The STATUS project is tackling the problem of incoherent urban and regional development in South Eastern European and neighbouring countries by jointly developing an approach that can help cities and regions in making integrated and sustainable urban agendas and place based strategies by participatory planning tools. Its overall objective is to assist city authorities of the SEE (South East Europe) countries in developing Strategic Territorial/Urban Agendas, as a tool for sustainable and integrated development in line with 21st century standards, and in implementing Urban Centers, as places where to shape, together with active local actors, the planning process that leads to the definition of strategic visions and the design of integrated urban plans.

1. STRATEGIC TERRITORIAL AGENDAS FOR SMALL
AND MIDDLE SIZED TOWNS & URBAN SYSTEMS
The STATUS Project:
M. Urb. Sabina DIMITRIU, URBASOFIA
STATUS Project Content Management

2. Presentation
• Contextand prioritiesofthefutureSouthEastEuropeareas
• WhereSTATUSfits
• STATUSmethodologyandresults
• Instrumentsforcooperation,diffusion,replication
• Conclusionsandfutureperspectives

3. A(nother) look at the South East Europe
• EuropeanUnionexperience
stillnotmatured(especially in
TransitionCountries);
• Mostlycomprisingof
centralizedstates:delegation
anddevolutiondon’tcome
easy;
• Highpoliticalimpacton
planning, leadingtolackof
continuityandincoherent
development;
• Latentanduntapped
potentialofparticipation in
developingplanning policies;

4. Priorities at the turn of the programming period:
• Focusingavailable cohesionpolicyresourcesonperformance-yielding
interventionsthroughcooperation;
• Developingcitiesandregionsthroughintegration oftopics,urban-rural areas,
stakeholdergroupsandfunding;
• Avoidingdispersionandlowreturnofinvestment;
• Creatingownership, greatertransparency andbuy-in.
…this is essentially where the STATUS Project comes in.

5. STATUS
BOOK
INCEPTION
PHASE
Stakeholder identification
Operational analysis
Policy analysis
Networking + State of the Art
CLEAR FRAMEWORK OF AVAILABLE
DATA, CURRENT PLANNING TOOLS
AND POOL OF LOCAL ACTORS
URBAN
PROGRA-
MMING
URBAN
CENTERS
Planning process results:
Participative planning
workshops:
1) Urban Problems
2) Possible solutions
3) Design of strategic agenda
SEE WEB
PLATFORMINTEGRATED ST/UA; POSTER
PLANS, PRIORITY PROJECTS
POTENTIAL FUNDING & PPP
Urban Centers (4 UC) are set up
Stakeholder groups
operationalize Urban Task
Forces (UTF)
SUSTAINABILITY
AND TOOLS FOR
IMPLEMENTATION
Achievements:
METHODOLOGY

6. STATUS
isfirstandforemost an
experience generating project.
10 area-based Operational
Analyses
10planandpolicy framework
reports and1comparativestudy
10UrbanTaskForces
30co-designworkshops
10IntegratedStrategicAgendas
4UrbanCenters
1Onlineplatformwithrepository,
Geoblogs,TerritorialAtlas
1ScientificBook

7. RESULTS

8. RESULTS

9. RESULTS
BUILDSEE Final Conference, 20 November 2014, Bucharest, Romania

10. Tools
Resources
SEE CITY
PLATFORM
In progress: The SEE City Platform
• Our EU-level spin-off
deliverable and the first
coordinated platform of its
kind in the South East Europe;
• Compendium of all STATUS
outputs and a toolkit for small
and middle-sized cities;
• Will deliver necessary tools
for creating and
implementing ST/UA;
• Multi-level integrator (online
Urban Center)
http://www.seecityplatform.net/

11. STATUS Final Conference, 28 October 2014, Alba Iulia, Romania
The Territorial Atlas
Free, open-source online tool assisting planners, administrators and
investors to assess the state of the art of plans and policies as well as
development or investment plans and opportunities.
http://status.graphitech-projects.com/final

12. The Geoblogs
Open-source interactive interface tools
for direct participation. Can be used as
comment and consultation platforms
for newly developed proposals as well.
Aims and effects:
1. Enhanced participation: direct
interface with the decision makers;
2. Greater transparency and buy-in at
local level;
3. Better youth engagement;
4. Real-time response for new plans and
policies;
5. More sustainable solutions, through
innovative crowdsourcing.

13. Sharing some of our experiences:
• Having a good methodology and meeting in the middle yielded
results: bridging top-down with bottom up set a base for future
coherent territorial development in partners
• There is a real need for local participatory planning tools in the SEE,
although that need may take time to become self-aware: longer
projects may work even better
• It wasn’t always easy: 1 Lead partner change, 3 Partner changes, late
start, under-expenditure, 3 minor and 1 large budget shift, long and
complex paperwork and processes
• Good results require good expertise, especially in SEE : local
administrations need more direct support both during and after Urban
Development projects. A great methodology is not sufficient.
• Good timing is also a factor: STATUS cities and regions are now
prepared with ready-to-be-funded project portfolios for 2014-2020

14. Conclusions and perspectives
1. STATUS ending just represents a good start: It is in the hands of the
cities and regions how they will use the results and knowledge
generated from here on.
2. EU Level: 330 million EUR earmarked for urban innovative actions to
meet the challenges of sustainable urban development in 2014-2020.
STATUS Agendas can play the role of integrators for these initiatives
3. STATUS toolkit can be a delivery mechanism for co-designed,
community endorsed solutions and can help bring much-needed
larger scale projects to the top of investment lists (see Romania’s POR
approach to integrated urban development)
4. The tools created (Geoblogs, Territorial Atlas, UTFs, etc) are easily
replicable and can help cities to better use EU funds, to work together
with their citizens and to develop in a coherent, integrated,
sustainable manner.

15. Sabina DIMITRIU | Town and Regional Planner
URBASOFIA | General Manager of EU Projects
sabina.dimitriu@urbasofia.eu| www.urbasofia.eu
THANK YOU!