The agenda of urban sustainable development initiatives: Challenges, goals, and actions across policy areas

Abstract

Problems to solve, objectives, and policy actions are the main components of the policy agenda of local strategies. The European framework for sustainable urban development sustains that urban policy initiatives have to pay attention to five main policy sectors to promote sustainable urban development: physical space, economic development, social inclusion, environment, and governance. Applying the CUPPA approach, this chapter analyses the relevance of these five policy sectors as problems, objectives, and policy actions in local projects. Comparing URBAN and URBANA Initiatives, the chapter shows the growing importance of environmental and governance issues. Moreover, the comparison shows a change in the policy frame of URBAN and URBANA programmes from the classical ‘neighbourhood revitalisation’ (centred on physical space and social inclusion) to the current ‘sustainable neighbourhoods’ frame (more comprehensive portfolios across policy sectors and a more important role to community).