Conference article

Bologna is an Italian city with 389,009 inhabitants and a density of 2419,87 (people per km²). The city has a long tradition for cooperative movements, and in the field of public debate and civic participation it has developed a long series of initiatives and shared actions. During the last 15 years Bologna has tried to innovate policies co-designing urban development and taking care of urban commons together with citizens. The incremental nature of the research and the implementation of new practices aimed at improving local democracy and policies has led to the creation of the Civic Imagination Office, a space completely dedicated to citizens participation and focused on the scale up of previous experimentations towards a more integrated system of co-design of urban actions.

citizen engagement, policy innovation, urban policy, co-design