“People make cities” is one of the messages of the UF26 hosted this year in Ljubljana.
Once again, I had the pleasure of being invited to participate in several activities. I joined the panel discussion “Centers of Attention”, alongside my colleagues Jeni and Carlo, with Sophie as moderator. The session opened with an excellent presentation by Jeni, who offered a comprehensive overview of the topic of city centers.
Three main ideas emerged regarding the challenges of city centers:
First, there are no problems unique to city centers; rather, they reflect broader, city-wide issues. City centers are not isolated areas—what we observe there is the result of systemic dynamics affecting the entire urban fabric.
Second, the concept of urban centrality should be approached from a multi-scalar perspective—local, metropolitan, and global—seeking to reconcile these three dimensions.
Finally, centrality is not only about economic activity or functional concentration. It is fundamentally about social meaning: a sense of belonging, a space where people recognize themselves as part of a community, and where they come together—not only to celebrate, but also to express and contest.
