Carpe Diem: The Green Transition Will Be Won — or Lost — in Cities

In January 2026 we had the pleasure to present to the Regional Cooperation Group of the EU regions and cities around the subject of Green Transition: Practical solutions for sustainable cities. The discussion was so diverse and varied, as varied as the regions represented, that the logical thing to do was to write about the thoughts we shared, the responses we got and aim to continue the conversation beyond that moment in time.

It is easy to get lost in the deluge of challenges that we face on a daily basis, most of it out of our control, which means focusing on smaller, tangible action is easier and actionable, making us react on the short term initiatives that yield visible results. By doing that we potentially hide from tackling the larger, more complex, long term issues that require broader imagination and collaboration. It also makes us forget about the everyday heroes that are working tirelessly in the trenches, like the officer and managers of the cities and regions across Europe and the world, aiming to build a more sustainable future for their cities and collaborating across the regions to broaden the impact they can create.

This piece is meant to celebrate their efforts, verbalize what they are already doing, and try to trigger big ideas to broaden the horizon of their efforts, especially in order to include those who have been excluded in the design and shaping of the built environment and our cities, of our policies and our futures. This is also meant as a nudge with some practical approaches to go from big ideas to reality and how to fund them.

Leadership in action

In the current state of the world there is so much happening that it is tempting to focus on the immediate and think that dealing with the issues of sustainability is a tomorrow problem. That is what big slogans from the vested interest fringes would like us to think.

That is not necessarily the reality on the ground. We see a lot of local leaders, civil servants, action groups, that are feeling the pressure, and using that to lead through action. A lot of these actions are localized and rather in isolation from one another. They are yet to link their initiatives into ecosystem approaches.

Nevertheless, environmental and social challenges act in ecosystems, and their ripples go far beyond creating localized challenges.

The climate and societal emergency is not tomorrow's problem as we are waking up to the realization. It is today's lived reality. Yet polarization, post-truth narratives, and manufactured distractions blur our capacity to focus on the structural emergency we have been shaping since the Industrial Revolution.

Climate impacts are no longer distant headlines. They are inside the house.

Flash floods in Southern Spain — still recovering from previous devastation — have left not only material destruction but deep economic scars. The 2024 Valencia floods alone were estimated at 0.65% of GDP. Floods in Romania. Fires in Greece and Cyprus. Avalanches in Switzerland that erased entire towns. A blackout across Spain and Portugal — itself triggering backlash against renewables.

These are not isolated events. They are systemic warning signals.

The just and green just transition is not optional. The real question is whether Europe's cities will treat it as a technical adjustment — or as a democratic redesign.

Cities are at the front lines of resilience. This is especially apparent in March 2026, with LNG prices rising so sharply, supply chains threatened, environmental impact broadened beyond climate change, and negative social impacts exploding due to another war declared in the Levant region. A war that, at the moment of writing, has already involved 14 different countries. A war that shows that those who have adopted sustainability, just and green transitions are rising to be the resilient ones who are prepared. For example, the cities who have already advanced in their electrification and moved towards clean energy production are being generally less affected by the unintended consequences and ripple effects of this conflict, and those to come.

This is precisely why cities are the perfect nexus to lead the next phase of Europe's sustainable resilient transition — not as implementers, but as system designers.

Resilience: Democracy starts and ends in the city

Sustainability is often reduced to carbon metrics and climate targets. But sustainability is not only an environmental challenge. It is social, economic, cultural, institutional and governance-related. It asks whether our systems — environmental and human — can endure, adapt, and remain just.

Environmental disasters do not affect people equally. Nor do economic shocks, housing crises, energy transitions, or digital disruptions. They expose and amplify inequities already embedded in our systems, especially visible in the built environments. The most vulnerable carry the heaviest burden — whether from floods, rising rents, housing shortages, heatwaves, or energy insecurity.

When inequity determines who is protected and who is exposed, democracy itself is strained. This inequity shatters the resilience of our democratic systems and highlights the relevance of citizens as engaged and active participants in the system rather than just passive receivers or at best apathetic observers hypernormalising what should never be.

Sustainability, therefore, is a democratic stress test. It tests whether our institutions can act beyond electoral cycles. It tests whether participation is genuine or symbolic. It tests whether prosperity is shared or concentrated.

Democracy is not a moment at the ballot box. It is daily infrastructure. It is the continuous rebuilding of the social contract. It is the exchange of goods and services — but also of trust, memory, culture, and ideas. These intangible exchanges shape belonging and cohesion. They determine whether people feel invested in the future of their place. It is what shapes our social contract.

