The Thessaloniki Challenge: Thessaloniki vs Europe on the Road to Climate-Neutral Mobility

Thessaloniki has spent recent years turning a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan into built projects: streets pedestrianised, a central square cleared of parking, a district under regeneration, a waterfront reclaimed, and a new metro reshaping how the city moves. This session examines that work and tests it directly against practice elsewhere in Europe. It is built as three rounds, each pairing the host city with a challenger city or project on one theme: reallocating public space and reducing car dependence; planning, governing and financing the path to climate neutrality; and using data, digital tools and citizen engagement to show whether interventions actually work. Each round gives both sides five minutes, one question each way, one question from the floor, and a live audience vote on which lesson delegates would apply first at home. Participants leave with a documented set of implementation steps and pitfalls from a mid-sized European city working under real constraints, a like-for-like comparison with a differently organised city on each theme, and concrete transferable measures on street reallocation, climate governance and mobility data. The session contributes to the CIVITAS objective of sharing replicable, evidence-based practice.