Regenerating the City of Turin starting from public libraries

An accelerator for the local economy. Piloting new impact finance models to foster entrepreneurship, employability, and the regeneration of the outskirts of the city of Turin.

The project falls under the funding guidelines of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, within the framework of the European Union's Next Generation EU initiative, in the context of the PNRR-PIU (Piano Integrato Urbano). Its main aim is to promote urban regeneration interventions concerning neighbourhood libraries and the urban fabric that surrounds them.

The overall objective is to foster full accessibility to culture, counteract material and social vulnerabilities, eliminate physical and socio-cultural barriers, and enhance accessibility and quality of public spaces and places of social inclusion.

Specifically, the goals of the project include:

• Improving the quality, accessibility, energy efficiency, and infrastructural layout of the urban library system;
• Increasing physical and sensory accessibility, resilience, and the quality of green areas and public open spaces, as well as promoting urban socialization in neighbourhood market areas;
• Creating and revitalizing infrastructure for social inclusion, territorial presence, and socio-cultural, educational, and sports production and enjoyment;
• Supporting the city's recovery, resilience, economic development, and accessibility of urban social infrastructure by engaging and involving the local community.

The planned interventions, largely consist of public works investments and equipment procurement, accompanied by engagement and participation activities. They include the renovation of 18 neighbourhood libraries and the establishment of a new library at Via Viterbo 169. Furthermore, public space improvements around the libraries will involve road resurfacing, reconstruction of green areas, and green pathways. The service of the Bibliobus will be doubled with 2 new vehicles and 7 new stops in different city neighbourhoods, making a total of 14 stops overall, to offer a mobile library to citizens living in peripheral areas.

As the lead partner, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini will be involved in various activities, including mapping and needs assessment of districts 3-4-5, providing training and capacity building for library staff and citizens, engaging stakeholders, and promoting community involvement.

The actions will be implemented in four libraries: Utøya Library, Carluccio Library, Cognasso Library, Della Corte Library

The project expects to generate impact on three fronts: people-enterprises-neighbourhoods, through workforce professional skills development and quality jobs increase, as much as the creation, growth and regeneration of neighbourhood business, and an increase in territorial animation, a leap forward towards the intervention areas' socio-economic regeneration.