In February 2026, Larissa residents came together to address a growing challenge for cities across Europe: how should cities design their mobility systems, for everyday life and for when things go wrong?

Over two days (6 and 7 February), the Larissa AntifragiCity Forum (LAF) brought together around 40 participants at JOIST Innovation Park for a structured, expert-informed discussion on the future of urban mobility in the Greek city. The forum was led by the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), in close collaboration with the Municipality of Larissa and the Institute for Entrepreneurship Development (IED).

Where walking meets heat, traffic, and space pressures

Larissa is already a city where many people walk. A lot. But as the forum discussions made clear, walking comfortably and safely are very different things. Heat, fragmented infrastructure, and competition for street space between cars, pedestrians, and cyclists emerged as everyday frustrations. In times of crisis, these same issues can become even serious risks.

The forum took the format of a deliberative process. Participants heard expert evidence, listened to perspectives they wouldn’t normally encounter, and worked together to develop practical recommendations. The guiding question was the same as in the other AntifragiCity Citizens’ Forums: “What urban mobility will make your city more liveable today and prepared to respond to future crises?”

Discussions were organised around four themes: liveable cities and quality of life; crisis-responsive mobility; resilient and diverse mobility options; and the sustainable mobility transition.

What citizens said 

One of the clearest messages from the Larissa participants was that mobility shapes everyday quality of life. Comfort, shade, safety, and accessibility were not luxuries; they were seen as essential conditions for a city that works well. Without them, even the best-designed transport system risks being underused.

Participants also highlighted frustration with delayed implementation. One participant put it plainly: “The planning is at a high level, the intentions get stuck and stick to the political will that is absent.” This points to an important lesson: citizens don’t just want better infrastructure, they want to trust that decisions will actually be followed through.

That concern for institutional reliability shaped much of what the group recommended.

The main takeaways

Rather than formally ranking proposals, participants focused on consolidating their ideas into four thematic directions. The result is a set of non-ranked but converging recommendations, and a clear sign of what Larissa’s residents believe a better city looks like.

• Liveable streets for everyone. Citizens envisioned a city where walking and cycling are comfortable, intuitive choices, not an afterthought. Key proposals included connected pedestrian and cycling corridors linking neighbourhoods to schools, services, and the city centre; pocket parks and small-scale green interventions to provide shade and rest points; and smarter parking management to reclaim street space for people.

• Coordination and clarity in a crisis. When disruptions occur (floods, heatwaves, infrastructure failures), citizens want authorities to act visibly, quickly, and in a coordinated way. Recommended measures included real-time disruption management systems with live dashboards, dynamic messaging to communicate changes and instructions, and clear provisions ensuring that vulnerable users are never left without support.

• A genuine mobility mix. Resilience, for Larissa participants, means having real options, not being locked into a single mode. The standout proposal here was multimodal hubs with seamless transfers, particularly park-and-ride facilities, making it easy for people to switch between walking, cycling, public transport, and micro-mobility depending on their needs.

• Structural change, not individual guilt. On the sustainable transition, participants were clear: the shift to low-emission mobility has to be a matter of system design, not personal responsibility. That means reallocating street space to give buses, cyclists, and pedestrians genuine priority, and reforming parking policies to reduce car dominance without leaving people stranded.

What this means for AntifragiCity

The Larissa forum adds an important insight into AntifragiCity’s research. In a city where car use remains dominant but where citizens express strong support for sustainable alternatives, the findings show that the barrier isn’t attitude or public resistance; it’s infrastructure gaps and lack of institutional follow-through.

Participants also reported changes in perspective after the process. Support for reducing car use in busy areas rose from two-thirds of participants to unanimous support after deliberation. And nearly two-thirds said they were more likely to walk or cycle more.

These outcomes will feed into AntifragiCity’s research, helping shape future modelling tools and policy recommendations across Europe.

About AntifragiCity’s Citizens’ Forums

The AntifragiCity Citizens’ Forums took place in three of the project’s demonstration cities: Bratislava, Larissa, and Thessaloniki. They form part of a broader effort to ensure that the project’s research is grounded in real citizens’ voices.

Each forum brought together a diverse group of  residents for structured and informed deliberation. Recommendations were developed independently by participants, with no predetermined outcomes. 

The forums were commissioned and funded by the AntifragiCity project and led by the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER). In Larissa, LISER was supported by the Municipality of Larissa and the Institute for Entrepreneurship Development (IED). 

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