When citizens feel excluded — economically, spatially, digitally — disengagement grows. And disengagement is fertile ground for polarization and backlash.

Democracy starts — and can end — in the city.

Democracy is the economy. It is the exchange of services and goods. But it is also the exchange of the intangible; the cultural, the social, the sentimental, the ideas that germinate and transform in between space, and citizen, even when they are not paying attention. The intangible that makes our places and spaces what they are, cities. Makes them worth protecting and fighting for. Makes them antifragile.

These climate, environmental, social and societal disasters within our united house make it our collective and shared responsibility as the European Union, with cities at the frontline of the resistance.

If sustainability is the stress test of our time, cities are where that test is administered. They are where environmental limits, social equity, and governance capacity intersect most visibly. They are where systems either fracture — or regenerate.

Cities: Humanity's Collective Laboratory

By 2050, 68% of the world's population will live in cities, according to UN projections. Throughout history we have moved to cities to escape poverty and build opportunity. Cities are humanity's largest and most ambitious collaborative invention — built for the common good. Yet when we let cities leave cities to become run down in the name of individualism, we see the countryside being taken over to cater to those trying to escape it moving away from the collective.

It is fashionable to describe cities as polluters and centers of inequity. But this misses their deeper nature.

Nevertheless if our perspective becomes more human centric, we see that cities are the biggest human projects and have always been the most optimistic visions humanity imagines. The shared resources, the collective lived reality, the space of intellectual exchange, the lab for innovation. We can change the future of humanity, making it more sustainable and within the boundaries of the planet by rethinking of our cities as the labs to redesigning and unleashing the human potential energies.

Europe, built as a union "united in diversity," has a particular advantage: diversity fuels innovation when embedded within a shared urban contract.

Cities are not simply implementation units of national policy. They are democratic laboratories.

Engagement by Design: Inclusion Is Not Accidental

Participation is not organic — it is included or excluded by design.

We rarely question how unequal our built environments are. Consider school playgrounds. Research by urban designers Honorata Grzesikowska, Ewelina Jaskulska and their colleagues found that in several Catalunya schoolyards, boys tend to occupy central, sports-oriented areas — leaving girls, and those uninterested in high-intensity games, on the quieter periphery. Similar patterns can be observed across Europe, where up to 80% of playground space is often dominated by competitive ball games.

The peripheral space is not an innocent accident. It becomes the zone where "girl play" or quieter activities occur, sending an unspoken message: the central space — understood as the most valuable — is claimed first by those already encouraged in dominance behaviours. Being pushed to the edges conditions a child's sense of belonging to a place over time. According to this research outcomes, and as seen in numerous other research around 'Feminist Geography & Embodiment' by researchers Gillian Rose, Linda McDowell and Jane Rendell, this becomes embedded behaviour where girls learn early that they must adapt — to accommodate others' needs, to shrink into margins, to defer prominence. These learned spatial behaviours do not disappear at the school gate. They follow girls into workplaces, public life, the home, leisure spaces, transportation systems, and civic participation throughout adulthood.

Urban space shapes power.

If we can design exclusion, we can design inclusion.

Local authorities and organizations are natural facilitators and connectors and are critical in shaping the collaboration, the imagination and the courage that is needed across the long term lifecycle of a city and its citizens. But local authorities and legislators need to be intentional about making that happen otherwise we will keep having layered, disjointed, polluted and inequitable places.

By putting citizens and inhabitants at the heart of the equation we see the necessary shift that need to happen and that are taking place.

This means that we need to build in citizen involvement and engagement, not just as consumers or passers by but as shapers.

Meaningful citizen engagement therefore are structural — beginning with design literacy in schools, extending to civic technology and participatory platforms as demonstrated by countries such as Estonia, and embedding co-creation at neighbourhood level through living labs and participatory budgeting.

When citizens move from passive recipients to co-designers, disenchantment decreases and lifelong democratic depth and participation increases.

From Fragmented Projects to Urban Ecosystems

Our current approach to shaping our cities remains fragmented: transport here, housing there, climate somewhere else, and the social dimension as an afterthought.

We seem to forget that the cities are about human life, powered by human activity, thus human-centred ecosystems.

Food, health, mobility, housing, energy, education, and governance are interdependent systems. Treating them as silos produces inefficiency and deepens the inequity we have already discussed.

To change our approach, we need to change our mindset and take a what if attitude.

What if we adopted a mission-led approach in city-making, drawing inspiration from the "Apollo spirit"? While Mariana Mazzucato discusses the Apollo Moon Mission as a powerful driver for the mission-led economy, it is this proposal that advocates applying such ambition to urban transformation. The Apollo Moon Mission, launched by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, ignited a cascade of innovative, interconnected projects culminating in the 1969 moon landing. The economic and innovative ripple effects remain profound to this day.

