‘GLOBAL CITY 2.0’1. The current context of severe economic uncertainty in many countries and visible shifts inthe world's strategic equilibrium is leading to discussions about a fundamental transition inthe economic and social paradigms of the West. The civic initiative 'NO ECONOMICRECOVERY WITHOUT CITIES & CITIZENS' (or ‘CIDADES PELA RETOMA’), based in Portugal,is a collective challenge to discuss and promote the role of cities in that transition.2. It departs from the notion that there is a specific quality to cities that makes socialchange possible. The agglomeration of people, infrastructure and ideas generates featuresof innovation, collective action and mutual gain that other spatial and social contextscannot create. Global City 2.0 states that a certain speed, scope and depth of change canonly be delivered by cities.3. The initial step of this 'civic challenge' was the creation of its website/blog(http://noeconomicrecoverywithoutcities.blogs.sapo.pt/) and Facebook page(http://www.facebook.com/CidadespelaRetoma), both thought as a meeting point to shareinnovative experiences (best practices) in different aspects of urban problems: publicpolicies, collaborative planning, civic action. The goal of the project is to inspire other experiences, to enhance the dialogue between diverse communities and to stimulatecollective learning, in order to ensure that the dynamic nature of cities has a positive impacton territorial and social cohesion, civic empowerment and economic adjustment of nationsto future changes.4. The Portuguese CIDADES PELA RETOMA movement is now challenging partnersworldwide to create a global network called GLOBAL CITY 2.0, an open invitation toindividuals, groups and institutions who wish to think about the role of URBAN CIVICMOVEMENTS and its potential to transform cities and beyond, specially in this hardeconomic times (http://globalcity.blogs.sapo.pt/).5. GLOBAL CITY 2.0 is currently developing a map of urban-based blogs and sites- from thescale of streets to neighbourhoods and cities- promoted by citizens or groups that thinkcollaboratively about the future of the places where they live and work. The initiative isdeveloped under the spirit of the '2011 European Year of Volunteering to promote moreactive citizenship’(http://europa.eu/volunteering/). Following the first gathering ofinformation we have managed to map more than 250 blogs in 15 countries.6. To produce this 'city civic world map' we tried to involve partners in several countries,with connections and interests in different subjects related to the ‘global city 2.0’ concept(cities, technologies, city civic movements, spatial planning, governance). Following thefirst contacts and invitations we have managed to involve institutions/civic groups from theUK, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina and Australia, but we hope to further spread thisnetwork.
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