Controlling Urban Expansion: European Case Study

New demographic trends, changing households need and evolving home-ownership outlook has accelerated urban expansion in Europe to accommodate the citizens’ need. On the European policy level, major concerns regarding urban expansion and social integration became evident in the late 1980s through the “Green Paper on Urban Environment”, published by the European Commission. The document states that “urban growth has spawned vast built-up areas which lack of essential qualities we associate with cities’’. In the recent years, there are more measures and concept that tackles the restriction of urban sprawls in Europe, such as:

• European Spatial Development Perspective: the document proposed planning strategies to minimise further urban sprawl by emphasising compact cities and cities of short distances within a regional context.
• European Landscape Convention by the Council of Europe: the objective of promoting the protection, management and planning of landscapes, and organizing international cooperation on landscape issues by promoting the vision of a compact and green city.
• The Toledo Declaration: supported the suitability of urban recycling and compact city planning as strategies to minimise land consumption and to control urban sprawl
• The Urban Agenda for the EU: promotes sustainable land use as well as social integration
• The New Leipzig Charter: the document promotes integrated urban development as well as participation and the activation of local commitment

Reference:

Schiappacasse, P., Müller, B., Cai, J., & Ma, E. (2021). Managing Urban Expansion in Europe: New Impulses for People-Centred Development in China?. In Towards Socially Integrative Cities (Vol. 13). MDPI, Basel.

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