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Iván Tosics participated in the “Kyiv Investment Forum” in Brussels

Iván Tosics participated in the “Kyiv Investment Forum” held in Brussels on 28 November 2022. One of the side events of the KIF was the “Kyiv Agglomeration Sustainable Rebuilding” meeting, organized by Eurocities. Mayors of settlements around Kyiv participated in the meeting in online form, due to the seriousness of the situation in their area. In the framework of the Ukrainian decentralization reform, the ‘Kyiv agglomeration’ territorial unit has been created with roughly 3.9 million inhabitants. 18 settlements from the 1.8-million oblast around Kyiv (consisting of 69 settlements) belong to the agglomeration, together with the capital city of 3 million people. The topic of the meeting was the operation of this agglomeration association and its possible further development, taking into account the planning related to the reconstruction of the region and the adaptation of the expected international assistance to local needs. During the meeting many European examples were mentioned, with special regard on the ways how the operation of metropolitan areas can be made more efficient.

Cover photo was taken by Peter Austin.

Session on the role of economic strength of cities in creating social (in)equality in the urban young population – UPLIFT project Synthesis Report results

The UPLIFT project is organising an on-line session on the 22 of November between 3-4.30 PM (CET) to share the results of a comparative research investigating how the economic strengths of cities and local policies influence social inequalities in urban young population. The research is based on two different methods: first a quantitative analysis was implemented from the dataset of the European Quality of Life Survey, and second, 16 urban areas of UPLIFT were analysed from the perspective of their labour market structure and local welfare systems based on desk research and interviews. While the quantitative analysis found slight connections between certain economic and welfare parameters, the qualitative analysis calls attention to those factors that may divert economic development to go hand in hand with social cohesion.

The session will be based on two short presentations on the research findings by Ábel Csathó from TÁRKI and Éva Gerőházi from Metropolitan Research Institute, and feedback will be provided by Yuri Kazepov, Professor at Department of Sociology, University of Vienna and Ruggero Cefalo, Post Doc Researcher at the Department of Sociology, University of Vienna.

We would be happy to discuss with you our scientific results, on which you may find more details in chapter 6 of the Synthesis Report, and you can dive into each individual urban case by looking at the urban reports.

In case you intend to participate in the on-line event, please fill in the registration form in order that we can inform you on the details of admission.

MRI organising storytelling workshops with local young people and local experts on housing, employment and education in Pécs

On 22 and 23 June 2022 MRI organised storytelling workshops in Pécs within the frame of our UPLIFT project, with the participation of local young people and local experts and practitioners. After having done the qualitative research phase of the project, including 40 interviews with local young people and several interviews with local experts on housing, education and employment, these workshops intended to share the stories we have heard and put together to challenge some of our early conclusions before finalizing the local case study report on Pécs. 

We organized three separate group discussions: 1) with some of the young people with whom we have made the interviews, 2) with local experts and practitioners in the field of education (school director, expert on programmes for young people with learning difficulties, experts from Tanodas and social institutes) and 3) with local experts and practitioners on housing (homelessness service providers, social institutes).

We have invited some of our young interviewees for a group discussion about some of the main points that were drawn from all the interviews with young people. Our discussions were based on pre-defined questions letting the participants build their own narrative which we are able to compare with our concluding observations on their possibilities and actual capabilities in the field of education, employment and housing. This method helped us find common pathways that seemed to be more likely based on common socio-economic situations.

  • In housing: The conversation affirmed that there are seemingly unbridgeable gaps between the public rental sector and the private rental market, and between the private rental market and the owner-occupied market.
  • In employment: The statement said by many experts that ‘all who want to have a job can have it in Pécs’ was proved to be rather overgeneralizing, hiding main barriers of accessing a desired labour market position: like being Roma, having a child or children. Moreover social capital and informal mechanisms seem to be crucial in discovering different opportunities in the labour market, which, even if determined by status, constitutes a more effective labour market asset than institutionalised opportunities such as those provided by the Employment Office.
  • In education: The discussion on educational possibilities and experiences reinforced the picture that the segregated nature of the institutional system in Pécs results in a strong path dependency of school choices (e.g. from elementary to secondary), and the limitations of institutions such as Tanodas that are complementing the school system, e.g. in regard to age groups.

The methodology was somewhat different in the meeting with local experts and practitioners in the field of education, where three focal points were defined: the capacity of the local education system to create opportunities, cooperation between schools, and early school leaving in late adolescence. The conclusion of the meeting was that most of the problems root in the ‘resource space’, the current national educational system that strengthens school segregation and creates competing institutions instead of collaborating ones. Education was considered as a part of a social system in which social disadvantages should be treated from birth. It was also emphasised that teacher education must be reformed concentrating more on pedagogical skills and the freedom of educational methodologies. Finally our assumption was strengthened that there are practically no services for young people above 14-16 years – in case they do not have a child. It seems to be a lost age group, in that aspect.

