Participating in the opening session of the 20th #EURegionsWeek workshop in Brussels, Riga City Councillor Justīne Panteļējeva shared her experience on how the capital's local government is trying to involve young people in urban planning and urban exploration through an innovative approach. By participating in the EU Interreg project "UrbCultural Planning", Riga has developed a city model in the popular game Minecraft.
It is essentially an automated city model based on available geospatial data. So far, Riga has carried out two pilot projects, testing ways in which a map of the capital can be used in a game environment to help young people get to know their local neighbourhood, the city's history and architecture.
Why Minecraft? "Usually, it is hard for a municipality to reach young people, but with Minecraft it is more than possible!" explains Panteļējeva. The game's creative mode allows you to design, build and explore, while the Minecraft Education Edition, which is available to all students in Riga's educational institutions, allows you to create specialised "digital classrooms" where you can create content about the history of Riga's neighbourhoods and buildings, urban challenges such as climate change, mobility, and how we can use STEM knowledge to tackle challenges at the city level.
Since its launch in 2011, Minecraft has gained more than 170 million active players worldwide. The game is very popular with young people and they understand it naturally, unlike the professional language used in urban planning, so it is a good way to engage them in a conversation about the city, urban planning and exploring places.
"Riga City Council is aware of the importance of young people's participation, so we need to create opportunities for them to influence and shape urban spaces. Minecraft provides an opportunity to reach all students in the Riga education system – by creating different offers to use the game, Riga can effectively create a dialogue with young people," the MEP said.
Riga City Council continues to actively seek ways to transfer this unique experience to more schools in Riga and to spread the method more widely in the Baltics and the European Union.
Panteļējeva represented Riga at the opening session of the #EURegionsWeek workshop in Brussels from 10 to 13 October. Its motto is "New challenges for European cohesion" and this year's themes include green and digital transformation, territorial cohesion and youth empowerment.
This year, Riga City Council organised an on-site workshop at the EU Committee of the Regions within the EU Capital Cities and Regions Network in cooperation with consortium partners from Prague, Madrid, Stockholm, Vienna, Budapest, and Bratislava. As 2022 is the European Year of Youth, the cities shared their best strategies to encourage young people, and especially girls, to choose technical, scientific or IT careers. For example, for more than a decade, the city of Vienna has hosted an annual "Daughters' Day", which allows young girls to spend a day in one of 190 IT companies and gain first-hand experience.
EURegionsWeek is the largest annual event dedicated to regional policy. It takes place once a year and lasts four days. It showcases the capacity of regions and cities to create growth and jobs, to implement the European Union's cohesion policy and to demonstrate the importance of the local and regional level for good European governance. Since the first European Week of Regions and Cities in 2003, the event has become a unique communication and networking forum for representatives of regions and cities, including politicians, officials, experts, and academics from all over Europe. The European Week of Regions and Cities has helped to show how regions and cities are using EU funds to improve people's daily lives.
In October, more than 10,000 participants, including over 1,000 speakers, from all over Europe and third countries will take part in a wide-ranging programme of conferences, exhibitions and networking events on regional and local development. Each year, the programme is adapted to the specific issues on the EU agenda.
Information prepared by: Mārtiņš Vilemsons, Project Coordinator at External Communication Division of Riga City Council Communication Department, e-mail: martins.vilemsons@riga.lv