Abstract
ABSTRACTUrban issues have been under the policy attention of the European Union (EU) from the late 1980s. Its influence has been particularly significant in countries that had not developed an explicit urban national policy. This is the case of Spain, in which specific instruments aimed to address urban challenges co-funded by the Structural Funds have been developed over the last four programming periods of the Cohesion Policy. These instruments have been the following: URBAN (1994–99); URBAN II (2000–06); the Iniciativa Urbana (IU) (2007–13); and the Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies (ISUDS/EDUSI) (2014–20). So far they have been the only explicit initiatives of urban regeneration that have operated at a national scale in the country. This fact, together with the sustained experience in implementing these kinds of instruments, points to Spain being an interesting case study in which to understand the evolution and contribution of the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy from 1994 to the present. In this context, the IU emerges as particularly relevant because it has worked as a nexus between the two rounds of URBAN and the ISUDS that are currently being implemented. It is also relevant because it continued the implementation of the URBAN method in Spain explicitly through 46 programmes of urban regeneration that were developed in all the regions (Autonomous Communities), something that did not happen in any other member states in the period 2007–13. Building on the literature on the contribution of URBAN to the practice of urban regeneration in the country, this study develops an in-depth analysis of the IU. The research has allowed the identification of the relevant lessons aimed to inform the implementation of the 173 ISUDS that are being developed at present in Spanish cities. These lessons can also contribute to the Spanish Urban Agenda (in progress) and, at the EU level, to the definition of the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy for the post-2020 period and its implementation in the member states.
Highlights
Urban issues have been subject of policy attention by European Union (EU) institutions from the end of the 1980s
The analysis of the Iniciativa Urbana (IU) has been developed through a qualitative mixed approach that integrates in an iterative way the review of the literature and other relevant sources with the consultation to public servants, and the attendance at relevant events in which the managing authority of the IU at a national level informed yearly some specific stakeholders about the advancement of this instrument and presented and introduced the Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies (ISUDS)/Estrategias de Desarrollo Urbano Sostenible Integrado (EDUSI) calls10 at the beginning of the period
The analysis undertaken suggests that even if the IU has found limitations to embed all its potential into the strategies developed by cities, it has played a crucial role in continuing the consolidation of the experience introduced in Spain by URBAN and URBAN II
Summary
It was further developed through the Green Paper on the Urban Environment published by the EC (1990), acknowledging that other areas of European cities needed the ECC’s support to fight urban decline One result of this policy attention was the launch in 1989 of the Urban Pilot Programmes (UPP) that can be considered the instrument that anticipated and tested the method of urban regeneration that was embedded in the URBAN Community Initiative (launched by the EC in 1994). It can be explained because these have been the only instruments of urban regeneration launched at the national level so far (as the country does not have an explicit national urban policy) In this framework, the IU emerges as relevant because it has contributed importantly to root the URBAN approach, and has worked as a nexus between the URBAN Community Initiative and the current ISUDS approach.
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