In the workshop with local housing experts and practitioners we have discussed the following statement, which we have found to be describing the essence of housing problems in Pécs: ‘The main problem is the deep gap between the different housing positions. If there is no possibility to move from one position to another, then perverse behaviours occur to stay safe in the current position.’ Local experts have reassured that the municipal stock is rather rigid: it is unlikely to exit if one got access to a municipal flat; both the system seems not motivating for leaving the municipal sector and both the local market rental sector seems to be unwelcoming especially with people from the Roma community and families with children, while entering to the public rental sector is very limited and impenetrable as eligibility criteria is rather unclear and again informality seems to be playing an important role. 

These main points will be further analysed in the upcoming Case Study Report on Pécs.

Urban Reports on Pécs (HU), Łódź (PL), and Bratislava (SK) written by our colleagues are now available together with 10 others from different urban regions of Europe

The UPLIFT project, which is coordinated by Metropolitan Research Institute in the framework of EU Horizon programme, has reached a milestone by completing 13 reports on different urban areas of Europe. The goal of the reports was to understand the educational, housing, employment and social possibilities of vulnerable young people (aged 15-29) in these locations, taking into account the nature of the local economical dynamics and the national and local welfare systems.

Metropolitan Research Institute in cooperation with local experts have written three of these ‘urban reports’ on  Łódź (Poland), Bratislava (Slovakia) and Pécs (Hungary).

We found that even though the cities share a common historical, political and economic heritage, there are substantial differences in their social inequality outcomes and policy performances both in employment, housing, and education. While Hungary and Slovakia seemed to suffer from the consequences of the financial crisis, Poland was less affected. The recovery period seemed to be successful in all three locations also with regard to the currently ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

There is a rather conspicuous difference between Pécs, Łódź and Bratislava. While Bratislava (being a capital) city and also the region itself is among the most economically developed regions in Europe, that provides a wide variety of jobs for both low and highly skilled employees, Łódź and Pécs sharing a post-industrial heritage; both are suffering from the difficulties of importing foreign investments to boost the local economy and improve the variety of jobs. This difference also reflected in demographic trends: while there is a substantial influx of mainly high skilled employees from other regions to Bratislava, Łódź and Pécs experiences outmigration of high-skilled workers. In Łódź, influx of low-educated immigrants, mainly from Ukraine, even before the war period, also significantly shapes the economic situation of the city. Despite the differences, the unemployment rate is low in all three locations, even among young people, but the rate of people, who are active in the labour market is different: many are inactive and not even seeking for a job in Łódź and Pécs functional urban areas.

Inhabitants face very different housing difficulties in the three locations. Poland and also Łódź faces a lack of housing supply which manifests into worse overcrowding numbers while in Bratislava due to the prosperous economic position and henceforth the already mentioned influx of people from other regions of Slovakia keeps the local housing market under a huge pressure which is reflected in increasing housing prices and rents. The affordability of both buying and renting a flat in Pécs blending into the national and European tendencies of the housing crisis. Due to path-dependency, home ownership is still the most common and most desired tenure type in all three countries and cities, while despite the different timing and dynamics of the privatization of public stock, the availability of social housing is quite different in the three locations. While in Bratislava the social stock is resudialized (around 1%), it reaches 5,5% in Pécs and nearly 12% in Łódź. The common feature however is the run-down physical state of municipal buildings that result in high rate of unusable flats.

The Polish education system seems to be the most efficient among the three examined countries and cities. In Bratislava and Pécs (in Slovakia and Hungary), the outcomes are among the worst in Europe with regard to compensating the inherited social difficulties of pupils. All three educational system seems to be highly centralized although they seem to differ in regard of freedom of local authorities and schools. While in Łódź and Bratislava the local system seems to have more delegated competences set by law, in Pécs local authorities are completely left out from education. Another similarity that vocational education has been reported as a school type that has a negative perception among especially highly educated parents and seemingly reforms have already tried to tackle with this e.g., with the implementation of the dual education and scholarship programmes.

Concluding the comparison, it can be seen, that there are many consequences of local and national economic and social welfare conditions to the life chances of young people, which we will further examine in case of Pécs, in the next research phase, to understand not only the policy setup but also the perception and the perspective of vulnerable young people through 40 individual interviews.