By taking this mindset into our urban reimagination, we could create cities shaped by a constellation of interconnected "moonshots." These ambitious initiatives would foster symbiotic ecosystems, transforming not only urban environments but also the economies and markets that underpin them. With vision, ambition, and an orientation toward the collective good, we move beyond mere reactionary correction of isolated, siloed challenges. Instead, we build integrated systems that drive sustainable, long-term progress.

This ecosystem thinking is not new. Decades ago, Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities championed the lived experience of streets, informal networks, and the everyday intelligence embedded in communities — especially the often invisible social infrastructure maintained by women. She warned against top-down modernist planning that erased street-level vitality and, with it, economic viability.

Jacobs's insights into the power of interconnected, grassroots networks highlight the network effect at the heart of vibrant urban life. Just as she recognized that the invisible bonds of trust, care, and cooperation woven through neighborhoods create resilient communities, so too can these social infrastructures become integral nodes in a broader constellation of ambitious, mission-driven "moonshot" projects. When we treat each street, relationship, and informal support system as a vital connection within a larger urban ecosystem, we amplify their collective impact. In this way, the lived reality of street-level networks — often overlooked — becomes a foundational part of the interconnected, transformative projects that shape a city's future, ensuring that innovation remains grounded in the authentic experiences and needs of its people.

We now face a similar crossroads to reinforce the resilience of our cities.

Yet resilience is not going to be enough. The concept of antifragility, introduced by philosopher and statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, takes us beyond mere resilience. Taleb argues that while resilient systems can absorb shocks and return to their previous state, antifragile systems actually benefit and grow stronger from volatility, disruption, and stress. In Taleb's words, antifragility is the property by which a system improves and evolves in response to challenges, rather than simply surviving them. When we apply Taleb's idea to the urban context, cities can be reimagined as antifragile cities — places that not only withstand the shocks of climate change, social inequality, and geopolitical upheavals, but also actively learn, adapt, and innovate because of these disruptions. Crucially, antifragile cities are strengthened not by add-on security measures, but by the interconnection of their constellation of nodes and infrastructures. Antifragility arises when the various parts of the city — its systems, neighborhoods, networks, and social infrastructure — feed upon and reinforce one another. In this dynamic ecosystem, each node supports the others and is able to compensate when one part falters. Just as the loss of one sense in the human body leads to the heightening and strengthening of the others, so too do cities built upon interconnected constellations become more robust and adaptive, filling the gaps and ensuring stability through mutual support. By embedding antifragility into the strategy, urban design, governance, and community networks, we can create cities that thrive on change, continuously improving the quality of life for all inhabitants even in the face of uncertainty and adversity.

Designing for The Social Determinants

Social determinants extend far beyond health, touching every aspect of urban life — opportunity, belonging, agency, and wellbeing. They are not just the social determinants of health but the foundations for inclusive, thriving cities. The example of post-war London is often cited to illustrate the dangers of modernist planning, but it should be approached with caution. While the "clearing of the slums" and construction of high-rise estates in East London aimed to improve material conditions, referencing London can oversimplify the complex social dynamics at play and risk ignoring context-specific histories. More importantly, focusing solely on the failures of these projects can distract from a broader pattern: urban design that fails to account for social ecosystems undermines community fabric everywhere.

Health is not primarily produced in hospitals. It is shaped by housing typology, access to green space, air quality, mobility systems, social cohesion, food networks, and everyday informal care structures. When these elements are neglected or designed around the needs of only a segment of the population, entire groups — especially women, youth, and the elderly — are excluded from full participation in urban life.

Material conditions improved. But something less visible was lost.

Dense horizontal streets had sustained intricate networks of mutual aid. Care systems — often carried quietly by women — operated through proximity: shared childcare, elder support, food exchange, emotional solidarity, and informal governance. The shift to vertical living disrupted these support structures, making it harder for women to maintain their essential roles as civic connectors. Women, historically responsible for much of the city's invisible labor, found themselves isolated within private spaces, losing the informal public life that sustained both individuals and communities.

City design has also excluded youth and the elderly in significant ways. Youth are frequently denied dedicated, welcoming spaces and are often viewed as nuisances rather than valued contributors to civic life. This lack of inclusion not only limits their agency and sense of belonging but also deprives the city of their energy and creativity. Meanwhile, the elderly are increasingly isolated, separated from the rhythms of community life and from intergenerational contact. As a result, cities lose access to their collective knowledge, memory, and the social continuity that elders provide. Both groups become invisible in planning decisions, reinforcing cycles of disengagement and fragmentation.

