[sustran] Stockholm Partnerships and its International Prize program

[Eric Britton]

Dear Sustran Friends,

 

For those of us who are serious concerned with advancing the
sustainability agenda in cities, there is something very interesting
that is taking shape in Stockholm for the next six months.

 

The program in question is the Stockholm Partnerships for Sustainable
Cities. It is a multi-part event which includes a first class
interactive web site, an international competition for outstanding
sustainability projects in cities world wide, and in the first week of
June in Stockholm an Expo of the best of these projects together with a
wide-open what you may think of as a conference until you see the way
they have decided to bring people together to share ideas and learn from
each other.  For more on this, I’d like to invite you to have a look at
their excellent web site at  <http://www.partnerships.stockholm.se/>
www.partnerships.stockholm.se/.  

 

My reason for getting in touch with you on this is to see if you can
help us get the word out to cities and teams around the world that are
leading the way with pattern-breaking projects in many areas which are
helping achieve more sustainable and more socially just cities that are
healthy and happy places for our children to grow up, learn and prosper
in. So if you happen to know of projects or teams working with concrete
projects that may not only be interesting in and of themselves in the
place where they are being develop, but which also may have good
potential for low cost replication in other places, anything that you
can do to begin them into the Stockholm Partnerships Cities Innovation
Knowledge will be most appreciated.  And while we are of course
interested in the more familiar potential North/South transfer
possibilities, it is the South/South transfers that are among our
greatest concerns.  (And from my particular perspective, anything that
can serve as a South/North teaching and information exchange tool will
be particularly welcome and most timely.)

 

Why should anybody take the time to add their project to this World
Knowledge Base of Sustainable Cities Innovations?  Well because
sometimes international acknowledgment can be a big help in generating
local understanding and support of your concept.  And because it is, I
believe, an interesting learning process in itself, as you look through
and understand what others are trying to do to break the old patterns of
unsustainability.  And finally, because this database is going to be
maintained in the future and will certainly provide a valuable resource
for others who can in this way benefit from your experience.  I perhaps
should add that the fifty Finalist projects will all be invited to come
to Stockholm for the June events, and if it is a team from a developing
country without a budget, the organizers are going to try to find a way
to lend a hand. 

 

You may also have other interested people, lists and networks with whom
you can share this information.  And if that would not be too much
trouble, it would be much appreciated by all of us who are working to
make this the kind of success of which we are much in need, North and
South.

 

With all good wishes to you and your families for a happy and healthy
2002,

 

Eric 

 

PS. We are also on the lookout for a certain number of what I think of
as “Pattern Break Concept Nominations”, ideas that may have been around
for a number of years but which are still leading the way to
sustainability in practice and in thinking in many places.  Examples of
the sort of thing I have in mind which stem from the
traffic/transport/cities side might include:

 

*         The Dutch Woonerf (1968, Gronigen, The Netherlands)

*	The Swedish  <http://www.danderyd.se/soc/fardtjanst.htm>
Färdtjänst handicapped transport system (also known as STS, Special
Transport Services) (1968, Gothenburg, Sweden?)

*         Carsharing – as an emerging world movement (multiple origins,
tracing back to early seventies, with no one behind it other than
entrepreneurship and good sense)

*         The Danish City Engineer Copenhagen Model in 1968 – “wherever
you spot a bottleneck in the traffic, make it worse”

*         The Amsterdam White Bicycle and its descendants (Luud
Schimmelpennink, 1967?)

 

Thus if you have either further examples or, better yet, leads as to
people or groups who are in a good position to make these nominations,
it would be a great help.  Kind thanks in any event.

 

 

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