Please find the all the urban reports in the UPLIF website: https://uplift-youth.eu/insights-reporting/official-deliverables

URBACT Action Planning Networks RiConnect, Space4People and Thriving Streets are launching a city policy learning platform on the topics of mobility and public space – organized by Iván Tosics

URBACT Action Planning Networks RiConnect, Space4People and Thriving Streets are launching a city policy learning platform on the topics of mobility and public space. A first webinar bringing together all city partners and a wider group of interested stakeholders will be organised on Monday 29 November, 10.00 – 14.00 CET. It will showcase examples of innovative mobility and public space practices and allow time for discussions and networking. Moderator: Iván Tosics URBACT Thematic Programme Expert

To register, please click here: link

For more regular updates and exchanges with the networks, join the (link is external)Walk’n’Roll Cities LinkedIn group.

Metropolitan Research Institute at the Europe Housing Forum 2021

Four members of the Metropolitan Research Institute gave presentations in different sessions of the Europe Housing Forum 2021 that was organised by Habitat for Humanity between 16-19 of November 2021.

József Hegedüs in contributing to the session on “Diverse approaches and common challenges to housing” emphasized that the most important determinants of housing outcomes and thus of the affordability problem are economic potential of the urban environment and the national/local welfare system. Different housing interventions have different outcomes in economically strong cities where housing affordability is the most crucial issue, and in shrinking areas where quality of the stock and large share of empty and abandoned housing creates the impediments.

Éva Gerőházi, participating in one of the side events of the conference  (REELIH Regional Conference II.) called the attention of the audience that the energy efficient renovation of multi-family buildings in countries like Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina or North-Macedonia requires first to establish the legal and organisational foundations of the renovation (e.g. legislation on Home Owners Associations, metering consumption, development of financial products) before energy poor households can be the specific targets of interventions.

Nóra Teller Nóra spoke in the outbreak session “Is housing the solution to homelessness in CEE?” chaired by Ruth Owen, deputy director of FEANTSA on the opportunities of tackling homelessness through housing solutions in the CEE region, along with colleagues from Chechia – Jan Milota (Platform for Social Housing), Slovakia – Tomáš Dobrovič (Nota Bene, Slovakia) and Poland – Jakub Wilczek (President of the Polish Federation for Resolving the Problem of Homelessness, vice-president and representative of Poland in FEANTSA). The speakers reviewed ongoing and past initiatives, like housing first and housing led interventions, in their respective countries, lessons learned from these programs, and the barriers and obstacles that hinder scaling up service delivery which is based on providing housing for the most vulnerable groups. Whilst the most progressive approach and strategic mainstreaming of Housing First is present in Czechia, local small pilots in Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary seem to be important but are technically very marginal compared to the national shelter-based homeless provision systems. The speakers also concluded that EU funds have been an important lever in paving the way for more progressive solutions to tackling homelessness, but systemic changes are needed to handle affordability and tenure security issues.

 

TExTOUR (2021-2024) Social Innovation and TEchnologies for sustainable growth through participative cultural TOURism.

Cultural tourism is about managing cultural heritage and tourism in an integrated way. It’s about working with local communities to create benefits for everyone involved. This helps preserve tangible and intangible cultural heritage while developing tourism. TExTOUR is an EU-funded project which co-designs pioneering and sustainable cultural tourism strategies and policies. The ultimate goal is to improve deprived areas in Europe and beyond. To do this, it sets up Cultural Tourism Labs at eight pilots located within the EU and outside it. Various societal players and stakeholders in the Cultural Tourism sector will be involved in the Cultural Tourism Labs. The selected pilots have diverse and complementary characteristics, which enables the project’s experts to develop a wide range of scenarios for inland and coastal areas, rural and urban, deprived remote or peripheral areas, facing multiple social, economic and environmental challenges. Are you a policy maker, practitioner or part of a local community? Via the TExTOUR open access platform, we will share with you our knowledge gained as the project unfolds so that you can benefit directly.

For more information visit the website or social media channels of the project:

Webiste: https://textour-project.eu/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/textour.project

ComAct (2020-2022) Community Tailored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation

The countries in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region and in the former Soviet Union republics (CIS region) have the most energy-poor people in Europe.  This is mainly due to high energy prices and poor energy efficiency of the buildings, heating systems and household appliances.

In this region, the housing stock is predominantly privately-owned and characterised by a large percentage of multi-family apartment blocks (MFAB). This is the result of its mass privatization in the 1990s, along with the deconstruction of the social safety net: without subsidies, utility and energy costs of the flats soared, burdening the family budgets. In parallel, the socialist-era collective maintenance mechanisms were abandoned, and the decay of homeowners’ associations has not been addressed effectively.

Against this backdrop, undertaking renovation works in multi-family buildings requires coordinated action among the apartment owners. To address the complex roots of energy poverty, there is a need to develop a new approach to make interventions affordable, substantially influence energy costs and consequently reduce the high energy poverty level in the CEE and CIS region.

