Ferrara

Type: Municipality

Population: 131,987 inhabitants

Extension: 404.36  km²

Density: 326 inhabitants per km²

Key Aspects

The participative process has being designed out of MiT framework, so we have to adapt the strategy step by step, while reality comes emerging. MiT is being used to show a different approach to decision making, especially with the help of S3, and to prove that the use of systemic tools dramatically increases the beneficial effects on the territories. The hope is to show a new way of doing things to tickle the interest of the Municipality to apply the whole methodology.

Context:

The participative process is called “Urban Forestry”, and it has the aim of specifying the urban green infrastructure strategy within two marginal districts of the city – Pontelagoscuro and Barco –  and to co-design a couple of tree-planting interventions on the ground. The main decision-making body is a group involving 20 people coming from civil society, technical and political part of the Municipality, residents from the two districts and students from the local University.

Challenges

The main challenges are:

• to work online with a diverse group of 20 people, having only 4 months to bring about some sensible decision and very little time to train them all into MiT tools;

• adapting both MiT deep meaning to the participative process, and to make enough space for MiT to show its benefits within the process design.

Tutor:

Matteo Graldi

Local Implementation Team:

Well, we didn’t have a proper LIT, the 20 people following the process can be considered as the temporary Local Implementation Team. The facilitation was carried forward by Matteo helped by the project officers of the participative process:  Chiara Porretta and Anna Zonari.

After this experiment we can see that we can use MiT in a light way even when the conditions are not particularly easy. There is now a discussion going on about capitalizing on the experience and continuing the activities of the group by addressing other issues in a more organized and articulated way, perhaps by applying MiT in full form.