www.urbact.eu

URBACT showcases 97 Good Practices for sustainable urban development, all accessible on a searching database providing city practitioners with a snapshot of the practice, why it works and who to contact for more details.

Among them, three GDC signatory cities stand out for investing in digital to impulse participatory change in their more disadvantaged neighbourhoods. For these local authorities, ICT are key enablers to inclusive urban regeneration and social innovation. For this reason, they deserve some attention.

• The Bristol Approach to Citizen Sensing presents itself as a new of co-creating smarter cities, designed to tackle social exclusion, poverty and environmental problems by empowering disadvantaged communities with opportunities to develop new knowledge, digital skills and open source tools.

• In Bari, a former disused school has been transformed into a Creative Hub (Spazio 13) where digital communication and technologies play they part in regenerating the city’s suburb.

• In Murcia, granting free Internet to citizens (in classrooms, information-points and through municipal Wi-Fi) is a major measure. Technological innovation is also a pillar of the participative urban regeneration process of the district ‘el Barrio del Espiriti Santo’.