Urban restructuring altered social infrastructure. When city design prioritizes efficiency or aesthetics over social connection, the invisible systems that support well-being — particularly those maintained by women, youth, and elders — are weakened or lost.

Later waves of redevelopment and rising land values accelerated gentrification, fracturing continuity further. What appeared to be the stable rise of a post-war middle class proved fragile, later exposed by deindustrialization and market-driven policies.

The lesson is not nostalgia for overcrowded housing, nor rejection of density. It is this: when we redesign cities without understanding social ecosystems, we dismantle invisible health systems. Loneliness, depression, and civic disengagement are not only psychological phenomena. They are spatial outcomes. The exclusion of women, youth, and the elderly from the design process erodes the city's collective memory, weakens intergenerational ties, and diminishes the resources available for mutual care.

A city can be energy-efficient yet socially extractive. Architecturally impressive yet psychologically corrosive.

Designing for sustainability means designing for proximity, care networks, intergenerational exchange, visible and invisible labor, and agency — not passive consumption. True inclusion requires that women, youth, and the elderly are not only considered but actively engaged in shaping the urban environment. This approach strengthens social cohesion, preserves collective memory, and supports the health and vibrancy of the city as a whole.

Inclusion as Infrastructure

The vitality of a city depends not only on its physical assets but on the strength of its social networks and the participation of all its residents. When urban design actively involves women, youth, and the elderly, it nurtures stronger communities, preserves shared stories, and enhances collective wellbeing.

If sustainability is about systems, then social inclusion must be treated as infrastructure.

Our cities are still largely designed around a linear workday: commute in the morning, work in a central business district, return in the evening. This model assumes a single workplace, uninterrupted hours, and someone else performing unpaid care labor in the background.

But cities are not inhabited by abstract workers. They are inhabited by caregivers, shift workers, youth, the elderly, migrants, informal workers, and those navigating multiple roles simultaneously — often women.

Transport routes, lighting, zoning, childcare distribution, public seating, safety design, and service hours all reflect assumptions about whose time matters and whose mobility is prioritized. When public space does not accommodate caregiving patterns or youth presence, these groups are subtly excluded from civic visibility. They become consumers of services rather than shapers of systems.

Exclusion is rarely dramatic. It is embedded in timetables, distances, and design standards.

To build inclusive cities, we need to design around real lives rather than idealized economic actors. Mixed-use neighborhoods, flexible mobility systems, distributed services, safe public space at all hours, and gender-responsive budgeting are not "add-ons." They are structural corrections.

Inclusion is not a social policy layer. It is foundational architecture to social sustainability.

The invisible infrastructure: Data, Technology, and the Civic Commons

Data offers significant potential for supporting civic goals. While much of today's infrastructure prioritizes consumption and individual behavior, these tools can also foster participatory governance, urban health, adaptation planning, and insights that address gender and other systemic inequities.

Rather than focusing solely on extracting behavioral value, technology companies have opportunities to work with governments and communities to enhance engaged citizenship and collective well-being.

Data functions as civic infrastructure, especially when aggregated to reveal hidden and structural inequities, such as those related to gender.

Data centers are increasingly part of urban environments, drawing upon shared resources like water, energy, and space. Their integration — both physically, for example through waste heat reuse, and digitally, by contributing to public data tools — can help build shared capacity for communities.

Digital governance plays a key role alongside decarbonization in advancing a just and green transition.

Shaping the City as Our Cathedral Project

A Visionary Approach to Urban Development

Approaching the city as our modern-day cathedral project means embracing a grand vision — one that, like the mission-led approach discussed above, is centered on a unifying purpose that rallies communities and stakeholders around shared civic goals and a shared social contract. Historically, cathedrals were not only dominant in the landscape but also acted as guiding compasses, shaping the collective sense of belonging and direction both literally and figuratively. In a similar way, the mission-led approach sets a clear direction for cities, focusing civic energy toward participatory governance, adaptation, and systemic change.

The act of commissioning a cathedral, much like defining a city's mission, established a vision that would outlast its originators — echoing the antifragile city concept in which urban environments gain strength and resilience through collaboration, contribution, and evolving community purpose. The multigenerational effort required to build a cathedral mirrors the work of developing antifragile cities that are designed not for static achievement but for ongoing adaptation, growth and iterative evolution of the constellations.

Cathedrals brought together people from diverse backgrounds to contribute knowledge and skills, building not only structures but also resilient communities — much like the antifragile city, which thrives on collaboration, multidisciplinary ecosystems, and the integration of different forms of expertise and care. As cathedrals germinated cities and fostered interconnected networks, so too does the antifragile city grow stronger through shared capacity, digital governance, and the continuous participation of its people.

