Mulhouse has turned around its image and now boasts more shops opening than closing, thanks to smart planning, investment and community effortsOn a lane in what was once considered eastern France´s grimmest town, a street artist is up a ladder finishing a mural, the independent bookshop has a queue at the till, the organic cooperative is full of customers and Séverine Liebold´s arty independent tea shop is doing a brisk trade.When Liebold opened Tilvist in Mulhouse three years ago, in a space that had been vacant for years, friends tried to persuade her against it. `They said: `Not Mulhouse, look elsewhere,´` she recalls. `But I stuck with my instinct, and I was right.`As a series of crises puts Europe under strain, some cities are fighting back with innovative solutions. From hyper-specialist shops beating the online threat in Berlin to the Bulgarian city reversing the country`s brain drain, from the Italian city finding new ways to tackle addiction to gambling to the Swedish town that has found innovative ways to combat extremism, we look at what European cities are doing to live better in our increasingly urban world.The idea was to create somewhere where people feel good, to re-appropriate our town centre as a kind of agora, the place where everyone can meetWe can´t just concentrate on the small central perimeter, nor simply on shops - there has to be a vision of the town as a whole Related: How the `Las Vegas of Italy` is kicking its slot machine addiction Continue reading...
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