The Power of Many

How city officials can use co-creation for Just and Sustainable Cities

Just transition, citizen engagement, fairness, equity, sustainability – city officials across Europe hear these words more and more often. While recognising their importance, many of them are struggling to fully integrate them into their daily work.

The Fair Local Green Deals project worked alongside city officials from the cities of València, Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain), Wrocław, Łódź (Poland) and Gent (Belgium) to implement meaningful and inclusive co-creation processes. Such actions pursued to tackle on the one hand the most pressing challenges in each local context, and on the other, one or more of the policy areas of the European Green Deal. The lessons they have learnt and challenges they have overcome are summarised in this book  “The Power of Many. How city officials can use co-creation for Just and Sustainable Cities”.

The book addresses people who work at municipalities and directly or indirectly with citizens. This includes city officials / civil servants who are part of the operational structure of a municipality and deal with the daily tasks of implementing policies in the territory. By extension, people who work with municipalities in any way can learn from this book.

Hyperlinks included in the book “The Power of Many: How city officials can use co-creation for Just and Sustainable Cities”

p. 6  Towards a Just Transition: what does this really mean for cities and towns?, ICLEI Europe, 2023

p. 11  A guerrilla gardener in South Central LA, Ron Finley, TED Talk, February 2013

p. 15  How to Start a Movement, Derek Sivers, TED Talk, November 2015

p. 19  Compromiso con el clima 2023, La Casa Encendida, December 2023

p. 27  Workshop runsheet template

p. 29  Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (Orquesta Reino de Aragón), HALIDONMUSIC, March 2021

p. 29  Movie extract, @dr3amfactory, January 2023

p. 34  All That We Share, TV 2, January 2017

pp. 41-42  Emotions and Needs Table V2, Nati Beltrán, Cath Burke & Tracy Seed, February 2023.

p. 49  Finding resources to invest together - re-coding value and benefits

p. 55  The European Green Deal

p. 56  The Ghent Climate plan 2020-2025

p. 61  Missions València 2023 

EU Missions in Horizon Europe 

The Valencia Climate City Contract 

p. 62  Urban Klima Strategy

p. 64  FutureS Thinking method 

p. 72  Pentahelix concept   

p. 86 URBANEW project

CitiES 2030 

Viable Cities 

M100 National Hub 

p. 89  Political Guidelines for the Next European Commission 2024−2029. Ursula von der Leyen. Candidate for the European Commission President, July 2024

Statement at the European Parliament Plenary by President Ursula von der Leyen, candidate for a second mandate 2024-2029. European Commission, July 2024

Workshop runsheet_Template

The Power of Many: How city officials can use co-creation for Just and Sustainable Cities