Ultimately, the legacy of cathedral building — with its long-term vision, adaptability, and community-wide engagement — serves as a model for cities seeking mission-led transformation and antifragility, ensuring that each generation not only inherits but also reshapes the urban fabric in response to evolving challenges and collective aspirations.

Governance Architecture and the European Moment: The Next EU Multiannual Financial Framework current discussions

As the European Union negotiates its next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), potentially nearing €2 trillion, a structural shift is underway. The EU's long-term budget will redefine how climate action and citizen engagement are funded, presenting both opportunities and risks for cities.

A central proposal is the transition from dedicated environmental instruments to a horizontal target, allocating 35% of the EU budget to climate and environmental objectives. While this approach from dedicated funds to mainstreaming aims to scale up investment, it risks diluting urban priorities.

Mainstreaming is correct in principle, but without protected spaces for experimentation and participatory governance, urban innovation risks dilution. The loss of protected spaces for experimentation and innovative governance could weaken support for non-infrastructure actions, such as behavioral change and participatory processes. Additionally, uncertain funding pathways for local green commitments would arise as cities become more dependent on national programming and public funding. This shift could leave urban needs vulnerable to funding competition from other sectors, especially as cities face increasing pressure to address their own adaptation priorities.

Cities must become more present in negotiations, ensuring that funding follows ambition — particularly for adaptation, engagement, social infrastructure, and governance reform.

The draft MFF acknowledges citizen engagement as essential to the green transition, emphasizing participation, education, and democratic resilience. However, its implementation remains unclear.

The distinction between meaningful participation and symbolic consultation is critical. Meaningful participation strengthens legitimacy and effectiveness, while symbolic consultation falls short of achieving real impact and fostering citizen ownership. For cities, embedding engagement structurally within EU funds is necessary to drive a real transition. There is then room to investigate a more participatory process to build up bottom up approaches, micro local initiatives and overall more citizen buy in in the design till implementation.

Cities are increasingly recognized not just as beneficiaries, but as strategic delivery partners for climate adaptation, social cohesion, and democratic innovation. They uniquely integrate infrastructure, governance reform, and citizen engagement at the local level.

Proposals for consolidated National and Regional Partnership Plans raise important considerations. The amount of funding that will flow directly to cities and the degree of control they will retain over their priorities remain open questions. Cities must become more present in negotiations to ensure that funding aligns with their ambitions — particularly for adaptation, engagement, social infrastructure, and governance reform.

The next MFF signals a rebalancing of resources, prioritizing governance quality, participation, and measurable impact over infrastructure alone. For green cities, success will depend on how they lead transitions and engage citizens, as well as their ability to demonstrate systemic change rather than merely building infrastructure.

Seizing the Day: Europe's Green Transition Will Be Won — or Lost — in Its Cities

The journey toward a sustainable future for Europe is shaped in its cities, where imagination meets collaboration, and where hope can be made tangible through decisive action. Each city, unique in its heritage and ambition, is not only a canvas for change but the very crucible in which the continent's green transition will be determined. As we stand at a crossroads — recognizing our scattered starting points — it is time to unite and elevate our cathedral projects. These are not mere ideas, but visionary endeavors that can ignite participation and deliver on ambitious European goals. Cities are the best delivery partners to transform hope into reality.

Europe's green transition is not a zero-sum game; rather, it is a collective redesign of our urban contract, harmonizing prosperity with planetary boundaries. Concrete and visible projects — new streets, reimagined schools, advanced energy systems, digital platforms, and participatory governance — invite every citizen to be a co-author of their city's story.

Begin with ambition, build your steering body with clarity and independence, then map and activate the stakeholder ecosystem — identifying needs, including missing and marginalized voices, and inviting new collaborators. Together, co-create a living vision and evolving strategy, measuring impact as you progress.

This inclusive model ensures that all perspectives matter, not through endless debate, but through practical, people-driven data that guides decisions and adapts with experience. When cities clarify their priorities, they can chart a bold direction, align resources, and uphold accountability — whether through targeted innovations or incremental holistic progress.

Uniting citizens, investors, businesses, funders, and governing bodies builds transparency, trust, and shared responsibility. Only through this united front can Europe's urban spaces become the engines of its green transformation.

In the end, the fate of Europe's green transition lies in its cities. The day will be seized — by fear or by vision. The true question is not whether change will come, but whether we will shape that change deliberately and together. Let us choose hope, collaboration, and bold ambition, forging antifragile cities that succeed in the transition and ensure a flourishing future for all.