Europe must remain globally competitive in the long term, with the ability to build social cohesion. It should also provide leadership internationally on issues such as climate change mitigation and adaptation.


European cities must remain socially inclusive and attractive places, offering a good quality of life for all citizens. Today, at a time of reductions in public spending growth within a challenging global economic climate, cities are looking for new thinking, ideas, and approaches to deliver improved value for public spending, while promoting sustainable development through their policies, strategies and projects. Strengthening the contribution of citizens to these processes is essential.


Understanding the international context is essential to sharing lessons about what works, as often similar issues will find diverse solutions because of differences in culture; geography; climate; economy; and other factors. Such understanding and differences enrich the potential toolkit of solutions available to anyone working for Sustainable Communities.


Experience shows that sustainable urban development is complex and long term, and that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to promoting it across Europe’s towns and cities. Building on this, the Reference Framework for European Sustainable Cities operational toolkit has been created to assist practitioners in local authorities, regional and other bodies to improve the design and promotion of strategies and projects to stimulate sustainable urban development. Voluntary or community-based organisations and businesses can also use this as a resource for engaging in local debates and decisions about sustainability.


Where sustainable urban development is prioritised in a city’s strategy it represents a bold and clear statement by the city leadership and local stakeholders (business, community-based organisations and citizens) of their ambition on sustainability. It may not be a new approach, but it signals a clearer focus on sustainability. It requires a holistic view when addressing economic, environmental, and social issues together and careful consideration of how they relate to each other. City policies, strategies and projects should be tested against their impact on sustainability and their contribution to helping deliver a higher quality of life (through better coordination and coherence of action across these issues).


This objective cannot be achieved in isolation; actions impact not only at a particular spatial level (local, regional, national), but can have effects across different levels. Legal provisions, shared responsibility and financial mechanisms between levels of government require horizontal and vertical cooperation and coordination. Therefore, all levels of governance need to be involved in an open and transparent way.


Successful sustainable urban development cannot be achieved without involvement of all actors at local level. Joint commitment and actions are needed to create a sense of ownership among all actors and in particular the citizens. Each group plays a particular role in the process and contributes to its implementation.


Political leadership is the decisive element in taking forward sustainable urban development. All other actors involved must have confidence that the political leadership is committed to taking the necessary decisions and actions with a medium and long term perspective in mind. Staff in the local public administration needs to be convinced and mobilised to take forward the ambition of their political leaders and the wider city. The support from and cooperation of all other actors: the citizens, the private sector, relevant public and private organisations are essential to this.