From smart
to regenerative.
While smart cities focus on data, infrastructure, and performance, regenerative cities focus on relationships.
They recognize that urban wellbeing emerges from the interaction between people, culture, nature, governance, and local economies. Technology becomes an enabling tool, not the goal, supporting human-centered, place-based transformation.
Regenerative Cities as
an urban initiative.
Regenerative Cities is an initiative that explores how urban environments can become systems of resilience.
Cities adopting regenerative principles demonstrate that urban systems can enhance rather than extract from their environments, integrating food systems, biodiversity, water cycles and community wellbeing in a unified urban strategy.
A manifesto for
urban regeneration.
The Regenerative Cities initiative is grounded in a manifesto for regenerative urbanism, inviting policymakers, planners, civic actors and communities to redefine prosperity, rebuild trust and regenerate shared spaces.
t articulates a vision of cities that act as nodes in living networks — prioritising ecological stewardship, social resilience and inclusive participation.
This vision moves beyond conventional sustainability by emphasising regeneration, where cities actively restore ecological balance, foster biodiversity, and incorporate nature-based solutions into the heart of urban design.
Operational pathways
and partnerships.
Regenerative Cities is realised through collaborative frameworks and concrete projects that connect research, policy and cross-sectoral experimentation. It integrates the energy of Living Labs, academic partnerships, multi-stakeholder platforms and open dialogues that activate real-world change.
It acknowledges the central role of cities in meeting global challenges, from climate adaptation and food systems transformation to equitable access to resources and civic engagement.
Learning and
experimentation.
Beyond vision, Regenerative Cities emphasises learning through real urban contexts. It engages citizens, institutions and practitioners in processes of co-creation and iterative experimentation within the city itself. These practices support responsible production and consumption, urban food access, biodiversity enhancement, water stewardship and circular resource management.
Urban contexts thus become platforms where regeneration is not only conceptualised but enacted, aligning theory with lived experience.
Connecting urban regeneration
to food systems.
A core dimension of the initiative is its integration with food-related transformation.
By aligning regenerative urban strategies with sustainable food systems, cities approach risk, resource scarcity and wellbeing through holistic frameworks that recognise the interplay between environment, nutrition and community health.
This alignment reflects the broader philosophy that cities must nurture both ecological and human systems to be truly regenerative.
Regenerative Cities within
Sara Roversi’s work.
Regenerative Cities is a core project within Sara Roversi’s work, extending her commitment to education, systemic innovation and cultural transformation into the urban dimension.
Through this project, cities become platforms for learning, participation and regenerative action, connecting local contexts with global challenges. Regenerative Cities reflects an approach that brings together people, territories and institutions to shape more inclusive, resilient and life-supporting urban futures.
