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Declaration on sustainable cities adopted

European housing and urban development ministers met on 21 and 22 June at an informal meeting in Toledo (Spain) as a result a declaration presenting commitment for greater integrated urban regeneration has been approved

Imagining the city of tomorrow was the challenge tackled by Ministers of Housing and Urban Development , on 21 and 22 June, at an informal meeting in Toledo (Spain). Their reflections resulted in a political document, the Toledo Declaration, which lists commitments and aims: making urban regeneration a strategic tool for urban development, developing operational tools and encouraging research on urban subjects.

The declaration expresses ministers’ will to see the urban dimension given a higher profile in Cohesion Policy. It must be a “political priority”. For the signatories, this means greater involvement by cities in shaping and implementing future operational programmes. This concern is also voiced by the EU Committee of the Regions (CoR): “In the future, the urban dimension must be a more substantial part of strategic regional programming,” commented its President, Mercedes Bresso. “Cohesion Policy definitely has a key role to play. It should help cities implement the right policies, thanks to the leverage effect of Structural Funds and the many guiding tools and programmes at their disposal.” For Bresso, who repeated the views set out in the CoR’s opinion on urban regeneration, “urban policies must do more to promote energy efficiency, social cohesion and the quality of urban projects”.

At the conclusion of the meting, Spanish Housing Minister Beatriz Corredor expressed the ministers’ determination to advance on urban regeneration. “We must reinvent our cities, and do so on a human scale, creating neighbourhoods where people can live side-by-side in decent, comfortable, energy-efficient homes.” The renovation of buildings and housing emerged as a key theme, along with the improvement of public transport and policies that limit the development of outlying districts. To move towards a “model of sustainable cities,” it is “fundamental to recover the cities already built”. The minister stressed the job-creating potential of urban renewal, which “creates jobs at a much greater rate than new construction”.

 Measuring urban sustainability

At this informal meeting, France presented a prototype of a tool to measure the sustainability of cities ( www.rfsustainablecities.eu) based on a range of criteria - some of which are still to be defined. These include the attention given to less favoured neighbourhoods, the integrated nature of strategies implemented, economic, social, environmental factors, and so on. The project will result in the definition of a “European reference framework,” the ambition of which is to help cities – especially small and mid-sized cities - to develop better integrated and more sustainable urban development strategies. France was mandated, in late 2008, to head a European task force on this subject. The results of the first phase of this project were presented in Toledo. The tool will be tested by pilot cities. The ministers also asked the European Commission to become involved in the process. The final tool is expected to be ready by the end of 2011. The European ministers made a commitment to take part in this work and to promote it at national level.

(Source: Europolitics)