15 of the world’s great cities launched an unprecedented global competition to drive carbon neutral and resilient urban regeneration.
C40’s Reinventing Cities initiative has already identified 46 underutilized spaces to redevelop, including several empty plots and abandoned buildings, a former airport, historical mansions, underused car parks, and an abandoned incinerator and landfill.
Through this competition, C40 and these cities invite architects, urban planners, designers, developers, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, start-upers, neighbourhood collectives, innovators and artists to collaborate and compete for the opportunity to transform these sites into new beacons of sustainability and resiliency.
Reinventing Cities launched today in Auckland, Cape Town, Chicago, Houston, Lima, Madrid, Milan, Mexico City, Oslo, Paris, Quito, Reykjavik, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and San Francisco. New cities are expected to join the competition in the coming weeks.
The competition will serve as a model for cities around the world, demonstrating how the alliance between cities and business can shape the future delivering healthier, greener and economically viable urban development.
The competition’s criteria will favor bids from creative teams that deliver innovative climate solutions in combination with striking architecture and tangible benefits for the local community.
The deadline for applications is April 20th 12am UTC
Reinventing Cities is made possible thanks to the support of Climate KIC and ofo.
The initiative is inspired by the successful Reinventing Paris scheme, launched by Mayor of Paris and C40 Chair Anne Hidalgo in 2015. Today 22 public spaces, covering 250,000 square metres are being transformed across the French capital.
Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris and Chair of C40 said:
Think local, act global, is the 21st century state of mind. By launching this global competition, we make this philosophy very concrete celebrating the most vibrant innovative solutions to environmental challenges. Reinventing Cities will set new standards of sustainability in cities and who better than our citizens to imagine the future of their cities? I am convinced that the winning projects will surprise us all and present innovations we are unable to imagine today.
“Hurricane Harvey was a defining moment for the City of Houston. It’s not enough for us to rebuild in the same way,” said Sylvester Turner, Mayor of Houston. “This program is an opportunity to rebuild and revitalize some of Houston’s hardest hit areas and show the world that Houston stands stronger than ever before.”
“When governing leaders all pull in the same direction, the cities of the world have a unique opportunity to lead the way in working against climate change. In Oslo we have set a goal to cut emissions by 95% within 2030. We have put together a climate-budget whereby each sector is responsible for its climate goals and rapport on these together with the financial budget. In our acquisition processes we now actively use our purchasing power in order to demanding simple environmental requirements, for example by demanding fossil free building sites. This is an important tool for turning the private sector in a more environmental direction. We have been awarded the title of European Green Capital for 2019. We are proud to be involved with the work with the C40 project and look forward to learning more from the innovative suggestions that will be put forth for “Reinventing Cities” in Oslo,” said Raymond Johansen, Governing Mayor of Oslo.
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