Cities have become too complex to be governed from a centrally located city hall. Increasingly, people across the globe are engaging in improving the urban environment they live in. Community-based initiatives are a response to the limitations of traditional planning and indicate the ability of citizens to present solutions to challenges posed by everyday life and use creativity to transform and multiply existing resources. However, we appreciate that community initiatives are impossible (or improbable), without the engagement of other stakeholders in the city: the business and enterprise sectors, local associations and NGOs, academia, as well as local councils and government.

The current socio-economical context doesn’t make now a good time to operate on the city. In Romania, as elsewhere, jobs are difficult to find, social inclusion is a permanent challenge and public funds are overstretched. We are aware of the implications these recurrent themes have on the improvement of urban spaces and place making (from a top-down AND a bottom-up approach) and choose to interpret them not as design limitations but as opportunities.

Reinventing the city to accommodate a contemporary culture that demands flexibility, sustainability, participation and surprise requires an updated thinking and new faith in what a city can be. In the case of Bucharest, it can hopefully become more than a gridlock of cars, crumbling historical buildings, vast dormitory neighbourhoods and packs of stray dogs.

The process of reimagining the city starts with the city user becoming a city developer. Bucharest has been planned from top-down for too long and the users have been limited to the role of consumer, rather than producer. We believe the time is right to rebalance the act and involve local residents, entrepreneurs, owners’ associations and local institutions in the process.