Sustainable Urban Communities. From “The Orto in Campania” to the LIFE SeedNEB Project – Beautifying cities through nature

The LIFE SeedNEB Project – Beautifying cities through nature – on various scales and in multiple types of spaces, experiments innovative urban greening solutions in three European cities. The goal is to inspire efforts for aesthetic enhancement and ecological transition within a re-formed and re-recognized local community. The European Green Deal, with the transformations of spaces, infrastructures, uses, and habits that are necessary to achieve its ambitious targets by 2050, is facing significant challenges in being “accepted” by citizens. The New European Bauhaus policies, later introduced by the European Commission, aim to address these challenges by intertwining sustainability goals with the pursuit of inclusiveness and beauty, while emphasizing highly participatory and cooperative processes. Recent studies and best practices demonstrate that guiding community action by citizens, each with their own skills, attitudes, and capabilities, towards achieving goals they identify as their own fosters virtuous behaviors, which go beyond the mere promise of ecological benefits which, instead, often seem abstract, intangible, and imposed. In this regard, the case of “The Orto in Campania”, whose characteristics, operating principles, and outcomes observed in the long monitoring period are summarized in this paper, appears emblematic. Despite the limitations arising from the singularity of the surrounding conditions, it shows potential to be effectively replicated and adapted for experiments within the aforementioned LIFE SeedNEB Project