Measuring Socially Sustainable Urban Regeneration in Europe

Rationale: fuzzy understanding of social sustainability

The delivery of sustainable urban development has moved to the heart of European urban policy through the development of several policy documents and agreements, including the 1998 document “Urban Sustainable Development in the EU: A Framework for Action”, the 2005 “Bristol Accord” and the 2007 “Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities”. Although a growing recognition of social sustainability has spurred an emerging body of research and policy literature, our understanding of this concept is still fuzzy and limited by theoretical and methodological constraints stemming from its context and disciplinary-dependent interpretations. Furthermore, at a practice level, tools, instruments and metrics to foster sustainable urban development currently available are biased toward environmental and economic sustainability. As a result, there is a clear need for further research on both social sustainability and its measurement in the context of sustainable urban regeneration.

Aims and Objectives

The main objectives of the research were to:

• define social sustainability and explore the main themes and dimensions at the heart of this concept, in the context of EU cities;
• examine to what extent, and in what ways, social sustainability is incorporated within urban renewal projects within the EU;
• critically review governance models and vehicles, which seek to deliver socially sustainable communities in urban areas, with special emphasis on Public Private Partnerships (PPPs);
• analyse the current sustainability indicators and tools used by the public, private and Non-Governmental Organisation sectors to deliver social sustainability;
• and examine and identify best practices to measure and monitor socially sustainable urban regeneration.

Definition of social sustainability

One of the main findings of this research is the definition of social sustainability which is decribed as: “social sustainability concerns how individuals, communities and societies live with each other and set out to achieve the objectives of development models which they have chosen for themselves, also taking into account the physical boundaries of their places and planet earth as a whole. At a more operational level, social sustainability stems from actions in key thematic areas, encompassing the social realm of individuals and societies, which ranges from capacity building and skills development to environmental and spatial inequalities. In this sense, social sustainability blends traditional social policy areas and principles, such as equity and health, with emerging issues concerning participation, needs, social capital, the economy, the environment, and more recently, with the notions of happiness, wellbeing and quality of life.” Read more research findings and the main recommendations in the research under Reference material.