For more information visit the website or social media channels of the project:

Website: https://comact-project.eu/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ComActProject

UPLIFT (2020 – 2022) Young People’s voice at the centre of Youth Policy

The past decade has been a period of polarisation and fragmentation in Europe with the financial crisis and rapid technological change widening socio-economic inequalities.  Intergenerational inheritance of (dis)advantage has become increasingly predictive of an individual’s opportunity, and young people in particular have become the demographic age group most at risk of experiencing poverty in Europe. In urban settings these disparities are particularly prevalent.

Policies attempting to mitigate the effects of urban inequality, often disregard affected citizens’ experiences, and thus fail to affect maximum impact. By incorporating these perspectives into the policy design process, UPLIFT aims to find innovative interventions in a bottom-up approach.

Source: https://www.uplift-youth.eu/

Iván Tosics was one of the key note speakers in METREX yearly conference

METREX, the Network of European Metropolitan Regions and Areas, organized its yearly conference in Riga/online on 30 September and 1 October 2021, with the title „Metropolitan area formation aspects in transforming countries”. The first keynote presenter was Iván Tosics, followed by Paul Gerretsen and Charles Landry. Ivan’s concluding remarks were as follows.

There is no unified Central European Approach on Planning Metropolitan Regions existing. After 45 years of socialist development the fragmentation of the local governments and market processes prevailed. Planning has weakened and metropolitan cooperation was not at all on the agenda in the Central and East European countries.

Although since 2004 the countries are again under a joint socioeconomic framework, the EU initiatives towards metropolitan development were not strong enough.

Planning remained subordinated to national policy making in the post-socialist Central and East European countries. EU messages are diverted according to national political interests: some countries support metropolitan development while others forbid metropolitan authorities, being afraid of the expansion of urban governments.

UPLIFT presents at the European Week of Cities and Regions

Metropolitan Research Institute is happy to announce that the UPLIFT project, coordinated by MRI, which deals with social inequalities among urban young people, will be present in the European Week of Cities and Regions on the 12th of October at 11.30 to 13.00 (CET). The session will give an insight into policy co-creation processes that involve young adults directly. Besides having plenary discussions and quizzes the participants will be split into four groups to talk about four interesting examples in housing, education, environment and strategic development domains. Please check the detailed agenda and register for our session at  https://eu.app.swapcard.com/event/eu-regions-week/planning/UGxhbm5pbmdfNjMxMDYz .

Schedule for the event:

  • Key facts and drivers of inequalities among young people: introduction & setting the scene
  • Examples of policy co-creation processes with youth: sharing & learning
  • Participants will be divided into 4 smaller groups in which they will discuss 4 interesting cases of collaborative policy-making together with young people. Each group will be facilitated by a practitioner deeply involved in the policy co-creation process with the support of young people and city representatives. The group work will be kicked-off by the short storytelling session to zoom in on each individual case. This will be followed by conversation with participants.
  • Drawing on participants knowledge and experience: final inspirations & next steps

The rooms will discuss the following topics::

  • Room 1: Co-creation of housing policy in Amsterdam
  • Room 2: Co-creation of an educational programme in Sfantu Gheorghe
  • Room 3: Co-creation of a Youth Strategy in Budapest
  • Room 4: Empowering young climate activists

The European Week of Regions and Cities include other amazing sessions on various topics. Look at what is in your interest and choose your sessions at https://europa.eu/regions-and-cities/
But first of all check the UPLIFT website and social media channels for additional interesting contents!

twitter: @uplift_youth
facebook: @upliftyouthEU
instagram: @uplift_youth

New study on energy poverty is published by MRI and BPIE

Metropolitan Research Institute and  Buildings Performance Institute Europe has published a new paper titled Overview report on the energy poverty concept – Energy poverty in the privately-owned, multi-family environment as a part of the Horizon 2020 ComAct project.
The study reviews the various approaches towards energy poverty and the current energy poverty situation in Europe. The analysis highlighted Central-Eastern European and South-East European regions with a special focus on the five pilot countries of ComAct: Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, North Macedonia, and Ukraine. The paper points out that one indicator cannot capture all relevant aspects of energy poverty, and target groups are different depending on the indicator. Therefore, we suggest that multiple indicators are combined, considering the political nature of defining energy poverty as well. One of the conclusions of the analysis on the post-socialist and post-soviet region is that the privatization and liberalization of the energy sector, the low wages, and the high homeownership rate leads to specific problems regarding the fight against energy poverty. The study also highlights that few subsidy schemes support deep renovation programs, which we consider the most sustainable solution to energy poverty and energy inefficiency at the same time. According to our analysis, policy instruments effectively combatting energy poverty include financial support for structural building renovation as well as auditing, and information and awareness-raising measures targeted at the household.