The last few months have been very busy at 360° Cityshapers, as the gap since the last blog update highlights(!). A significant portion of this time has been working on a commission about which I can’t yet share details, so I’ll focus this update on ongoing activities as retained expert for urban greening & urban nature for the EU’s URBACT Pioneers Accelerator (UPA).
This role has continued throughout 2026 with more online masterclasses, workshops and briefings, alongside further visits to the likes of Guimarāes, (Portugal), Paris and Strasbourg (France). I’ve already written about Guimarāes here.
The ‘urban safari’ to the Strasbourg, the picturesque capital of the historic region of Alsace and home of the European Parliament, was another fantastic enjoyable learning opportunity for the UPA cities. As a recognised European leader in urban greening and participatory community engagement, a study visit to Strasbourg would equip them with invaluable inspirations and expertise to sustain and scale up community-led urban greening projects, including the small-scale ‘pilot actions’ required as final element of the UPA programme.
Aerial view of Strasbourg and the River Rhine
In a packed itinerary, I introduced the UPA participants to a range of Strasbourg’s city sustainability programmes. Their city centre surface-unsealing (deminéralisation) initiative - replacing dominant hard highway space in the city centre with integrated pocket parks & active transport hubs - gave them a tangible example of how to resolve a problem they all had, as well as advanced technical knowledge, for example the ‘Miyawaka’ planting methodology, and the importance of using indigenous species and supply chains, and how to develop your own ecological circular economy.
The two other projects that had the most impact on the UPA participants were “Strasbourg ça pousse” (“Strasbourg, it grows”), and the city’s unique take on the more established “Cours Oasis” schoolyard greening initiative, which began in 2018 in Paris as part of the city’s Climate Adaptation Plan.
“Strasbourg ça pousse” is long-running small-scale street greening & biodiversity programme, which demonstrates how citizens can be persuaded, and enabled, to take an active long-term role in urban street-greening, in a replicable, cost-effective and impactful way. An encounter with a retired local resident with boundless knowledge, energy and enthusiasm for her particular ‘garden’ - which she described as her true vocation in life - made a deep impression of the UPA participants.
The visits to a range of different “Cours Oasis”-inspired demonstrated how effective they could be in driving child health & wellbeing, intergenerational social inclusion and wider neighbourhood benefits. The enthusiasm they generated was immediate, with the group sharing ideas between each other as to how this could be easily replicated in their city schools.
In a wonderful moment of circularity in action, the UPA cities had their contribution to the Green Transition agenda recognised by Strasbourg, who shared that the Voluntary Local Review (VLR) of the UN Sustainable Development Goals’ undertaken by one of the Urban Nature cities, Níš in Serbia, had been an inspiration and benchmark to develop Strasbourg’s approach to their VLR (both can be found here). This gave the UPA cities an important confidence boost in continuing the urban greening agenda in their own cities after the UPA programme ends, but also helped reinforce to them one of the core learning points of the UPA programme - the value of peer knowledge exchange. By sharing experiences, ideas and approaches, cities can learn from one another, build on each other’s successes and accelerate progress towards a greener future.
As the inaugural UPA programme draws to a close, it is a fitting moment to reflect on what it has achieved. As a pilot, it has delivered many of its original objectives, whilst also highlighting exciting opportunities to go further. There is so much potential for URBACT to build on this momentum, and I’d be delighted to continue to contribute to what comes next!