The Webinar Series “Resilient Public Spaces” was part of the dissemination product of a World Bank consultancy from Superwien, Participatory Urban Design, held in three cities (Dhaka in Bangladesh, Maputo in Mozambique, and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic).

More than 50 practitioners from all across the world were invited to “Resilient Public Spaces” and they talked about their approaches to improving public spaces. The online discussions were organized around seven emerging themes detected from the Participatory Urban Design work carried out in Dhaka, Maputo, and Santo Domingo. These cities are only the starting point to broaden the discussion to other territories. For Superwien, the seven emerging themes represent the condition for transforming public spaces with a holistic planning approach. The themes were:

1. Planning from below
2. Gender-sensitive planning
3. Inclusive mobility transformation
4. Activating the local economy
5. Climate change adaptation
6. Closing the housing gap
7. Responsive city administrations

By facilitating these online encounters, “Resilient Public Spaces” became what we envision and consider necessary to co-create more inclusive and resilient public spaces for all. First, we need to acknowledge all the people whose efforts are already making the city every day. Once acknowledged, we need to generate the space and opportunity to bring these people together to talk. We must take care that the participants are diverse to ensure the inclusion of different positionalities, perspectives, and points of view. Voilà! This is the start of a participatory urban process – online and offline.