European Urban Policy Research Articles

Interrogating the origins of informal urbanisation: A socio-historical analysis from Paris and Madrid (1850s–1970s)

Current perspectives on informal housing (particularly, the illegal development of precarious, self-produced housing areas) associate it with state regulations. However, scholars have yet to link informal housing and the socio-historical regulations that gave rise to the birth of urban planning at the beginning of the 20th century. This article draws on archival and historiographical research to discuss the juridical construction of informal urbanisation in two capital cities at the core of the world-system, Paris and Madrid. In both cities, shantytowns were legally developed from at least the 19th century. However, such spatial production was outlawed (without addressing the root causes) from the first decades of the 20th century. Thus, precarious housing became informal housing as we know it today, giving rise to comparable but differentiated patterns of legal and extra-legal shacks construction, commercialisation and control (much like those generally associated with the global south). This article traces the long-durée and transnational nature of the informalisation of self-produced housing during the first half of the 20th century. Housing tenure conditions and shelter rights were weakened not only in Europe but also in other areas under its political and cultural influence. European urban policies, developed during the first half of the 20th century, may have induced dynamics of informal spatial production at a global scale.

Assessing walkability: Index construction and application to a medium-size Greek city

European urban policies focus on sustainable urban mobility concept. This is linked to the constraint of motorized transport and the promotion of active-mobility modes (walking, cycling) which contribute to Green House Gas reduction targets as set in the European Union (EU) Climate Policy. Especially, walkable neighborhoods and 15-minute cities have been embraced in the post-pandemic city emphasizing the importance of walkability, which re-conciliates environmental concerns with liveable, sustainable and healthier communities. This research aims to construct a “walkability index” (WI) that may offer significant, reliable and quick results for the assessment of walkability in an urban area. The city of Larissa comprises the empirical field for its application. The index methodology is based on five main parameters: land use mix, residential density, pedestrian crossing connectivity, sidewalk condition and pedestrian-friendly areas. Then Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is implemented so as to weigh the selected parameters and finally the parameters multiplied and added in an equation f(x) with the use of ArcGIS Pro software. WI detects friendly-walking and non-friendly-walking areas and assesses the factors that hinder urban mobility and vulnerable people. Therefore, it may help policy makers and urban planners to build sustainable and healthy cities and improve the quality of life.

The influence of EU policy on local policy-making, governance and urban change. Evidence from Porto, Portugal

ABSTRACT Porto has long been a site of experimentation in the field of European urban policies, implemented through different initiatives and supported by EU funding. The paper describes the different urban regeneration experiences that have been undertaken by the city, analyses the nature of the policy instruments which have been implemented, and in what ways they relate to local policy-making, governance and development. What emerges from this analysis is a more complex perspective of the relationship between local/national/European policies, which needs a broader understanding of local processes to understand the emergence and transfer of the holistic approach promoted by the EU.

European Union Urban Policy does not Meet Development of Peripheral European Metropolis

European urban policy, after a pilot program, was widely experimented with Urban. In a second step, the urban issue was integrated in one axis of Operative Regional Programs for the Regional Development Funds. This move let suppose that it could fuel the development of peripheral metropolis, but the program was anchored to the aims of its start and was still used more as in an equitable perspective to rehabilitate distressed neighborhoods or support medium size cities instead of focus over a metropolitan policy aimed to the growth of competiveness. On the contrary, the Italian metropolis more active in the process of confronting with global competition and changing themselves to develop factors identified as indicators of global cities, relied on urban policy enacted by city government, based on local resources with the support of state funding. On the bases of this review, it does not seems that nor a European neither a national policy now exists to support peripheral metropolis in the continent.

L'Union Européenne a-t-elle une politique de développement des métropoles ? (Does the European Union have a policy of metropolitan development)

The European Union does not have the formal competence for a policy of developing metropolises. However, the European influence on the metropolitan development is considerable and currently enforcing. This statement is based on three arguments : Firstly, the urban question is set on the European agenda more and more (p. ex. Charta of Leipzig, declaration of Marseille). One can say that a European urban policy is currently being established. Secondly, the indirect influence of different policies is important -the transport policy with its consequences for metropolitan accessibility is only one example. Thirdly, the regional policy on the European level has clearly paid more attention to the metropolitan dimension during recent years: After a phase of the paradigm of regional redistribution, current politics focus more on 'place based potentials' and the contributions to economic growth -in this context, metropolitan regions are frequently considered as important 'growth poles Against this background, one cannot say anymore that a policy for the development of metropolises would be inexistent.

European urban policies and the neighbourhood: an overview

This paper provides an overview of the ‘urban policies’ developed to address urban problems in a number of different European countries. Although a ‘conventional wisdom’ has developed about how to address such problems, each country has developed its own particular approach. The paper first of all provides a brief overview of the situation at the European level. The main focus of the paper, however, is on neighbourhood-based policies in Denmark, England, France, and Germany. This illustrates the broadly similar, albeit at times distinctive, approaches each country has developed particularly with regard to the neighbourhood. Finally the paper briefly considers some wider governance issues raised by these neighbourhood-based programmes. The conclusion then identifies and reflects on common themes, conceptualisations and approaches.

