that help turn brownfield areas into smart and sustainable city districts. Brownfields are abandoned or underused areas that have previously been used for example by industry or military.
 
One of the new ways for planning is the public-private-people partnership (4P) approach. 4P improves the inclusion of various public sector actors, private actors, residents, NGOs and of civil-society actors in the planning processes through improved dialogue and common understanding of goals.

For quite sometime, cities have taken steps to include all actors in their urban planning process. Planning according to this principle presents many advantages; those who operate in the area, know their needs best and usually have relevant ideas on how to fulfill them. But what are the best methods to involve them in the process? Live Baltic Campus tested many different ones whilst developing their five integrated urban plans in the university campus areas of Helsinki, Riga, Tartu, Turku, and Uppsala.