The core of our submission is recounting of ETICity (Venice local unit) practice since 2017 in Piave neighbourhood, situated between the railway station area and the city centre of Mestre (Venice city mainland). It has been facing significant changes over the last 20 years such as the decrease of commercial activities and long-term population, an increased presence of multicultural inhabitants and stigmatising storytelling. ETICity stands with local associations and informal groups to promote change and improvement in the Piave neighbourhood by collectively appropriating and improving public spaces and private premises.
ETICity practice took the form of participation in local reactivation projects in collaboration with different networks aiming to revitalise and reappropriate collective (both public and private with public use) spaces through, for example, project management, direct fund-raising, urban, landscape and interior design. Moreover, network-building was put forward, involving several collaborations with very different stakeholders. The process of horizontal collaboration and peer-to-peer accompaniment of voluntary associations and informal groups has allowed reaching outcomes that standard approaches - with their impossibility to manage empty spaces through traditional planning zoning - and standard engagement procedures of public offices or architectural firms would not have allowed.
Projects promoted by ETICity association practice are:
Q.Pi neighbourhood concierge and courtyard (ongoing) offers free services for everyday life, promotes volunteering for the development of trans-generational sociality and community;
Bottegattiva (ongoing) is a project promoted by local business associations with the purpose of activating integrated urban regeneration actions, involving local shops, craft shops, and associations;
MMA - Mestre Mon Amour, Festival of dance and performing arts for urban regeneration has revitalised some underused public spaces, with performances, video-dance projections, talks and urban itineraries (2019);
Urban Rise collective launched the contest “UR 4 Cinema Dante” open to street/urban artists for realising a mural on the façade of the neighbourhood cinema d’essai and supported its realisation (2018);
Riverberi and the pilot project “The urban void lightens up” aimed to reactivate vacant commercial spaces along Piave street, "illuminating" them with cultural and creative productions, and innovative crafts (2017).

Since 2017, ETICity has been working in Piave neighbourhood to provide social infrastructure for multicultural and transgenerational inclusion by opening up private premises to host public programs addressed to the neighbourhood community, and the city at large. It has been designing and programming events, both cultural and social, addressed to small productions such as crafts(wo)men, digitally innovative entities, in order to set up a wide array of public plays.
This has led to the reinforcement of old and new networks, with local formal associations and informal groups. Some of the completed ETICity projects became a legacy and starting point for other associations to follow the lead, or walk the same path (fund-raising calls, settle down in vacant spaces) thus consolidating a small-scale regeneration process. While some activities and stakeholders got aware of the potentialities of the neighbourhood, they decided to move there and permanently stay, investing in its transformation.