How can Veszprém provide future perspectives for today’s young generations?
Our ECOC bid tackles issues that many cities across Europe have to face. Such is the identity crisis of small and medium-size cities similar to Veszprém.
On a domestic scale, Veszprém belongs to the group of most significant cities outside Budapest with respect to the cultural, economic and civil administrative spheres. In European dimensions, we count as a small or medium-size city. This settlement type has had to face a specific sort of crisis over the whole continent, as it is capitals and large cities that provide the organic framework for 21st cetury technological and economic growth and transformation – while smaller ones still tend to be in search of their own individual answers to development issues around and within themselves. It is also a vital question for Veszprém how to put itself on the map of Europe next to our capital; how it can provide an attractive future perspective for today’s young generations.
ECOC may present a chance for Veszprém to successfully join this European urban competititon. Culture and creative industries might be key elements for the city to provide attractive conditions for living and creative activities for highly-qualified young generations. The bid releases serious creative energies; we are preparing with many projects designed to fill urban surfaces and spaces with inspiring community-based crations. Our Playful City project rethinks the community spaces of the city centre; we are going to rediscover our built urban heritage; we intend to fill out-of-use and forgotten places with new life. All this as a community effort.
The Region’s Show project creates the opportunity for cities of the region to create their own mini-ECOC programmes. Thus we would like to call attention to the fact that although cities within the region share common goals, each of them possesses their own specific identity, based on a variety of characteristics. Tapolca, Keszthely, Siófok, Várpalota, Zirc, Fonyód, and Balatonfüred – these are cultural centres in our region, with their own specific cultural identitites and long-standing cultural images: every settlement tries to present a novel face of itself; Balatonfüred, for example, will make its début, for a change, as one of the fashion capitals of Hungary, and not the capital of Lake Balaton.
