The path towards sustainability of European towns and cities is a long-term ambition. This means avoiding the risk of taking a short-term view dominated by immediate concerns with the current economic and financial climate at the expense of future sustainability.


The traditional structure of European cities - compact, diverse and complex - has contributed to their economic efficiency, environmental quality and social cohesion, and also to the creation of a landscape and an urban, architectural and cultural heritage of great richness, variety and beauty, which has been functional and creative at the same time.


However, changing economic, social, environmental and climate conditions worldwide are creating pressures and opportunities to plan, design and manage towns and cities more sustainably. What does this mean for Europe’s towns and cities? How can European policy-makers and businesses respond to these imperatives better?


There is no single model of sustainable urban development and no single path to the target, but there is a need for continued investment in new ideas and effective approaches to create more successful - more sustainable - cities and local authorities. Each local authority has to define its vision by working with local citizens and a range of partners from the public and private sector to deliver this effectively.


Many cities and local authorities have adopted models of sustainable urban development such as Agenda 21, Aalborg + 10 on the path to sustainability. Cities, local authorities, developers and investors increasingly take into account the social and environmental impacts of their decisions and actions on urban growth and development. EU policies, especially EU Cohesion Policy, have supported sustainable urban development, promoting the integrated approach.


This requires, in particular, the integration of relevant policies and programmes, both horizontally and vertically. Effective horizontal integration across themes and sectors depends on aligning governance arrangements with the social, institutional and technological characteristics of particular sectors. This may mean going beyond the traditional boundaries of policy-making and considering the impact of resource allocation at a given level on productivity.


Vertical integration between different levels of governance and cooperation on funding and other matters are necessary, because experience shows that while policy decisions need to be taken at the relevant spatial level, the various levels of governance (local, regional and national) are dependent upon each other for delivery of shared priorities.


Regarding the economy, the current world economic crisis appears as a very important challenge in the short and medium terms, having a strong urban dimension which can be perceived in its deep negative impact on the economic and social structures of towns and cities.


On the one hand, the crisis is clearly related to the construction and real estate markets, as the credit crunch, funding restrictions and household economic difficulties have significantly reduced housing demand. Furthermore, the sudden drop in overall demand and financial restrictions are also having an extremely negative effect on other sectors, which are also very important for the city economies - such as the banking, industrial, retail or tertiary sectors -, resulting in difficulties for the survival of many enterprises and the consequent increase in unemployment rates. On the other hand, the crisis has affected individuals and families in a direct way, with a special impact on certain deprived urban neighbourhoods (increasing the risk of social exclusion, rising poverty, increasing homelessness, etc.).


The environmental challenge is not a new issue for cities, as even the historical and traditional urban models only succeeded to function thanks to a certain system of relations with the environment. The city incorporated the environment for urban metabolic purposes, using it to provide materials and energy resources, and as a means of handling its impacts in terms of waste and emissions. Nevertheless, for centuries, the ecological footprint of the city was locally confined to the territory closest to it, and the natural cycles could regenerate these urban impacts; but nowadays, the impact of urban activities has changed both in quantitative and qualitative ways.


Of course, the impacts are increasingly big and parallel to growth, which means that we have to minimise the ecological footprint by reducing the consumption of materials, resources and energy, and by improving eco-efficiency. At the same time, we have to take into account the fact that the forthcoming “oil peak” and the later end of the “oil era” imply the need to change our main energy supply patterns in the medium term.


Cities are very important actors in this process, as they are the main centres of consumption and the main waste and emission producers: the energy performance levels and efficiency of the new and existing building stock, transport and urban mobility, water and waste cycles, etc. are certainly crucial issues. The urban morphology is especially important as regards the promotion of a more compact and polycentric city model, with a good provision and allocation of mixed uses and activities, allowing the optimisation of public transport.


But the increasing complexity of the relationship between the city and the environment has to be considered as well: nowadays, the urban impact clearly exceeds the carrying capacity of the immediate territory and environment, and is being moved to more distant areas, reaching a global scale on certain occasions (such as Greenhouse Gases emissions or GHG).


Climate Change is a clear example of the result of this combination of quantitative (increase in GHG emissions) and qualitative (global scale) impacts. This shows that the challenge is not only to work for the quantitative reduction of the impacts or for the quality of life and environment within the city, but also to think globally in order to try to resolve -as much as possible- the problem of urban metabolism at local level, thus avoiding the collateral impacts on other territories.


European societies are facing social and demographic challenges relating to a very diverse range of phenomena, such as population decline or stagnation, immigration, population ageing, unbalanced distribution and flows of people, increasing diversity and complexity of households and family patterns, etc, These challenges affect cities in different ways, producing a diverse range of urban processes, such as city shrinkage, suburbanisation, urbanisation, etc. Social cohesion within the city is receiving growing attention in urban policies as well, due to its close relation with global changes. The overall economic growth of a city rarely means an equal distribution of this growth within the city, and is often related to processes of social polarisation, dualisation, etc. Consequently, spatial segregation has often been increasing in Europe, raising the importance of fostering the integration of immigrants and newcomers and of fighting against social exclusion, etc.


In terms of this social dimension, educational policies are also increasingly important, as they are one of the main ways of preventing social inequalities and of bridging the gap between society and the labour market in an innovation-based economy.


For Europeans, cities are assets of exceptional importance by providing spaces for the creation and exchange of knowledge, wealth and culture, as well as by offering opportunities to “live together”.


In the long term, European cities have to find their place in an extremely competitive global scenario, without undermining the actions required to secure a sustainable future. This means that economic growth must be balanced by more social inclusion and more efficient energy use and resource consumption.


To tackle all these issues, fast and radical change is needed in our societies, our economies, our behaviour patterns and our technologies. This means that the path towards the sustainability of the European City is a long-term challenge, which implies that we have to avoid the risk of looking only at the short term and the immediate worries of the present or the deep economic crisis. We need to review the foundations of urban sustainability and use this as an opportunity to meet these ancient challenges that cities have been facing for centuries.


Without doubt, these are important challenges, which have to be seen not only as constraints, but also as historic opportunities to implement a complete change of paradigm through a collective consensus and shared values. This implies decoupling growth from energy and resource consumption, and redirecting the European city towards the search for greater sustainability, in line with the vision on which the EU Sustainable Development Strategy is based.