Recommendations for Sustainable Urban Development

Description

In this advice, the Council considers how sustainable development can be used as a vehicle to address urbanisation challenges. Urban regions often use the banner of sustainable development to pursue ecological objectives such as lowering carbon emissions and promoting the use of more sustainable energy resources. However, one must prevent the philosophy behind sustainable development from becoming too narrowly tied to the ecological agenda. The challenge is to conceive economic, ecological and socio-cultural developments in terms of their mutual spatial cohesion. This advice views sustainable development as the ideal link between economic, social and environmental values and interests.

The advice is based on the idea that there is no single, optimal standard model for sustainable urban development. Instead, varying circumstances ask for interest to be balanced in unique ways. The council has, however, distilled 8 recommendations which can stimulate sustainable development in all political and planning contexts:

• Systematically formulate urbanisation policy from a sustainable development perspective;

• Translate the regional sustainable development agenda into strategic themes and link these to the dynamics and identity of the region and the initiatives and organizing potential of social actors;
• Articulate a sustainable spatial development vision at a national level;
• Add a sustainability statement to spatial plans;
• Draw on coalitions between government, the private sector and civil society, and involve stakeholders in the development and implementation process;
• Facilitate the creation of relevant knowledge in the area of sustainable urban development;
• Organize funding for sustainable urban development in innovative ways;
• Devise a programme to stimulate sustainable urban development.
  

Publication Date

March 2010

Document Type

Policy Document