Living Streets

Make the city of tomorrow visible today!

Living Streets is a real-life experiment whereby each year, for two months, residents can temporarily transform their street into the sustainable place they have always dreamed of.

Each of these living labs explores a new urbanism with fewer cars and more social interaction. Living Streets is not a story of individuals trying to make their own street car-free. It is the story of hundreds of citizens in dozens of streets.

Together with stakeholders and municipal departments, they are exploring how local policy making and urban planning can ensure that all newly-paved streets and neighbourhoods are always designed as ‘living streets’, with the consent of all parts of society. The experiment has been successfully developed in Ghent and European cities will build on this experience to share this approach at local level together with residents and stakeholders.

© photo Municipality of Zadar

Objectives of the project

  1. Co-create and implement “Living streets” in 7 European cities: Brussels (Belgium), La Rochelle (France), Zadar (Croatia), Milton Keynes (United Kingdom), Turin (Italy), Ivanić-Grad (Croatia), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), with the support of participation experts: the Trojan Lab of Ghent, independent network of collaborating citizens, businesses, governments and organisations driving the “Living Streets” in Ghent, and Mister Lion, lab for societal change.
  2. Develop action and reflection networks, composed of local stakeholders and citizens, in partner cities to capitalize the insights of the Living Streets experiment
  3. Impact on the local urban policy making process by translating the outcomes of the Living Streets on different use of public space and include it in the existing long-term development strategies
  4. Replicate the concept of Living Streets in other European local authorities
  5. Elaborate policy recommendations to the national level to support Member States
© photo Dries Gysels, City of Ghent

What is Energy Cities doing in LIFE Living Streets?

Energy Cities coordinates the project, organises peer review exchange among city partners via workshops and webinars and promotes the Living Streets approach to European local authorities.