Innovative methods for financing urban development: The European Union contribution

The financing of projects in the context of urban renewal and regeneration has specificities that partly explain the progressive development of a common European urban policy agenda based on the pursuit of development of more 'sustainable cities and communities'. The paper briefly describes the recent evolution of European Union (EU) urban policy and the incorporation of integrated urban development as a priority for Structural Funds support in the 2007–2013 programming period. Although some restrictions remain, most notably with regard to housing, the fact that urban policy is now part of the mainstream of EU structural policy is one of the major changes in the new financial perspectives. A second major change is the incentive to use non-conventional financial mechanisms to fund EU programmes, aimed at putting into practice the sustainable communities idea. Joint European Support for Sustainable Development in City Areas (JESSICA) is presented as a financial engineering instrument designed not only to stimulate more innovative solutions to addressing urban problems, but also to contribute to significant leverage in the amounts of public and private funds necessary to respond to the challenge of giving new life to European towns and cities.

The URBAN programme and the European urban policy discourse: successful instruments to Europeanize the urban level?

The European Community Initiative URBAN, explored in this article for seven countries in general and for two individual cities in the Netherlands in more detail, is a micro example of the ongoing struggle between European and national policy actors who contest each others’ authority. The programme, aimed at solving social-economic problems in deprived neighbourhoods in European cities, has acted as a catalyst for new forms of cooperation.Whether it has directly contributed to Europeanization at the local level seems questionable, but it has certainly helped some city administrations to enter the European stage. Whereas European urban policy discourse could not be found at the Dutch urban level in the mid 1990s, the discourse has become dispersed and is now increasingly used.

Stadtentwicklung durch die EU: Europäische Stadtpolitik und URBAN-Ansatz im Spannungsfeld von Lissabon-Strategie und Leipzig Charta

This paper discusses recent developments and the current state of EU urban policy against the backdrop of the Lisbon strategy and the Leipzig Charter, drawing for purposes of illustration on the URBAN initiative to revitalise disadvantaged urban areas. In contrast to the Lisbon process, which shifted the focus unmistakably to “strengthening competitiveness”, the Leipzig Charter — hatched during Germany’s presidency of the EU — stresses the need to promote socially integrative urban development. Notwithstanding this conflict, the author argues that the real key to understanding European urban policy is “governance”, i.e. changes in forms of municipal steering and control.

Housing, Neighbourhood Renewal and Social Capital: The Case of Registered Social Landlords in Scotland

ABSTRACT Urban policy in several European countries is characterized by an increasing emphasis on neighbourhoods as the site for targeted partnership intervention within new forms of multi-level and multi-actor governance. Community processes within distressed neighbourhoods, based on concepts of social capital, are increasingly identified as both the cause of neighbourhood decline and offering mechanisms for achieving social inclusion and social cohesion. Social housing organizations are given a central role within these new forms of governance. This paper utilises a study of registered social landlords (RSLs) in Scotland to explore the role and impact of housing organizations in developing social capital in deprived communities. It identifies a range of mechanisms through which RSLs contribute to social capital and community development, but argues that the limitations and ambiguities of these processes reflect wider problems in the conceptualisation of both social capital and neighbourhood renewal as mechanisms for achieving social inclusion and social cohesion in current European urban policy.

Polis—the Portuguese programme on urban environment. A contribution to the discussion on European Urban Policy

In recent years the urban question in the European Union has been a matter of deep focus and intensive debate, contributing to the European Community environmental, spatial and sustainability policies approach, however not entirely reflected in the current version of the 6th European Environmental Action Programme. The POLIS programme, initiated in Portugal at the time of the last Portuguese Presidency of the European Union (January–June 2000), illustrates the Portuguese urban environmental policy approach in that period, in response to contemporary trends and priorities regarding the improvement of urban life and governance. This article describes the POLIS programme, its current status and how it meets current challenges. The expetience acquired so far with the POLIS programme may be useful in the broader context of the discussion of an European urban policy.

The White Paper on European Governance: Implications for Urban Policy

This paper discusses the recent European Commission White Paper on European Governance, arguing that the document offers interesting possibilities for the future development of the European Union (EU), how it is governed and more particularly for 'European Urban Policy'. However, the paper argues there are problems with its use of the term governance as a strategy for reform and with a number of its proposals to widen access to the European Commission (EC) and the policy process. With regard to urban policy it is suggested that the White Paper's emphasis on a greater role for sub-national government and citizens' is to be welcomed. Although once again it is unclear whether the Commission has fully thought through the implications of its proposals both for itself and the groups it wishes to engage with. More specifically it is argued that the Open Method of Coordination is broadly similar to the methods whereby both current urban (and spatial) policy have been developed and should be embraced. Overall the White Paper is something of a mixed bag; however, this is to be expected of a document which is primarily intended to stimulate discussion about the future of EU governance.

Towards a European urban policy

Summary In the face of some opposition from those who plead subsidiarity as the central plank of European policies, the emergence of an urban dimension to European policies has been significant in the last five years. Now, reinforced by a research base, with the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions providing a political route to influence, and with a modest programme of experimentation in urban projects in progress, the “urban” appears genuinely fixed on the political agenda of Europe. From a UK perspective the substance of the programmes is limited; small in scale and following many of the lines established within City Challenge or the Urban Partnerships, the new European urban initiatives are substantively modest and marginal. Much more important is the symbolic importance of a European urban perspective. This gives impetus to the policy debate at both European and national levels with the Commission's Community Initiative directing attention not simply to growing polarisation, marginali...