Europolis

[i]Giving medium sized cities more pull[/i] On Friday, 3 March 2006, each Europolis partner reported on the results of the different thematic workshops they have been conducting, at a final conference organized in Paris. Over the last few decades many medium sized cities across Europe have seen their population dwindle as households move to larger cities where they can find jobs and businesses competing on the global market place. Production plant closures, unemployment, ageing population, high street shops shutting down are the all too familiar symptoms of this decline. So can medium-sized cities reverse the tide? The partners of the Europolis project believe that there are solutions to fight back. Nine medium-sized cities namely Nottingham, Norwich in the UK, Brest & Rennes in France, Mons & Charleroi in Belgium and Freiburg, Saarbrücken, & Ludwigshafen in Germany have decided to “rub their brains together”. Their population varies from 50,000 to 250,000 inhabitants and in several cases is shrinking. They all face endemic problems such as affluent households moving out into the suburbs, heavy reliance on cars, major supermarkets developing out of town to the detriment of inner city shopping precincts which have downgraded the urban environment . Each city has tested different urban policies which are being watched very closely by the other partner cities. Further details about the Europolis project can also be found on their website http://www.europolis.equipement.gouv.fr/ or http://www.nweurope.org/