Roadmaps and crystal balls at City-zen How can we guarantee that our cities will be future fit? The answer is that we can’t. Even trying to determine something as basic to daily life as the price of fuel beyond 2030, in the words of Hélène Poimboeuf, Grenoble’s Energy Transition Director, “is like looking into a crystal ball”. The cities of Amsterdam and Grenoble, however, will not content...

Study visits comprise an important part of the mutual learning activities in the GrowSmarter lighthouse project, co-funded under Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union. On 27-28 April I participated in a visit in Cologne, Germany, which proved to be a very diverse, learning-rich and well-organised experience. The study tour gave us an excellent opportunity to learn about the practical...

In the last week of April I had the pleasure to participate in the CITY-ZEN Roadshow in Menorca, one of the Spanish Balearic islands. The event named “Menorca - a sustainable island vision” was the fifth roadshow developed by the CITY-ZEN project and led by Dr. Craig Lee Martin from TU Delft in the Netherlands. Previous roadshows took place in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Belfast (UK), Izmir (...

I love to be in cities. The bustling life, choice in restaurants, observing people from a terrace with a special beer in front of me... But as I sit I start thinking and I become worried. Worried about our cities. As they grow, grow and become bigger and bigger, the more complex and demanding they become. Where will all the resources come from? What if one of the complex and now global supply...